Movements in the Scottish Churches
The virtual acceptance of homosexuality in the Church of Scotland has led to several changes in the Scottish Churches. A number of congregations and groups have left the Church of Scotland, including Gilcomston South in Aberdeen, the bulk of the High Hilton congregation in Aberdeen, St George’s Tron in Glasgow, and the Kyle of Lochalsh congregation. There is also a breakaway group in Inverness. Three of these – High Hilton (now called Trinity), Kyle of Lochalsh, and Inverness (Highland International Church) – have joined the International Presbyterian Church (IPC), while the others remain independent. Further ministers and congregations have announced their intention of separating, including Larbert Old Church, and Stornoway High Church and Kinloch Church, both in Lewis.
Meanwhile, several former Church of Scotland ministers have joined the Free Church of Scotland, a step that was facilitated by the Free Church abandoning its commitment to the Regulative Principle in worship. This month (August), Rev Sinclair Ferguson is due to return from America and to join the “preaching team” at St Peter’s Free Church, Dundee, taking three Sabbath evening services a month. In April a Church of England minister, Rev Paul Clarke was “commissioned” as the minister of the Free Church of Scotland congregation in St Andrews. According to the newspaper report, Mr Clarke was not “turning his back” on the Church of England, but he does intend to remain in St Andrews for at least three years. His commissioning, one assumes, cannot have involved any commitment to Presbyterian Church government.
We are glad that people are separating from the immorality and unbelief in the Church of Scotland, but otherwise there is little evidence of that return to “the old paths” that is so much needed in the Scottish Church. The IPC does not have women elders, but it allows the musical instruments and the uninspired hymns which are increasingly being used in the Free Church, and it has the same laxity regarding the Sabbath and admitting people to the Lord’s table. One Free Church minister has organised a joint open-air service at Loch Ness with neighbouring Church of Scotland and Episcopalian congregations, the “resident priest” of the Episcopalian congregation being a woman. The idea that there was no danger in such things was what led ultimately to the complete liberalisation of the Church of Scotland, and what has happened once may happen again.
DWBS
The Church of England and Paganism
“We are interested in exploring relationships with the natural world, using the broadest possible navigation of the Christian tradition to surf the boundaries between Christianity and Paganism, and rediscovering the immanent God as Mother and Father.” So reads the introduction on the website of Ancient Arden Forest Church, a congregation of the Church of England. The statement makes clear that this congregation does not see the need to evangelise pagans. It wants to explore the concept of “pagan churches with Christ at the centre”, according to Rev Steve Hollinghurst, an advisor in new religious movements with the Church of England. Apparently he and several other ministers are being trained to create a new form of Anglicanism – accommodating “alternative beliefs” – which will, supposedly, draw more people into their congregations.
But what concord can Christ have with paganism? Paganism is essentially pantheistic, with many strands to its beliefs. Here it differs from Humanism, which is atheistic. Pagans appear in various guises, such as Druids, Wiccans and Shamans, gathering to observe their rituals in woods, caves or hilltops. They worship gods and goddesses of the earth or sky, believing in an annual cycle of giving birth and dying. The highlight of their calendar is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. In June, 21 000 people gathered to worship the sun at Stonehenge, the ancient stone circle in Wiltshire. This “spoke in the Wheel of the Year”, as they call it, signifies the goddess, the sun, having taken over the earth from a “horned god” at the beginning of spring, now reaching the height of her power and fertility. Some even believe that this special day marks the marriage of the god and goddess to form a union which will create the harvest fruit. What then can a professedly Christian congregation have to do with such a mixture of blasphemy and superstition?
However, keen to replenish its diminishing numbers, the Church of England is prepared to compromise even further the truth of the gospel, concentrating on inter-faith dialogue and co-existence. It is seizing the opportunity, as The Times reports, to “capitalise on the growing interest in mysticism, the natural world and New Age spirituality”. Four nearby churches are working with the Arden church to achieve the goal of absorbing paganism into their worship. They will meet outdoors and adopt pagan-style rituals and, as their website declares, “aim to learn, worship, meditate, pray and practise with the trees, along the shore”. How like the worship of Israel, who abandoned the God of their fathers and sought to mix with the evil prophets of Baal in a corrupt confusion which brought upon them the judgement of God! It was said of them that they “were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works” (Ps 106:35).
Mr Hollinghurst does admit that avoiding heresy could be a problem. He adds, “It is all part of trying to find ways to connect with people in a pagan culture in a relevant way”. He suggests that there must be a focus on Christ and on a Trinitarian God, but these people would no longer be pagans if that was their focus. How good if they would leave their multiplicity of mythical gods and goddesses and come to have what Jesus prayed for in His intercessory prayer for His own: “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3).
The Church of England is giving further evidence of drifting far from its moorings in adopting anything which has a hint of “spirituality” in it, no matter how dark it may be. What the churches of our land need, and indeed what we all need, is that God would pour out His Holy Spirit. KHM
The Sabbath Desecrated by Sport
A press report says that senior sources close to Mr Cameron, the Prime Minister, said he thought the sudden displaying of the Saltire behind him by Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, at the Wimbledon final on the Lord’s Day “didn’t feel right because it was a day for sport, not politics”. It is symptomatic of the nations’s spiritual decline that, on the Christian Sabbath, not only do the people at large bow before the god of sport instead of worshiping God, but national leaders lead the way in this desecration.
The Jews, for their Sabbath-breaking as well as other sins, had to be dealt with severely by God so that their land would once more enjoy her Sabbaths – just as God warned, “Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths” (Lev 26:34). Would God not be just in dealing severely with Britain for its widespread disregard for His holy commandment, “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy . . .”? We believe that the evidence that He is justly displeased with us is already manifest. “Hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it” (Mic 6:9). NMR