A Review Article on A Sad Departure
The author of A Sad Departure was for nearly 40 years the parish minister of Macduff in north-east Scotland. He was among the 40 or so ministers who left their Church because, by its decisions on homosexual issues, it had taken a particularly serious step away from submitting to the authority of Scripture. The title is consciously ambiguous: it refers, on the one hand, to the sadness felt by Mr Randall and others in leaving their Church and, on the other hand, the sadness felt over this further departure by the Church from upholding the law of God.
The book gives a helpful account of what has gone wrong in recent years, beginning with the call from the Queen’s Cross congregation in Aberdeen “to a minister who was living in a homosexual relationship with another man” (p 23). The local presbytery sustained the call, a decision that was upheld by the Church’s General Assembly. The author avers that “the real problem is” that “liberally-minded people have been chiselling away at the biblical foundations of the Church for a long time”. A footnote quotes, from The Scots Confession, the notes, or marks, of the true Church: “the preaching of the Word of God”, “the administration of the sacraments” and “ecclesiastical discipline, uprightly ministered” (p 4). Many, many years have passed since the Church of Scotland could be described as having, in particular, the third of these marks.
The 2011 Assembly also set up a theological commission to produce a report on “ordination and induction to the ministry” in the light of homosexual issues. In Mr Randall’s words, it “was in effect told which direction it should take – not so much whether but how to move forward to the revisionist position. The Commission was also given the task of preparing liturgies for the blessing of civil partnerships!” (p 28). This commission reported two years later. Mr Randall comments that this Assembly “set the Church’s trajectory towards the acceptance of practising homosexuals”. Perhaps the spirit influencing the majority of the Assembly may be summed up in the outrageous words of an elder: “We now know better than the Bible” (p 28). Even in 2006, while the Assembly was inclined to protect ministers who might “bless” two men or two women in a civil partnership, it was persuaded to send the decision down to presbyteries, and a very significant majority voted against the proposed protection.
The Commission appointed in 2011 reported two years later. Significantly, the Commission, which contained both “traditionalist” and “revisionist” members, stated, “Every single reference to homosexual acts in the entire Bible is negative and condemnatory, as everyone on the Theological Commission recognises” (p 57). It is obvious therefore that those pushing in the direction of an unscriptural morality, not just the elder quoted above, were consciously rejecting the authority of Scripture in its moral teachings. The decision of this 2013 Assembly was to “affirm the Church’s historic and current doctrine and practice in relation to human sexuality”, with a further clause contradicting the first: “nonetheless to permit those Kirk Sessions who wish to depart from that doctrine and practice to do so”. The decision was, said the Principal Clerk of the Assembly, “a massive vote for the peace and unity of the Church” (p 30). Clearly, in his mind, and in the minds of many other Assembly members, a superficial unity was far more important than adherence to the historic doctrine and practice of the Church in relation to moral issues.
The 2015 Assembly confirmed the permission granted by the Church of Scotland to its congregations to call a minister in a same-sex civil partnership and it approved of extending this permission to ministers in a same-sex “marriage”. It was after this Assembly concluded that a sizeable number of ministers, and others, left the Church of Scotland for various destinations, particularly the Free Church of Scotland.2
The author acknowledges that “within the evangelical constituency there has been a surprisingly strong lobby of stayers. Some have said that they will remain within the Church of Scotland no-matter-what”, referring for support to the late Rev William Still, whose ministry in Aberdeen extended from 1945 to 1997. He wrote, “I believe no one need leave the Kirk as long as its foundations remain, however far the generality have departed” (p 41).
The fact is, however, that the foundations were not unchanged even when Mr Still began his ministry. In 1910 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland gave its final approval to a new formula to be signed by those taking office in the Church. The critical phase was: “I believe the fundamental doctrines of the Christian Faith therein” – that is, in the Westminster Confession. Thus, instead of affirming that the Confession was the confession of one’s own faith, office-bearers were affirming belief in its fundamental doctrines; yet there was no definition of what these doctrines were. By thus loosening the Church’s relation to the Confession, the Church became powerless to deal with departures from the faith. Indeed the revision of the formula was intended to legalise departures which were already widespread, but the practical effects went far beyond what was intended; the decisions of the Church of Scotland Assembly described above are extreme examples of this. Even when fundamental doctrines have been denied, there was no realistic possibility of taking disciplinary action; nor is there any hope, humanly speaking, of bringing the Church back to its moorings.
The same result was achieved in both the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church by passing Declaratory Acts (the bulk of both denominations were eventually absorbed into the Church of Scotland). These Acts allowed for, in particular, liberty of opinion “on such points in the Confession as do not enter into the substance of the Reformed Faith”. Those who left the Free Church in 1893, following the passing of its Declaratory Act, to form the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, preserved, in God’s goodness, a structure within which it is still possible to uphold scriptural doctrine and practice, and to exercise discipline if scriptural standards are not adhered to.
A Sad Departure discusses the reasons expressed by those with a “traditionalist” view on moral issues, for leaving or not leaving the Church of Scotland. Perhaps one of the most significant references to the attitudes of some of those who claim to be Evangelical within the Church of Scotland comes in a reference to a congregation where “two elders were apparently living together in a homosexual relationship”. Yet the majority of elders would not support disciplinary action. The minister of the congregation was “advised by some senior evangelicals to just preach the Word and ‘leave this other stuff alone’” (pp 162-3). He left the Church because he was disturbed by the unwillingness to apply the Word to a practical situation.
A large part of the book is occupied with a discussion of the authority of Scripture and how it applies within the Church of Christ. The final chapter provides accounts of the particular circumstances of ministers who left the Church of Scotland and of their experiences as they came to the conclusion that it was their duty to leave. Inevitably perhaps, there is considerable overlap between the accounts; fewer might have been more effective.
To sum up, one feels thankful that some have left the Church of Scotland, which has descended to such a dire state spiritually. Yet one is left with the question why it took them such a long time to do so, although the author has endeavoured to describe the thinking of those who remained for so long – and of some who still remain. The book provides a useful description of the situation within the Church of Scotland, but it misses the fact that the seeds of its present unbelief were sown long before it became willing to condone homosexuals in the ministry of the Church.
There is no doubt of Scotland’s spiritual need. How much we need to cry to the Most High: “Oh that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come down” (Is 64:1).
Until the soul is justified and sin pardoned, there can be no true peace of conscience. While the law remains unsatisfied for us, and denounces vengeance against us for our sins, what in the universe can give us peace? But when by faith the soul apprehends the atonement, and sees that it is commensurate to all the demands of the law, and that in the cross, justice is not only satisfied, but gloriously illustrated, it is at once relieved from the agony of guilt, and the peace of God which passeth understanding pervades the soul. The great secret of genuine peace is therefore living faith in the blood of Christ. But if you would preserve your conscience pure and enjoy peace, you must not only obtain forgiveness for the past, but must be very careful to sin no more in future. The law of God is exceeding broad, and if we would preserve peace of conscience, we must conform our actions to its precepts with assiduous and holy diligence.
Archibald Alexander
1A review article on A Sad Departure: Why We Could Not Stay in the Church of Scotland, by David J Randall, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, paperback, 210 pages, £7.50.
2 Some who promoted the use of hymns and instrumental music in public worship in the Free Church had as one objective to make it easier for those who might leave the Church of Scotland over the issues discussed in A Sad Departure to join their denomination.