Church of Scotland’s Protestantism at All-Time Low
The decline of Protestantism within the Church of Scotland has continued over many years but has now reached an all-time low with the announcement of a “Declaration of Friendship” with Rome which, at the time of writing, is to come before the General Assembly for approval. It has already received recognition from the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Scotland. Reading behind the inevitable ecumenical platitudes, the document represents – at the spiritual level – another advance by antichristian religion in its war against the truth of the gospel.
The outgoing Moderator of the General Assembly, Lord Wallace, is an elder who was well-known as the former leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrat Party. He spoke of Roman Catholics as “witnesses to the gospel message in this land of Scotland”.
The document also speaks of the “hurt and the harm that our forebears did to each other in times past”, and there would be nothing objectionable in such a statement if it solely referred to the martyrdom and persecution of Protestants by Rome in previous centuries. But of course that is not what is intended; rather, it is written in a spirit directly opposed to the faithful witness of our godly Protestant forebears who contended earnestly for the faith. They recognised the Church of Rome for what it truly is and were not afraid to denounce it as antichristian, the very Babylonian harlot predicted in the Word of God. They did this, not because they hated the souls of Roman Catholics, but because they loved the truth as it is in Jesus and therefore hated iniquity and falsehood. And let it ever be remembered that no one was condemned to death in Scotland since the Reformation for being a Roman Catholic. (John Ogilvie, the Jesuit who was executed in 1615, was not put to death for being an emissary of Rome but because he refused to acknowledge King James VI as his lawful sovereign.)
Those who desire to maintain the principles of the Word of God consistently can have no fellowship either with Rome or with the Church of Scotland in its virtually-apostate condition. “What communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? . . . Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing” (2 Cor 6:15-17). AWM