‘Minister to face a higher power over manse row’ – Edinburgh Evening News
Here’s the Presbytery of Edinburgh manse business and the decision of the Commission of Assembly as reported in tonight’s Edinburgh Evening News. The comments at the tail end of the piece make for an interesting read. See them here
Soli Deo Gloria
Published Date: 14 November 2009 by Ian Swanson
THE battle between the church authorities and an Edinburgh minister who refuses to live in his manse is set to continue despite a two-hour Kirk “trial”. The Rev John Munro, minister at Fairmilehead Parish Church, lost the vote when his case went before the Church of Scotland’s Commission of Assembly yesterday.
But the row will now move to the Kirk’s Edinburgh presbytery, which is expected to issue an ultimatum to Mr Munro that he must stop living in his own house and move into the manse in Braid Crescent, Morningside, or face disciplinary action, including the possibility of the sack.
Mr Munro and his wife lived in the eight-roomed manse for five years, but she never liked the house and two years ago they bought their own property in the Braids.
Mr Munro still uses the manse every day as an office and an American assistant minister is living there as a guest. But the presbytery claims the arrangement breaches Church of Scotland rules.
When the case came before the Commission of Assembly, held at St Cuthbert’s Parish Church yesterday, the ministers and elders voted 64 to five for the presbytery and against Mr Munro.
Mr Munro said he was not surprised by the result. “It’s very difficult to persuade the church to overturn the status quo,” he said.
“A lot of people came up to me afterwards and said I’d won the argument even though I lost the vote.”
A key part of the case was a disagreement over the definition of the Kirk regulations which say a minister is required to “occupy” the manse.
Mr Munro argued he did occupy the manse because he has possession of the property and uses it as an office.
He said: “I mentioned the Alice in Wonderland motto that we should say what we mean and mean what we say, particularly in church regulations, and for them to use the word ‘occupy’ if they meant ‘live’ was wrong.
“I also produced some case law from the United States where a woman was held to be ‘living’ in her principal residence because she kept it furnished and occasionally allowed guests to stay there. I will carry on occupying the manse.”
He said he had received numerous supportive e-mails after the row was revealed in the Evening News on Thursday.
Presbytery clerk, the Rev George Whyte, said: “We are pleased the commission upheld our stance and we look forward to taking the matter forward in a way that is caring to all parties.”
Commission of Assembly agrees with Presbytery of Edinburgh about Ministers and Manses
MINISTER FACES THE SACK FOR REFUSING TO LIVE IN MANSE
Saturday November 14,2009
By Dean Herbert
A KIRK minister who refuses to live in his manse because his wife does not like it could now lose his job over the row.
The Reverend John Munro,60, moved out of the manse and has repeatedly defied orders to spend his nights there because he felt “duty bound” to sleep under the same roof as his wife.
Yesterday, he faced a panel of senior Kirk members who ruled that he must obey presbytery orders to live full-time in the property.
Mr Munro, from Edinburgh, a minister for 33 years, moved just 500 yards into a smaller house with his wife.
He said he uses the manse to carry out all his business as minister of the parish of Fairmilehead.
But the Kirk’s Commission Assembly yesterday voted in favour of Edinburgh presbytery’s order and could begin disciplinary proceedings early next year.
During the heated hearing at St Cuthbert’s Parish Church in Edinburgh, the minister denied he had contravened Kirk rules about occupying the manse, because he did everything but sleep in it.
Read the rest of this article in today’s Daily Express here
The Commission of Assembly has done its work. It was asked to consider a case and make a judgement, and it has done so. Ministers must obey the laws of the Church. Life in the manse is an expectation laid on parish ministers. Although I believe that ministers and their families should be free to live where they wish, if the Kirk says that ministers must live in the manse, then we must live in the manse, for that is what the word ‘occupy’ is intended to mean. If we disagree, then we must continue to live in our manses but use the processes of Presbytery to try to effect a change in the way things are done. We are not free to simply do what we like independently of the rest of the Kirk, which is what the appellants argued in their appeal to the May 2009 General Assembly against the decision of Aberdeen Presbytery in the case of Queen’s Cross Church.
I am not saying that ministers who disregard the instruction of a Presbytery should not have to face the Commission of Assembly. I am simply arguing that the Kirk needs to be fair and consistent. For example, I would have thought that a minister who teaches and preaches ‘another gospel’ other than that which the Kirk discerns in scripture, to which it assents in the historic creeds, which it adheres to in its subordinate standard, and which it rallies round in the First Article Declaratory should surely be required to give account to a Presbytery or to a Commission of Assembly. I have heard a former Moderator of the General Assembly deny the bodily resurrection of our Lord. I have also listened to another former Moderator of the General Assembly clearly unable to say what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is in terms that reflect the reformed faith of the Kirk. I have also read the views of a number of ministers on theological matters that ought to have raised questions about the nature of the gospel they preach. Yet I have never heard of a minister being asked to explain to a Presbytery or to give an account of his or her unorthodox view on any central theological or biblical question.
My question is this: why is it that Presbyteries are clearly ready to pursue the line of discipline in order to ensure that the contents of a manse include a minister, yet the theological content of a minister’s preaching and teaching goes unchecked for the whole of a minister’s working life and ministry, as far as I can tell?
I believe that some Presbyterian denominations in the USA annually ‘check’ that the theological views of ministers who preach and teach have not departed from Christian orthodoxy. Those who have spiritual oversight and pastoral responsibility for congregations are given what amounts to a theological MOT to ensure that they are still up to the task. I don’t know how this might happen in practice here in Scotland, but it seems to me that the issue which ought to concern Presbyteries most is the biblical faithfulness of our teaching elders. Here is precisely where we are either powerful or powerless.
We look silly when we discipline ministers over the occupancy of their manses yet do nothing about the content of their preaching.
Soli Deo Gloria
Here is the opening paragraph of a new post on John Ross’ blog Recycled Missionaries that is worth reading in full. His post concerns a recent book by Alastair McGrath about heresy and the defence of Christian truth, and then goes on to make a few comments about the Presbytery of Hamilton and the recent decision of the Commission of Assembly.
Two recent events have given me slender encouragement that creedal and confessional Christianity has not been totally overwhelmed by Post-modern relativism. The first is the publishing of Alister McGrath’s Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth (New York: Harper One, 2009). I have not yet had an opportunity to get a copy in my hand and evaluate the book myself, but the publisher’s blurb is very heartening.
The rest of this article by John Ross, in which he reports about the decision of last week’s meeting of the Church of Scotland’s Commission of Assembly concerning the recent, and to many provocative, decision of Hamilton Presbytery, can be read here
I knew that the decision of Hamilton Presbytery concerning a ministry candidate was originally thought to be destined for the Commission of Assembly but had thought that it would not, in the end, proceed. However, it seems to have gone ahead and John Ross describes the narrowness of the eventual vote.
Soli Deo Gloria
The City of Dundee
Dundee lights move angers city’s churches
COUNCIL ACCUSED OF BANNING CHRISTMAS AS FESTIVE EVENT DROPS RELIGIOUS REFERENCES
BY APRIL MITCHINSON
Published: 13/11/2009
Local church leaders have accused Dundee City Council of banning Christmas after it emerged all religious references have been removed from the city’s annual festive lights switch-on.
As well as changing the name to the Dundee Winter Light Night, the council has decided to drop the telling of the Christmas story from the official programme.
Instead of the traditional Nativity tale, the festival will feature a disco, a contemporary circus, a continental market and a giant stilt-walking fairy.
The changes were revealed when the programme of events was unveiled at Discovery Point.
Disgruntled members of the Presbytery of Dundee claim the council is “eroding a religious festival” and have now voted to make an official complaint.
Read the rest here
I am not as irate about this story as some of my Dundee brethren seem to be. I understand their feeling and I join them in regretting the eviction of the Lord Jesus from the annual celebration of His birth. But isn’t it the case that the Council is only being true to its colours? After all, a city council cannot be expected to make the Christmas story of the birth of the infant Son of God a high priority when our Lord Jesus Christ is not a high priority at any other time of the year. In short, the Church cannot reasonably expect the secular power to cough up the cash needed to proclaim the birth of a Saviour for whom the secular power has no love or time. Such a proclamation is rightly the calling and the work of the Church, and councils are just throwing off the last vestiges of Christendom when they decide to re-name Christmas, as Dundee Council seems keen to do.
We have been through this in Aberdeen, and every November or December there is a some new story about a Council somewhere that has decided to drop as many references as it possibly can to the ‘Christ’ part of Christmas, including the very word ‘Christmas’ itself. Instead, we are informed annually of some new name for that which the rest of us are still calling ‘Christmas’. In this case, Dundee Council seems to be desirous of re-branding Christmas as the Dundee Winter Light Night.
I can’t get angry about this. Sad, yes. But not angry. Better to be honest, in my opinion. If Dundee and its Councillors are not interested in celebrating Christ’s birth but still want to have a December holiday and a celebration – though quite what they want to celebrate in the absence of a celebration of the very incarnation of the Living God, I simply can’t guess – then let them go ahead and call the whole thing something that more accurately describes their real intention. That is, if Dundee Council really does think that it is only voicing the clear will of the people of the city. Has it asked the question?
Anyway, I am all for a bit of clear water between church and society. It helps the church to see what its real position is and where its real mission, power and authority lies.
However, instead of anger and protest to the Council, I wonder if a better way of responding to Dundee Council’s secularisation of Christmas might be for the brothers and sisters there to take matters entirely into their own hands, as the church of Christ in that city, and pull out all stops possible to let the City of Dundee know that Christians are celebrating Christmas and that the citizens of Dundee are most welcome to join them in rejoicing at the coming of the Holy One. Rather that than to expect the Council to take to itself the responsibility of telling its citizens the Christmas story.
So, the churches of Dundee could get together to leaflet every home and residence with a clear explanation of the Saviour’s birth. Open air services and carol services could be held. Congregations could build Nativity scenes in their church gardens and in front of their church buildings. Manses could be…… Advertising hoardings could be rented for super-sized Christmas posters declaring Messiah’s birth, a tactic at which churches in Perth have excelled.
Perhaps this is not a disaster after all, but a really marvellous, God-given opportunity.
Hang on! I’m starting to get excited. We ought to do this in Aberdeen, never mind Dundee!!
Soli Deo Gloria
A number of folk in our congregation are showing a growing interest in the work of Street Pastors and are getting involved with Street Pastors here in Aberdeen. We are grateful to Dan and Stef Robertson for introducing us to this important Christian ministry. The first Street Pastors conference has just started in London and if you follow the link below you can read the encouraging remarks of the Lord Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in his keynote address to the conference:
Read about it here
Soli Deo Gloria
Minister faces the sack for refusal to live in his manse
Published Date: 12 November 2009 By Ian Swanson
A CHURCH minister is facing the threat of the sack for refusing to live in his Edinburgh manse.
The Rev John Munro, minister at Fairmilehead Parish Church, is accused of breaking Church of Scotland regulations by opting to live in his own house instead and will face a “trial” in front of Kirk officials tomorrow.If the case goes against him, he could face censure, suspension or even end up being fired.
Read the rest in the Edinburgh Evening News here
I came across this tonight in the Edinburgh Evening News. Whilst I do understand that there would be tax issues and related matters for the Kirk to have to untangle with the Inland Revenue were it to ‘allow’ ministers to live outwith their manses, I have to say that on the face of it, to place a minister before the Commission of Assembly over the occupancy of a manse, or not, seems plain daft and inconsistent to me, especially when I cannot remember a single occasion in recent memory when Kirk ministers with theological views at wide variance from catholic, credal Christianity were ever asked to appear and give account before a Presbytery or to the Commission.
We all know that some ministers, perhaps many, have long wanted to live in their own homes, and the Kirk’s efforts to prevent it from eventually happening look increasingly like the boy with his finger in the dyke. On human rights grounds alone, it surely cannot be reasonable or fair that the Kirk ‘employs’ its ministers only on condition that the said ministers give up all rights whatsoever to live in a home of their own choosing and live, instead, in a property of the Church’s choice. What other employer in the modern world would ever ask or be allowed to ask such a thing of its employees? I can think of none.
There are tax implications for ministers who wish to live in their own house and who choose not to ‘occupy’ the manse. Agreed. But can these financial rather than theological reasons be allowed to override the wishes of a minister and his/her family to live in a home that suits and which is liked by all of the family members? Doubtless there are theological issues about the importance of living in the parish in which one ministers, and there is also the matter of the congregation owning and financially managing a property in the parish in which a minister can live if he or she wishes to, but these are not in anyone’s reckoning issues that are ‘of the substance of the faith.’ To what extent then should they be the basis of disciplinary proceedings in this day and age?
Furthermore, a minister may live in a manse from which he or she writes, preaches and teaches anything and everything but historic, orthodox and credal Christianity, all without censure or investigation by a Presbytery or by the Commission whatsoever, whilst a refusal to live in the manse seems to be an issue thought deserving of the considerable expense of gathering together the members of the Commission of Assembly in order to put a minister and his family members thoroughly and completely through the emotional wringer, and I can tell you, being at the Commission of Assembly is an emotional wringer.
It is a strange and sad place for the Church to be in when some ministers are openly and unashamedly theologically heretical, with impunity, sometimes with admiration and a measure of popular notoriety, whilst a minister who will not live in a manse is to face the Commission of Assembly.
I predict that the Kirk’s insistence that ministers always and almost without exception live in manses will come to an end. It may not open a floodgate of ministers taking advantage of the new situation, but the shortage of ministers, and lengthy vacancies, as well as changes in the future shape of congregations and churches, not to mention the continuing question of the viability of the parish system itself – all of these things mean that the Kirk cannot stand like Canute, holding back the tide of ministers and their loved ones wishing to live where they will.
It will be fascinating to see what the Commission decides, but spare a thought and prayer for the minister and his wife and family, for whom a day at the Commission will not likely be a day with friends, interspersed with a light and congenial lunch.
Soli Deo Gloria
Scottish churches worried about assisted suicide ‘guidelines’TREVOR GRUNDY
ECUMENICAL NEWS INTERNATIONALNov 11, 2009Edinburgh
Leaders from Protestant and Roman Catholic churches have met Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond to discuss concerns about regulations on assisted suicide in neighbouring England and Wales.Meeting with Salmond at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on Nov.4 were members of the country’s two biggest churches, the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church as well as the (Anglican) Scottish Episcopal Church.
In September, the Kirk, as the Church of Scotland is known, had expressed concerns about regulations on assisted suicide in England and Wales as it was being debated in Scotland. The Catholic Church has long been strongly opposed to any form of suicide.
The Rev. Alexander Horsburgh, vice-convenor of the Kirk’s Church and Society Council, said in an interview with Ecumenical News International, “As a church we are against assisted suicide. But we believe there should be constructive debate on the subject in the Scottish Parliament.”
You can read the rest of this article here
Issues to do with the right or otherwise to decide the time of the end of one’s life are obviously of concern to churches and church leaders, as well as to all segments of Scottish society. The role of doctors and medical practitioners has traditionally been one of preserving life and doing all possible to protect the well-being of patients, even if that means protecting them from themselves. Palliative care has of course made very great strides forward, and whilst end of life pain has not been eradicated, palliative medicine brings immense comfort and relief.
It is not because of a lack of compassion or because of an innate conservatism that Christians view assisted suicide with concern. Christians face illness and death as do all. The Church of Scotland, as well as the other Scottish churches, view life as sacred and God-given, and is concerned that those approaching the end of life are not made victims by others, or by their own perception of what might be in the best interest of others, principally family members.
Having said that, and whilst both applauding and wishing well the efforts of the Church of Scotland in this regard, I do feel that the Church of Scotland and other Scottish churches should now turn their attention to matters at the other end of life’s spectrum and invest the same effort into protecting and defending the unborn, and the families of the unborn, as does the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland.
8-week unborn baby
The Scottish Government has expressed its own disappointment at the increasing number of abortions in Scotland. 3500 abortions were carried out on teenagers in 2008 out of a total number of 13 817 abortions. This is an increased figure at a time when higher levels of sex education in schools ought to have been having exactly the opposite effect. The statistics show also that areas gripped by greater levels of social deprivation have higher percentages of abortions, but what must be of significant concern to all of us is that 3770 abortions were carried out on women who had already had a previous termination, a statistic that must cause us to ask to what extent abortion is now just a means of contraception.
If the Church of Scotland is genuinely concerned about the sanctity of life, and I do believe that it is, then we ought not to focus our efforts and attention on one end of the spectrum only. Nearly 14 000 abortions in Scotland each year is a figure that we cannot turn a blind eye to and I hope that the Scottish Churches will turn now to this issue as a matter of even far more pressing concern than assisted suicide. The right of the unborn to life is every bit as worthy of the Church’s concern as is the defence of life’s sanctity in matters of assisted suicide. Some would say even more so.
Soli Deo Gloria
I have not been able to blog for a good while now – I see it is about a month or so! I have been away from Aberdeen for a variety of reasons lately, including a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in which I led a group from Aberdeen and the NE along with my good friend and colleague Scott Guy, the minister of Northfield Parish Church of Scotland in Aberdeen. I have also been plagued with the ubiquitous coughs, colds and wheezes that have left me feeling just sufficiently under par when it comes to finding the energy for blogging or doing anything else other than the essentials of everyday work and ministry.
Having said all of that, and feeling the sap beginning to rise once more, I thought I would get back in the saddle and post this challenging comment by John Stott, in which I guess all of us who are preachers are given reason to reflect on the way we feel about our preaching, as well as the way we feel when we are in the process of preaching. I would have to admit to having delivered more than a few cold ‘lectures’ to my congregation in my time when I ought to have been preaching something that had gripped my own soul and fired up my own passion.
Perhaps as an additional comment to John Stott’s thought, to which I have no objection whatsoever, is my own observation that God’s grace and kindness is so overwhelming, even on those occasions when I have preached without fire or passion, God has chosen to bless people and to draw them to Himself. His goodness and willingness to save and to heal is not limited or obstructed by the coldness of my heart or emptied of His power to restore on account of the lifeless delivery of my sermon. For these things we can only thank and adore Him, but in general, John Stott is completely right to ask what the state of the preacher’s heart is when the thought of the cross and of the congregation’s great need utterly fail to move or inspire the preacher himself.
Here is what John Stott says:
Some preachers have a great horror of emotionalism. So have I, if this means the artificial stirring of the emotions by rhetorical tricks or other devices. But we should not fear genuine emotion. If we can preach Christ crucified and remain altogether unmoved, we must have a hard heart indeed. More to be feared than emotion is cold professionalism, the dry, detached utterance of a lecture which has neither heart nor soul in it. Do man’s peril and Christ’s salvation mean so little to us that we feel no warmth rise within us as we think about them?
–From “The Preacher’s Portrait” (London: Tyndale Press, 1961), p. 51.
Soli Deo Gloria
St Columba’s Chuch has in the last few days learned of the sudden and unexpected death of the Rev Maxwell Craig, who was my immediate predecessor in 1991 as minister of the congregation, and who was only the second incumbent of this congregation. Maxwell was very kind to me when I was in the process of coming to St Columba’s Church. He spent a good amount of time speaking to me about the parish and about the congregation, as well as sharing his thoughts regarding the congregatiopn’s needs and requirement. I was very grateful to him for that.
I therefore post two obituaries tonight. The first is from the Herald newspaper of today, and the second is from the Times. We pray for Janet, Maxwell’s wife, and for the family.
Maxwell Craig, who has died aged 77, was convener of the Church of Scotland’s Church and Nation Committee in the 1980s, one of the most vociferous critics of Margaret Thatcher’s policies and an advocate of the church confronting the government.
Yet, partly because of his background, his family connections and a manner which some called diplomacy and others guile, he was at home in the Kirk’s establishment.
Craig was born in Halifax and educated first in Bradford then Harrow and Oriel College, Oxford. He did his national service as a second lieutenant with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and seemed likely to carve out a career as a civil servant. He became an assistant principal in the Ministry of Labour, and then, in 1961, began to train for the ministry of the Church of Scotland at New College in Edinburgh.
He was a member of the Speculative Society, which brings together for discussion and debate influential members of Edinburgh society and students who expect to join them.
Craig graduated as a Bachelor of Divinity with distinction and spent a year at Princeton, where he took a master’s degree in theology. He then returned to Scotland, joined the Iona Community, and spent a probationary year with Rev Jack Orr in the Edinburgh parish of Oxgangs.
In 1966, Craig was called to be minister of Grahamston parish in Falkirk, one of the first areas of ecumenical experiment among the denominations, a theme which was always to be important to him.
His influence beyond his parish began to be noticed when he was invited to be a member of a special committee asked to explore how the right ministers for the future should be chosen and what skills and training they would require.
In January 1973, after the Glasgow congregation of Wellington had experienced a long vacancy following the retirement of Stuart McWilliam, Craig became minister of the imposing church on the city’s University Avenue. Its membership, however, had declined and the sort of “preaching station” which it once was no longer played a part in the Church of Scotland’s life. And, to be fair, Craig was not a charismatic preacher in the mould of his predecessors. But he did encourage the congregation to work and unite later with its neighbour, Woodlands.
He pioneered contacts with and a ministry to the ethnic communities in the parish area, and he established an involvement with university students. It was the sort of ministry which Wellington needed to equip it for a different era. In 1986, he was appointed a Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland.
In 1989, Craig moved to the recently built St Columba’s Church in the growing Bridge of Don area of Aberdeen, where, owing to ill health, the first ministry had lasted only two years.
There was considerable disappointment that Craig stayed less than two years, resigning to become general secretary of Action of Churches Together in Scotland, which had replaced the former Scottish Churches Council. Based at Scottish Churches House in Dunblane, this new body was intended to encourage churches to meet and work together rather than attempt to be a united voice for the them.
When the Dunblane Primary School massacre occurred, Craig became involved in speaking to the press, television and radio, as the parish ministers in and around the town coped with the bereaved.
Craig retired in 1999 and, for a short time, was locum in St Andrews’ Scots Church in Jerusalem. He became chairman of the Scottish Churches Housing Association, and greatly enjoyed singing with his local Stirling Choir, of which he was chairman. He is survived by his wife, Janet, three sons and a daughter.
Born December 25, 1931;
Died September 26, 2009.
And now from the Times:
Maxwell Craig was undoubtedly an influential figure in the Church of Scotland in the last quarter of the 20th century. But, perhaps as might be expected of someone who was a civil servant before he entered the ministry, he was at his most influential when operating behind the formal church structures. His least significant contribution to the church was when he had his highest profile, as Convener of the General Assembly’s Church and Nation Committee from 1984-88, when he saw his role as confronting the Thatcher Government.
Maxwell Davidson Craig was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and educated first in Bradford and then at Harrow. He was at Oriel College, Oxford, from 1950 to 1954 and then spent his National Service as a Second Lieutenant in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. For four years he was an assistant principal in the Ministry of Labour, and in 1961 he went to New College, Edinburgh, to train for the ministry. He graduated BD with distinction in systematic theology. He became a member of the exclusive university Speculative Society, which has often been described as a meeting place for the influential in the capital. However, after a year of further study at Princeton, Craig spent his probationary assistantship not in one of the city’s affluent or prestigious parishes but in St John’s, Oxgangs, with its minister Jack Orr.
In 1966 Craig became minister of Grahamston Parish in Falkirk where the Church of Scotland was experimenting with new relationships between existing congregations. While there, Craig was appointed to a General Assembly committee set up to try to find out what forms of training and recruitment were required for a future which — it was already becoming clear — would involve numerical decline. It was the beginning of his influence behind the scenes.
In 1974 Craig moved to Wellington Church in Glasgow. From the late 19th century till the 1960s Wellington had been Glasgow’s preaching station, whose ministers took two months’ leave in the summer and the pulpit was filled by distinguished preachers, some from Scotland but mostly from the United States. But by the time Craig went to Wellington, there were no longer big queues outside the church for the evening service, and the congregation had united with another, Woodlands, closer to the city centre. Craig was no profound or popular preacher. But he did encourage the congregation to become involved with the university on its doorstep, though his dream of selling the Wellington building to the university and moving the congregation farther west never became a reality.
In 1989 Craig moved to St Columba’s, Bridge of Don, a new congregation in a growing area of Aberdeen, whose first minister had to resign after only two years and died shortly afterwards. There was considerable disappointment, therefore, when less than two years after he went there, Craig left Bridge of Don to take up the post of general secretary of Action of Churches Together in Scotland, a new ecumenical instrument for Scotland, intended to enable the churches to meet and work together. It replaced the former Scottish Churches Council which was seen to attempt to speak for the churches. When he retired in 1999 he became, for a short time the temporary minister of St Andrew’s Scots Church in Jerusalem.
Craig was appointed a Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland in 1986. In 2000 he became chairman of the Scottish Churches Housing Association.
He is survived by his wife, Margaret, three sons and a daughter.
The Rev Maxwell Craig, Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland, was born on December 25, 1931. He died on September 26, 2009, aged 77
Soli Deo Gloria
The Glasgow Herald today carries a piece by Brian Donnelly indicating that the Fellowship of Confessing Churches is now receiving a significant number of requests for membership packs from congregations interested in allying themselves with its aims and covenant. That is a good thing, if applications turn into memberships in the long run. It will be a mark of the considerable percentage of Kirk members and congregations that hold to traditional, worldwide, biblical values when it comes to the authority and place of the Bible in the life of the church of Jesus Christ. I also notice that Brian describes this blog as a ‘controversial website.’ It is a strange day, to my mind, when a blog that humbly presents nothing more than a biblical and conservative perspective on matters ecclesiastical is regarded as controversial. But that is how it is in this topsy-turvy era in which we find ourselves. Black is today called white, night is called day, and what should be conservative and unremarkable is thought of as controversial and risky.
I notice, too, that the Herald believes that a dissent and complaint against the recent decision of Hamilton Presbytery is still going ahead, and that Dmitri Ross, who withdrew his ministerial candidacy, is reconsidering his decision. I thought at the time that his decision to withdraw from the process towards eventual ordination was an honourable one, and a decision worthy of admiration, basing itself on a concern for the unity and peace of the Kirk. I do hope that the report holds no water. Time will tell.
Read on:
More than 100 Church of Scotland congregations are joining a movement standing against gay ordination.
The Fellowship of Confessing Churches said there has been a flood of requests for its application packs as around 50 churches already affiliated have placed covenants in their buildings against same sex relationships.
The fellowship will not accept gay ordination under any circumstances and is on collision course with supporters of Reverend Scott Rennie, the openly gay minister whose appointment prompted a special commission to be set up by the Church of Scotland at its General Assembly to examine the issue.
Mr Rennie’s position at Aberdeen’s Queen’s Cross church was approved but the General Assembly agreed not to appoint any more gay ministers until after the special commission reports to back to the Kirk in 2011.
Congregations unhappy with the Church’s position will move to join the fellowship, which would have more than 150 members if the applications are processed.
Read the rest of the Herald article here
Soli Deo Gloria
