Well, today I finally got off the ground, literally. After a few days of frustrating delays and cancellations, we left a snowy airport bound for points East. I am blogging right now from a halfway point where there is a very handy and free internet provision in a comfortable and clean airport lounge. A welcome break. Our stopover here is just for a couple of hours and then we will continue for a further four hours until we reach our final destination. There are a good number of us here, all going to different places at journey’s end, and each person has a different story to tell. Some fascinating characters, I can tell you, and many with a great deal of experience, even though some are just very young.
When I get to my destination I hope to be met by someone who will help me with my bags and kit, and then I hope there will be time to sleep. Travelling by air is never comfortable, as we all know, and today’s flight is no exception.
I do appreciate everyone’s prayers for me. These will be so important, so do please continue to remember me.
Soli Deo Gloria
Recently I have been using the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England as a help to my own daily prayer and Bible reading. It is quite a discipline and I confess to be better at remembering to use it in the morning than I am at using it in the evening! I have found, though, that I like its language and its dignity. There is a deep spiritual seriousness about it, and if you are not already a devotee, you will enjoy it if you are able to engage with the older form of English in which it is presented. It truly is an amazing, little book. Presbyterians like me don’t get much exposure, if any, to it. However, it seems to have a great Bible reading plan whereby it is possible to read most of the Bible in a year, and it enables you to read the Book of Psalms every month. Now, that is sufficient reason alone to give it some consideration.
I really do appreciate the availability of a structured approach to daily prayer and fellowship with the Lord. Those who prefer less formal approaches to worship and daily devotion might look down on a structured, ‘bookish’ form of prayer as perhaps being less open to the direction of the Holy Spirit, but I don’t think that has to be the case. I am valuing daily engagement with the Psalms, with the Lord’s Prayer, with regular confession of sin, and with the Apostles’ Creed. These all feel like water to my thirsty soul.
I was reading the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer, and was struck by the opening paragraph. Here it is:
It hath been the wisdom of the Church of England, ever since the first compiling of her Publick Liturgy, to keep the mean between the two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it. For, as on the one side common experience sheweth, that where a change hath been made of things advisedly established (no evident necessity so requiring) sundry inconveniences have thereupon ensued; and those many times more and greater than the evils, that were intended to be remedied by such change.
I was struck by the wisdom of this. The worship of God’s people has been, and I dare say often still is, strangled by too much formality and rigid adherence to received liturgical forms. The Holy Spirit has little or no opportunity to intervene, to move and to direct worship in exciting and unexpected ways. The worship of God’s people should reflect due consideration for the holy and righteous character of God, and the character and make up of the congregation. Orders of service and liturgical programmes made up by church committees should be taken seriously, but as wise guides, and not as worship straitjackets. A church liturgical committee meeting in, say, Edinburgh, perhaps a decade or two ago, cannot be expected to have written service outlines in exactly the words and language of congregations in places very far away and many years later. Some freedom to apply a measure of leeway from the received forms of worship is wise, as the BCP suggests.
On the other hand, ‘too much easiness in admitting any variation’ from the received traditions of the church, in belief and worship, does make it possible for ‘sundry inconveniences’ to ensue. In St Columba’s Church we still use the traditional form of the Lord’s Prayer because that is what our people, especially the children, will likely encounter at certain times of life and on special occasions, and not any of the various modern versions that are available, useful though they are. I am also inserting the Apostles’ Creed into our orders of service every Sunday morning that I can remember to do so, simply because I want the bare bones of historic, orthodox, biblical Christian belief to be at the fingertips of my congregation, so that they know what the essence of the Christian faith is. If the historic Creeds had a more central and regular place in the life of our congregations up and down the land, perhaps more believers would know what they believe and have something to say when the question of faith arose in everyday conversation.
I have seen both rigid formalism as well as ‘anything goes’ in services that I have attended, and maybe I have been responsible for some of that in the life of my own congregation over the years. But I am appreciating more and more the historicity of the Church’s faith and the dignity of its worship these days. I suspect that somewhere in between dignity and freedom is where we ought to be, and I think it is a dangerous mistake to jettison too readily ‘things advisedly established.’ When we do so, we invite ‘many times more and greater than the evils, that were intended to be remedied by such change.’ Nowhere more so than in the areas of worship and doctrine.
Soli Deo Gloria
Here is wisdom from John Stott, on the subject of church unity:
Other examples of peacemaking are the work of reunion and the work of evangelism, that is , seeking on the one hand to unite churches and on the other to bring sinners to Christ. In both these, true reconciliation can be degraded into cheap peace. The visible unity of the church is a proper Christian quest, but only if unity is not sought at the expense of doctrine. Jesus prayed for the oneness of his people. He also prayed that they might be kept from evil and in truth. We have no mandate from Christ to seek unity without purity, purity of both doctrine and conduct. If there is such a thing as ‘cheap reunion’, there is ’cheap evangelism’ also, namely the proclamation of the gospel without the cost of discipleship, the demand for faith without repentance. These are forbidden shortcuts. They turn the evangelist into a fraud. They cheapen the gospel and damage the cause of Christ.
–From “The Message of the Sermon on the Mount” (The Bible Speaks Today series: Leicester and Downers Grove: IVP, 1978), p. 51.
I don’t know where the Kirk is going to be in 18 months’ time. This year, the Special Commission is going to consult with Presbyteries and Kirk Sessions. Its work will be to attempt to see what the view of the Kirk is on the subject of the ordination standards of ministers. The precise questions it will ask us are still unknown, but in general they will surely ask us about the sorts of relationships that we expect ministers to be free to enter upon. This will be an important consultation, and the answers that eventually come to the attention of the General Assembly in May 2011 will be very important indeed. As an aside, I hope that the Commission’s work does not tempt members of the Kirk to think that a minister’s standards of behaviour should be any different from those of any other church members when it comes to human relationships. The scriptures indicate, in my view, that believers in Christ should all be celibate unless heterosexually married. What other people in wider society want to do is their business, in one sense. The followers of Jesus Christ are called to a different way, one in which we are to pattern our lives on the scriptures, giving careful recognition to those behavioural standards that applied only for the times in which the scriptures were written, and to those which apply to God’s people for all of time.
In light of what John Stott has to say above, all evangelical Kirk members will work tirelessly for peace and unity within the Church of Scotland. If there are some that won’t, then I think that they are very much in the wrong. Personally, I cherish unity and pray for it. but I am also sure that there will be no peace or unity that is perceived as trying to disregard the scriptures, or which are seen to be giving all theological views equal validity no matter how much at odds with one another those views may be.
As far as I can tell, there is a mood of gloom abroad, and not much optimism about the eventual outcome. But we must believe that God is involved and is carrying out His plan in the midst of it all. We must also wish the Commission well and pray for its work. At the same time there is a widespread feeling that the Commission has been asked to look only at a symptom of the Kirk’s difficulty and not to examine its cause. The future of the Kirk is, in the words of John Stott, bound up with ‘purity of both doctrine and conduct.’
Soli Deo Gloria
John Wesley’s four resolutions, which were not New Year resolutions, it has to be said, are still very good food for thought as we think about we might embark upon this new year of 2010, and about what changes if any, we might want to make. I know that many will make and have already made resolutions to do with physical fitness, or physical size, or about lifestyle, and in fact about umpteen other things. However, Wesley’s resolutions are worth thinking deeply about. They are about living holy lives, lives that reflect the glory and the greatness of Almighty God. In his Journal, he wrote – I think in 1738:
With regard to my own behaviour, I now renewed and wrote down my former resolutions:
- To use absolute openness and unreserve with all I should converse with.
- To labour after continual seriousness, not willingly indulging myself in any the least levity of behavior, or in laughter; no, not for a moment.
- To speak no word which does not tend to the glory of God; in particular, not to talk of worldly things. Others may, nay, must. But what is that to thee? And,
- To take no pleasure which does not tend to the glory of God; thanking God every moment for all I do take, and therefore rejecting every sort and degree of it which I feel I cannot so thank Him in and for.
His resolutions are full of a young man’s zeal, of course, which we may not feel has quite the balance of that of an older man, but here are thoughts that have a depth of spiritual commitment and seriousness that is out of step with much of modern church life, and which would be of value to all believers, were we to make them our own.
‘Openness and unreserve’ would go a long way towards restoring honesty and trust to our relationships and would be useful to all of us, not least to politicians, whose reputation has been sullied by dodgy expenses claims by some to the detriment of the many. ‘To labour after continual seriousness’, whilst sounding a bit morbid, at least calls us to think about the superficiality of much of our everyday conversations. A lot of the things we say and laugh at, and many of the ways in which we spend our time, are simply beneath the dignity of creatures made in the image of God and fashioned carefully and perfectly so that we might know Him and enjoy Him forever.
Similarly, isn’t it the case that much of our everyday speech is just a waste of oxygen. We talk about things that don’t matter and make light of things that do, and all the time speaking in words and tones that deflects attention away from God instead of reflecting His great goodness and grace. In an alcohol-dependant culture, in which entertainment that has no long-term goal other than the production of short-lived feelings of pleasure and sensuality, Wesley’s resolutions cause us to think about the way in which we use our time, each moment of which is a gift never to come our way again.
This new and barely-started year I have not made any resolutions, for the first time in memory. I think, though, that John Wesley has something important here for all of us who follow the Lord Jesus Christ, even if the language might feel a touch dusty and off-putting. His resolutions are essentially about living in serious awareness that God is real and holy, that we are His precious and dignified creatures, and that every moment is wasted if it is not lived to bring Him glory who deserves all of the glory, in 2010 and forever.
Soli Deo Gloria
The Glasgow Herald has published the following article. I do wish that the writer would not call orthodox members of the Kirk ‘hardline opponents’ when we are simply trying to urge the Kirk to adhere to the worldwide, mainstream sexual ethic of the Church. The article also says that no gay minister will be appointed until 2011, when in fact the Kirk’s moratorium is not about those who are gay in orientation, but only in lifestyle. For accuracy’s sake, is also worth pointing out that ministers are allowed to speak publicly about almost all aspects of sexuality, but they are asked not to speak publicly about ministers and homosexuality. Having said that, there is no ban on ministers speaking even on that matter, or from blogging about it. I do not know if evangelicals speak for the ‘main body of the Kirk’ when it comes to ministers and homosexuality, or if their view will prevail in the end. Time will tell. I do believe, though, that when it comes to the Christian understanding of sexual behaviour, marriage and relationships, evangelicals in the Kirk are expressing the view which the worldwide Church has always held and which it holds to this day.
Soli De Gloria
Win for Kirk’s hardliners as gay ordination row continues
Exclusive: Brian Donnelly
Published on 18 Nov 2009
Hardline opponents have won a key victory to stop the ordination of gay ministers in the Church of Scotland.
A special Kirk court upheld a complaint that one of the largest presbyteries broke the moratorium appointing gay clergy when it agreed to allow a man in a civil partnership to begin training for ministry.
The Kirk Commission of Assembly voted 43 to 38 that Hamilton Presbytery was wrong when it agreed that Dimitri Ross should begin training.
Mr Ross was appointed on the proviso that meets any student – that they are not guaranteed employment at the end of training – and so was at first thought not to have broken the moratorium.
The decision means that no gay ministers will be appointed until 2011 when the issue will be re-examined at the highest level after anger at the appointment of the Rev Scott Rennie, who is openly gay, to a post in Aberdeen.
The Kirk commissioners now have agreed that the moratorium includes training for the ministry, “which, by its very nature looks towards ordination and induction”.
Some Kirk members reacted bitterly when Mr Ross was appointed and he withdrew from training. It is unclear whether his traineeship would have been terminated, but the Kirk confirmed yesterday no more gay candidates will be allowed until 2011.
The Church spokesman would not provide details of the complaint by the Rev Iain Murdoch of Wishaw that led to the decision over trainees and declined to comment further.
Hamilton Presbytery declined to comment. The decision also means those unhappy with the principle and length of the moratorium will not force a debate at next year’s General Assembly.
Under the moratorium, ministers are also barred from speaking in public about any aspect of human sexuality while the high-level Special Commission gathers its evidence ahead of the 2011 debate, except in Kirk courts or for social care such as discussing helping Aids victims.
One of a group of defiant ministers to have spoken out over the ban in online blogs is the Rev Ian Watson, of Kirkmuirhill, Lanarkshire, who was also a commissioner at the court hearing.
He said: “He (Mr Ross) had already received advice from the central Church that the moratorium did not cover training for the ministry and that being in a same-sex relationship was no bar to his becoming a candidate.
“Those who argued for the Presbytery insisted that what the deliverance said was precisely what they had meant, no more no less.”
Evangelicals against gay ordination were said to be growing in confidence after the vote. Some feel the momentum is such that agreement cannot be reached in 2011, and rather than leaving the Kirk the movement will make a stand when the clash comes. Privately one said: “We are the main body of the Kirk.”
Others have pointed towards the fact that 56 congregations against gay ordination have signed covenants saying so under the auspices of the Fellowship of Confessing Churches.
Affirmation Scotland, which supports gay ordination, has nine congregations signed up. But it is only a small representation of the 1400 congregations.
A few days ago I made the suggestion on this blog that the Church of Scotland might usefully give thought to implementing a scheme by which the theological views and opinions of its preachers might be regularly screened for orthodoxy. Some other Presbyterian churches do this and it has a positive effect on their unity, as far as I am aware. I was saying this because some of the views and beliefs of ministers and others who preach is so very far from Christian orthodoxy that only the phrase ‘another gospel’ would do them justice.
It seems very strange and even remiss to me that it is only when ministers are ordained or inducted, or in some other way move from one ministry to another that they are asked if they still believe in the fundamental doctrines of the faith, although the Church of Scotland does not like to say what the fundamental doctrines of the faith actually are. A minister’s personal beliefs, for example, are not at all examined, nor is his or her preaching listened to or observed in the course of a Presbytery’s Quinquennial (5-yearly) visitation to a congregation. It is merely assumed that all will be theologically well.
I would like to go further now and say that I think the personal circumstances of ministers ought to be a matter of close and continuing interest to the Kirk. For instance, if a minister is separated or divorced from his or her spouse, there is no requirement whatsoever to inform the appropriate Presbytery or the central offices of the Church, to my knowledge.
I remember a minister who left his wife and subsequently divorced her. Privately, she maintained that he had been adulterous and abusive. Privately too, he confirmed the former but not the latter. He never informed the Presbytery formally of his separation and divorce, although he did tell his Kirk Session. The Presbytery therefore did not know of the minister’s changed circumstances. It was not consequentially able to offer pastoral support to his wife at the time of their marital troubles, and it made no enquiries into the reasons for the separation and eventual divorce. He continued in the ministry.
Clergy marriages are not immune to strain and breakdown, and I am not calling for a form of voyeurism. But where the cause appears to be marital infidelity or abuse on the part of a minister of the Church of Scotland, that must surely be a cause of concern to the Kirk for a range of reasons, all of which are self-evident.
When I make the suggestion that the Church of Scotland takes a closer and more regular interest in the theological beliefs and opinions of its preachers, as well as their changing personal circumstances, I am not longing for the Inquisition, though some might think that I am. I am really calling for greater care and attention to be given in some pastoral way to the holiness of a minister’s life and relationships.
Preachers and ministers are called to pass on that which they have received. In preaching and teaching, they are stewards of an unchanging and eternal Gospel, recorded in scripture, to be faithfully proclaimed and declared to congregations of God’s people. Their personal lives and circumstances, whilst not perfect, should not be deliberately or indifferently at odds with the content of their preaching and teaching ministry. A minister cannot advocate marital kindness and faithfulness whilst clandestinely acing abusively or engaging in an affair.
The Church of Scotland asks no questions of its ministers, of their doctrine or of their personal lives. It ought to. I can’t think why it would not. Everything is not always as it seems, neither in pulpits nor in manses. Sometimes, the warning signs are there, if Presbyteries are careful enough to read them.
I think that ministers and others ought to be required, by church legislation, to inform Presbyteries of major changes in personal circumstances, and that a Presbytery should not lack the courage or the thoughtfulness to be sure that it is satisfied no wrongdoing is at the heart of matters.
Soli Deo Gloria
Ian Watson has blogged about the appeal against the decision of the Presbytery of Hamilton and about the recent decision of the Commission of Assembly. I won’t bother to add anything to Ian’s commentary. It’s a fascinating read.
Click here to go to Ian’s blog
Soli Deo Gloria
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
