DISSENT in the Kirk

Rev. Andrew Coghill
Lochs and Crossbost, Lewis

Walking away from Jesus

(St. George's Tron; Glasgow)  I write in the immediate aftermath of our General Assembly, where the debate on the issue of same sex relations in the ministry resulted in a resounding defeat for those, like ourselves, committed to the orthodox, historic Christian gospel, to the absolute standard of authority upon which the Church of Scotland was founded, the Bible, and to the Westminster Confession of Faith, the principal subordinate standard of the Church of Scotland.
 
Let me quote directly from the official News Release from the Church of Scotland on Monday evening (called Good News from the Church of Scotland which is an ironic misnomer if ever there was one):
 
[these are very decisive majorities as far as our GA is concerned - often votes are very close]
 
That the last paragraph will be greeted with astonishment by Christian people who must wonder what kind of guidance and spiritual leadership can possibly be given by a denomination that has thus departed so dramatically and decisively from its moorings in the historic, reformed and biblical faith.
 
The Church of Scotland was established as we know it today when the Articles Declaratory of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland in Matters Spiritual were declared lawful by Parliament in the Church of Scotland Act 1921. The first declaratory Article states clearly:
 
 
The Scriptures of both Old and New Testament, our ‘supreme rule of faith and life’, speak with one voice and unequivocally on the issue of same sex union. Sexual sin is not the unpardonable sin, but like all sin, must not be acquiesced in—far less celebrated as holy—but must be repented of, or else one cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, that is, cannot find salvation.
 

When the church faces controversial questions, The Westminster Confession of Faith (which the Second Declaratory Article states as ‘the principal subordinate standard of the Church of Scotland’) is clear about how these things are to be resolved:
 
 
The Confession realistically acknowledges that people will often try to justify sinful behaviour, and warns us presciently: this is not a secondary matter; to use the language of Christian freedom and love to justify sinful behaviour in fact destroys the gospel itself, because the gospel’s whole purpose and goal is that we are saved from sin for holiness and righteousness:
 
 
Thus, the decision of the General Assembly this year has set a clear ‘trajectory’ (to use the words of the Special Commission) that leads away from the Christian Scriptures, the Christian gospel, and the love of Christ himself, for Jesus said ‘whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me’ (John 14:21)
 
It is not that the voice of the truth was not heard; faithful brethren articulated clearly, competently and graciously the truth of God, and warned against the consequences of such a departure. Many interventions were made. But every attempt to amend the deliverances—even those which would have served simply to give more time and discussion—was defeated heavily. In the end, the revisionists won by a large and decisive majority.
 
If there is some comfort in all this, it is that God has now granted great clarity as to the true position and direction of our denomination. Those who have been naively deceiving themselves about the severity of the situation must now see the truth as it really is. We must all face the facts that some have been reluctant to acknowledge hitherto: the so called ‘win-able middle ground’ of the church simply does not exist. There is no middle ground. In so rejecting the Scriptures and the reformed confessions the ‘middle’, the centre of gravity of those who claim to represent The Church of Scotland today, has drifted to the point of now no longer being recognisably Christian in the sense understood by all Christians historically and the majority worldwide Christian Church today.
 
Nor are these simply impersonal ‘forces’ dividing the church, as if people were caught helplessly in the midst and we can all ‘work together for unity’. No. The rift is being caused by many—the majority, it seems—of people choosing wilfully to walk away from the biblical gospel, and walk apart from those who cannot and will not likewise abandon the faith once for all delivered to the saints, the faith of our fathers, the faith of the worldwide Church, and of our Church.
 
As the debate went on and I watched online (I was not a commissioner this year) it was as if, with Ezekiel, one could see the glory of God departing. One after another, speeches of increasingly blasphemous character seemed to indicate the withdrawal of all divine restraint, the Lord giving this institution over to self-destructive folly, and the inevitability of self-inflicted disaster. In the days of Samuel, when wicked corruption of priesthood and people was left weakly unopposed by good but feeble Eli, in the end the Ark of the Covenant—representing God's holy presence—was removed from the midst leaving people crying "Ichabod": The Glory has departed.
 
This week I was reading my father, James Philip’s Bible readings and came upon these words, on 1 John 5:16:
 
He went on to speak of the corporate application of this same principle, citing the example of Jeremiah, where repeatedly the prophet is explicitly told by God not to pray for a people confidently proud of their status as “the national church” with their mantra ‘the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’, but whose hearts were far from the God whose temple it was (see Jer 7:16, 11:14 and 14:11).


So, it seems, in today’s Church of Scotland; his merciful hand of restraint has been lifted. As the apostle Paul describes in Romans chapter 1:
 
Where, then, does this leave our church fellowship in St George's-Tron?
Alas, it seems, greatly at odds with the clearly expressed official will of the denomination to which we are affiliated. But, notwithstanding the deliberations and decisions of even the highest court of our denomination, we are simply not at liberty to walk away from Christ and his gospel, or depart from the historic foundations of our Church or separate from communion with orthodox Christian believers globally. To do so would be sin against God, and sin against our Christian brothers and sisters worldwide, many of whom are facing great persecution for their adherence to the truth. It would be to choose fellowship (koinonia) with the works of darkness and break fellowship with the worldwide believing church. This we cannot do. It is an instance when we must obey God rather than men. Our own Westminster Confession is plain here also:
 
 
Dear friends, as has become increasingly clear over recent months in the hostility we have already experienced from our presbytery, we are entering days of uncertainty and difficulty as a fellowship when our faith is going to be tested in many ways, some of which we cannot easily anticipate. This should not surprise us. Jesus said “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” [Mark 8:34]. He warned that to be faithful would mean being at odds with many in the world and in the religious establishment, and indeed this has been the history of the church throughout the ages, and in our own land also.
 
Having lived for generations in days of peace we have forgotten that those who have stood for the biblical faith in Scotland have often been persecuted; just visit the graveyards of the Covenanters in Ayrshire for a reminder of the terrible ‘killing times’ of the 17th Century when many of our forebears gave their lives for the faith we proclaim today. The original Wynd Church, the antecedent of our present-day congregation, was itself formed in 1687 in dark days, by a determined group of believers who would not bow the knee to the imposition of high church episcopacy by the establishment, and courageously stood for their evangelical biblical faith against the odds. We thank God that we are unlikely to face the extremity of violence of those times. But violent opposition we may well have to endure, and we shall need great grace, courage, and unity if we too are not to be found unfaithful in facing the challenges the Lord is allowing us to meet in coming days.
 
We are not alone, of course. There are other churches in Scotland who feel as we do, grieving deeply over the decisions of the General Assembly and mourning together with us over such defiance of his Word. Grieving together, but also standing together, and acting together. I am sure that Dick Lucas is absolutely right in the words of encouragement he sent to us this week:

We commit to praying and supporting all such, as many congregations now enter days of uncertainty and great difficulty and the rupture of communion becomes evident. We must pray for ourselves and for all with whom we unite in solidarity that we shall have courage to make whatever stand our Lord calls us to, however difficult and misunderstood it may be by some. May we all, as Faber’s hymn says, ‘learn to scorn the praise of men, and learn to lose with God’, that being found faithful in word and deed, the name of Christ may be honoured in us and through us.
 
Much prayer is needed. But not prayer alone. Having cited two of my chief mentors in life and ministry, let me quote from the third, William Still. Both he and my father, though greatly loyal to the Church of Scotland ministry, spoke to me often of a day when faithfulness to Christ and loyalty to the denomination could (and very probably would) come into such conflict that one would have to give way to the other. Neither was in any doubt where their loyalties would lie. They also saw clearly how it is that real cleansing and change is effected in a corrupted church. Writing in his Congregational Record as long ago as 1970, Mr Still’s words could hardly be more apt today:
 
This week, indeed, the touch-paper of such a fire of disturbance has been lit. Let us pray that through it what William Still called the real Church of Jesus Christ in Scotland would grow and be strengthened even as a result of all that has happened, and that these things, which seem calamitous, would ‘really serve to advance the gospel’ as Paul's own trials and imprisonment certainly did (Phil 1:12).
 
Finally, beloved in the Lord, in all that lies ahead, in all we may be required to do, and in all we may have to face, let us remember and cherish the command of the apostle we were considering together the very week of the General Assembly:

and also the comforting words of our Lord Jesus himself:
 

Yours, in the truth that is in Jesus Christ, who alone is the Divine King and Head of this Church,

(i) Or, to express this more fully, in the language of the First Declaratory Article of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland , and the Westminster Confession of Faith, the principal Subordinate Standard of the Church of Scotland:
 
The Kirk Session of ******** receives the Word of God which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as its supreme rule of faith and life and avows the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic faith founded thereupon.' We 'adhere to the Scottish Reformation' and adhere to the Westminster Confession's statement that in deciding all matters of faith and conduct 'the supreme judge...can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.'
 
(ii) in particular the decision to uphold sections 4 and 7b of the deliverance of the special commission. Section 4 allows any ministers and deacons ordained before May 2009 who are in, or may enter, same sex relationships to be freely inducted into charges on an ongoing basis. Section 7b set up a special theological commission with a stated trajectory away from orthodox biblical teaching.
 
(iii) Fellowship/Communion (koinonia) finds tangible expression in sharing (sugkoinoneo) 'in the matter of giving and receiving' (Phil 4:5). We are in fellowship, or active partnership, with those we share finances with. But we are clearly commanded by the apostle 'do not share (koinoneo) in the sins of others' (1 Tim 5:22).