The General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland will convene at 6:00 pm on Monday 23 May in St. Columba’s Free Church, Edinburgh, and continue through Friday 27 May.
For those interested in the meeting the Assembly page has a great summary of several committee reports and links to those full reports. The reports page has the links to all of the different reports for the meeting. And the church has posted a revised programme, or docket, for the meeting.
I will post a link to daily updates here, if they are made available, as well as hashtags or Twitter users that may be active during the meeting. For blogs to watch, I would recommend Iain D Campbell at Creideamh and Gordon Matheson at Rev Jedi — they have been posting in advance and I would expect them to also reflect on the Assembly. Again, I will update here if I find concurrent commentary and will link to others (which I know there will be) when the meeting concludes and I write a summary.
A few of the business items that caught my attention for this meeting.
The Board of Ministries will be bringing three ministers from other denominations to the Assembly for membership in the Free Church. In addition, the Board is requesting a one year postponement in the previously approved Probationary Placement process for new ministers to allow for the refinement of certain details and to clarify the provision of the financial support for the probationers. As the report puts it “The Board is recommending delay… to allow it to examine in greater detail the budgetary implications for the Board in providing stipends and for congregations in providing housing and meeting expenses.”
The Home Missions Board is proposing legislation to be sent down to the presbyteries under the Barrier Act to create Team Ministries to share full-time ministers between churches under certain circumstances. The legislation is detailed with the responsibilities of the presbytery and Home Missions Board and represents a creative solution for charges with staffing challenges due to size or finances.
Speaking of financial challenges the report of the College Board acknowledges right at the beginning “The Board is aware that there are voices within the Church questioning the feasibility of maintaining a College. As the denomination continues to decline, the support base for the College continues to shrink.” The report goes on to argue for the continued importance and utility of the College and its link to the Free Church identity and Scottish and Free Church history. But it concludes with this:
More pertinent than any of these reasons, however, is the fact that the College provides the forum where students, committed to a common theological position, called to a common ecclesiastical work, and training for a common evangelical purpose, can live and learn together. Bonds are forged, fellowship is fostered, friendships are made, and the best interests of Presbyterian ministry are served as those who will work together first learn to train together. The denomination can surely only be enriched and enhanced by continuing to encourage and support such an institution.
What follows is a frank discussion of the challenges the College presently faces, particularly the difficulty filling certain professorial chairs.
The Communications Committee report contains three reports prepared to address public questions: Suicide, Transhumanism — Salvation by Technology?, and Sex Education in Scottish Schools: The Church’s Response. All interesting reading but each a topic for another time. (I would note that the topic of suicide is also an issue for the Church of Scotland Church and Society Council this year as well.)
Similarly, there is also an extensive (18 page) report from the Study Panel on Divorce and Remarriage. And again, interesting reading and a topic for another time.
That brings us to what may be the issue at this Assembly that is drawing the most attention, the report of the Special Committee on Praise and the reverberations of the Plenary Assembly last Fall. For more detailed coverage you can check out my post from that time, but to summarize, the special Plenary Assembly relaxed the church’s requirements for music in worship to be only unaccompanied singing of inspired words. The Plenary Assembly also set up the Special Committee to “investigate, collect and, if necessary prepare from within the resources of the Church appropriate portions of Scripture, other than the 150 Psalms, in a form which accurately renders the thought of the original and is suitable for singing in public worship.” At this juncture the committee is reporting in that it has begun its work and does not consider it necessary at this time to produce a specific supplemental worship resource for this music.
The other aspect to this topic is the response from the church to the actions of the Plenary Assembly. There are seven overtures to this Assembly and two memorials and all of them address the action of the Plenary Assembly. (These can be found at the end of the Assembly Arrangements report and they make up most of that report)
[On a polity note, I ran across something here I did not expect and is outside my experience with Presbyterian polity. It is usually the case that overtures can only be submitted by a lower governing body, but one of the overtures is from an individual. Doing a read of the Free Church Practice it looks like a commissioner to Assembly can submit an overture where these are know as commissioner resolutions in other branches and frequently can not be submitted by a lone individual.]
The overtures generally address two issues. The first is that the change in worship standards was not sent down to the presbyteries under the Barrier Act. There are overtures from the Synod of North America, Western Isles Presbytery, Knockbain Kirk Session, and Lochs Kirk Session that specifically ask for the legislation to be sent down to the presbyteries under the Barrier Act. There are also overtures that deal with the nuances of the legislation regarding the existing secondary standards including relief of conscience consideration for officers who disagree with the decision and possible adjustments of of the Formula of Ordination. These overtures come from Western Isles Presbytery (a second one from them), Edinburgh and Perth Presbytery, and Rev. Prof. John A. Macleod.
I will admit to personally being surprised at the time that the Plenary Assembly decision was not sent down to the presbyteries under the Barrier Act. I want to publicly thank Mr. Horgan for some helpful discussion and insights into this polity question. In particular he recommended an article from the Free Church on The Formula and the Psalms that answers many of these questions in a Q&A form. This is a great article for polity wonks as it gives an historical perspective to the Acts of the church and the subtleties in the polity that do not require this to be sent down under the Barrier Act. From a polity viewpoint I now better understand the situation, but the Assembly will wrestle with this decision themselves on Tuesday. They get to make the decision and whether from the necessity of polity or from the desire to preserve connectionalism they may decide to put it to the presbyteries.
I want to conclude with mention of the two Memorials which are also related to the Plenary Assembly. The first is from Officebearers, Members And Adherents of the Free Church. It is a protest that, among other things, “the decision not to pass this unexpected and revolutionary Finding of the Plenary Assembly to Presbyteries through the Barrier Act is at variance with the constitution of the Church.” They argue that the Plenary decision is null and void.
The second is similar, but is “From Young People of the Free Church.” They begin:
We, the undersigned, are younger people who are concerned to ensure that we are not misrepresented in the debate regarding the worship practice of the Free Church. At the Assembly, and at other times, the assertion was made that the young people would welcome change and that the young would be lost to the church without change. „The young‟ are not some homogenous group who all think alike and who all have the same desires and preferences regarding the worship of our God. Many of us loved the Free Church as she was and believed her mode and manner of worship to have been both Scriptural and entirely honouring to our God. Following the decision taken at the plenary assembly to allow individual congregations to use hymns and instruments as part of their public worship we want to make our voices heard, to speak for ourselves in this matter and to detail our concerns. We care about our church and love her people. Above all we are concerned that God be exalted, that His will obeyed and that His Word be honoured.
They then argue against the actions of the Plenary Assembly and give give eight reasons they believe it will be detrimental to the church.
Lots and lots of interesting material here to mull over. And lots for the commissioners to the Assembly to deliberate on this week. May our prayers be with them as they join together to discern the will of God. And we look forward to hearing about their discussions. As the close of every overture says: