As General Assembly week continues in Edinburgh, we move on to the next Assembly, the 181st General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.

The meeting began yesterday evening, Monday 20 May, at 6 pm at St. Columba’s Free Church in Edinburgh with worship, the installation of the new Moderator, Rev. Callum Macleod, and a few pieces of initial business.

The meeting will be live-streamed for our viewing pleasure on the Free Church website. The 2024 General Assembly Reports volume is available as a PDF document. And there is a schedule available.

For the polity wonks, the Acts of the Assembly can be found at the bottom of the General Assembly page. It appears that the online version of “Church Practice and Procedure – Free Church of Scotland” has been removed from the website but you can access the previous page through the Internet Archive. (I will try to add it to my resource page.)

To follow along on social media, you should check the official Free Church Facebook page and their Twitter feed @freechurchscot. The host church can be followed at @stcsfreechurch, and the hashtag is #fcga24, although sometimes tweets slip by with #fcga or #fcga2024. (At the time of writing, none have.) The simple hashtag #fcos is also in use. The seminary, Edinburgh Theological Seminary (@ETS_Edinburgh) can also be followed.

And important happenings at the Assembly may have an article appear in the Newsfeed.

Much of the business before the Assembly is of a routine nature, as it is with most General Assemblies of different branches in the Presbyterian world. One of the items that jumped out at me was regarding marriage and officers of the church. The Clerk’s Report (p. 20) has an item in the deliverance that asks “The General Assembly appoint a group to study the theology of marriage, separation, and divorce in the life of Minister’s [sic] and Office-bearers.” And there is an overture from the Free Presbytery of Glasgow and Argyle on “Marriage, Cohabitation, and Church Membership.” (p. 52) The overture asks that “They appoint a Committee to consider how the Church should interpret and apply changes in family and marriage law in society to applications for admission into the communicant membership of the Church.”

The overture was handled earlier this afternoon and there was an interesting debate about whether this is best handled doctrinally at the GA level or pastorally at the kirk session level. Also, the necessity for a quicker answer to this question since this is an active question in the presbytery, as opposed to an answer a year from now at the next GA. With some counter-motions and interesting polity twists and disagreements between the moderator and clerk, the Assembly decided to receive the overture and affirm this should be addressed pastorally by the kirk session at this time.

I have noted in past years the Committee on the Establishment Principle in the Twenty-First Century. This year, they have submitted their final report, beginning on page 44, which makes for interesting reading. The request for the report grew out of the COVID-19 concerns and the state asking the church to suspend in-person services for a time. But, as noted in the conclusions, the implications are further reaching. It says:

While the Committee does not feel this is the place to judge secular legislation, we would conclude that there is a clear demarcation between the state imposing a specific regulation for a specific amount of time due to an acute national crisis, and interfering in matters of doctrine which would have a strict bearing on spiritual independence. This is a question which may face much sterner challenges from future legislation which may undermine freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of private and family life. For example, the proposed ban on “conversion practices” currently being considered by the Scottish Parliament. In such cases, it has been noted that the Free Church’s Public Engagement Co-ordinator expresses our concerns to our legislators. We are called to submit to the governing authorities appointed by God (Romans 13) but there may come a time when we are called to give the response of Peter when commanded to stop preaching the gospel: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

Reports, page 50

The report notes that five papers were commissioned for the study and I hope that they are able to be shared on the Free Church website as suggested in the report. (I have not found them yet.) The Assembly is scheduled to take up the matter on Wednesday evening.

The Assembly continues until Thursday, 23 May. So, with that, we will keep this Assembly in our prayers and look forward to following along over the next few days. May your deliberations be guided by the Holy Spirit and the time productive for advancing The Kingdom. Best wishes to all.