I ran across an article today that had some interesting historical details about the Presbyterian churches in Scotland, details that seem to mesh with what I have previously commented on for North American Branches.

The article is on the blog Holdfast and is titled “the Free Church in its current form is finished.”  The article looks ahead to the Free Church of Scotland General Assembly, something which would be of interest to a GA Junkie from the start.  Related to the focus of the piece is the editorial in the July ’09 issue of the Monthly Record, the Free Church’s official publication, something I had commented on at the time.  The point of the editorial was what the controversy in the Church of Scotland over ordination standards means for the Free Church — Including possibly making worship standards more flexible to allow CofS churches to comfortably realign with the Free Church. 

What the author mentions, which I am interested to find out, is that was not the first time the editor, Mr. David Robertson, had made comments about worship style.  The blog post informs us that he made a statement a year before at the 2008 General Assembly:

The current editor of the Monthly Record told the Assembly in 2008 that he could no longer ‘assert, maintain and defend’ the current practice on worship. That is that he desires hymns, instrumental music and women deacons too. He has said ‘the Free Church is going to change’, ‘the Free Church in its current form is finished’.

The 2008 General Assembly comments are covered in the July 08 issue of the Monthly Record (p. 27) and were preceded by editorial comments on “Worship Wars” in the May 08 issue (p. 4-5).

The specifics of the current debate I will hold for a while and try to return to them before the Assembly meets in May.  The information indicates that the Trustees will be bringing a recommendation to the Assembly concerning the current “Worship Wars.”

But all that is introduction to what really caught my attention in this article.  In my contemplation of the complexity of American Presbyterianism I have seen that Scottish Presbyterians are not far behind in their splits and unions.  But some of the parallels in dates are intriguing, such as a major Scottish split in 1732 and an American mainline split in 1741.  While the Americans reunited shortly after the Scottish branches did not.  The big Scottish split was the “Disruption of 1843” which produced the Free Church, while the American mainline suffered its Old School/New School split in 1837.  Maybe something related in all of this, maybe not.

Last week I mentioned the 1906 reunion of a majority of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church with the mainline American Presbyterians and how that was immediately preceded by revision of the Westminster Standards and occurred during the Ecumenical Movement of the early 20th Century.  Note what the author of the Holdfast piece says about the Free Church in that same time period:

The interesting thing for those who have a knowledge of the history of the Free Church is that the proponents of change are appealing to the historical precedent of the late-victorian Free Church where hymns and organs were permitted in order to make way for union with the United Presbyterian Church. Union with Church of Scotland evangelicals unable to accept psalms without organs is the great rallying cry now behind the movement for change. History is evidently repeating itself, it has to because few are really listening. An astute article looks at the historical arguments used by contemporary proponents of change. It notes that the changes in Victorian times came hand in hand with theological declension. The attempts to form a superchurch in those times culminated in the United Free Church declining further until it merged into the Church of Scotland in 1929. Only a very basic theological standard is going to suit most evangelicals in the Church of Scotland.

To clarify the timing here, in 1900 some from the Free Church joined with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland to form the United Free Church.  Then a majority from that body joined the Church of Scotland in 1929.  Like the CPC/mainline American union, this is in the same time period and, as the article states, involves a modernizing/modification/compromise/weakening of standards (depending on your viewpoint) to accommodate the merger between two bodies with a vision of greater ecumenical unity through organic union.  Similarly, the United Church of Canada effected its union in exactly the same time period, joining in 1925 after 20 years of discussion.  The central argument among the Presbyterians was whether to have organic union to unite three denominational bodies as one, with the necessary compromises in doctrine and polity, or whether to have federation to more closely work together in locations where three separate church bodies were duplicating their efforts but preserving denominational identity.  The unionists formed the United Church but the large minority of Presbyterians who opposed union, and mostly supported federation, continued as the Presbyterian Church in Canada.  (It is also an interesting parallel that one of the figures in that debate, but on the anti-union side, was the editor of the official Presbyterian publication.)

For me one of the take-aways is that I may not be focusing as much on the ecumenical movement as I should, instead focusing on the fundamentalist/modernist debate that followed, and was probably influenced if not precipitated by the ecumenical movement.  And I will have to look more closely at the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and the merger in 1901 that formed the present denomination.  I am curious if any of these dynamics seen elsewhere were a part of that merger.

And we will see how this specific issue develops both before and during the General Assembly of the Free Church which will convene on May 17, if my calendar is correct.