[Editorial note:  Before I begin with the news I did want to let my readers know that life has gotten busy and my blog writing production has dropped off.  The family events are good and exciting but time consuming.  That last massive post took me five days.  As my list of news items to blog about quickly increases I anticipate a few shorter posts to cover some of them and probably bumping some of the others off the list.  Thanks for your understanding.]

When we last looked at a controversial pastoral call in the Church of Scotland the Commission of Assembly had decided not to rule on the protest of the presbytery’s concurrence with the call but to let the upcoming full General Assembly decide the matter.  Well, in the last few days the issue has hit the press and has increased in visibility and verbiage, as well as published opinion.  What was happening “decently and in order” as we Presbyterians like suddenly is having its trial in the press.

First the background:  The Rev. Scott Rennie, a partnered gay man, was called by Queen’s Cross Church, Aberdeen, to be their new pastor.  The Presbytery of Aberdeen concurred but 12 commissioners protested the decision because of Mr. Rennie’s lifestyle.  As I said, the Commission of Assembly, a body with interim authority between Assembly meetings, heard the protest and decided this was of such significance that the full Assembly needed to deal with it.  So we were waiting for the Assembly meeting in just about a month.

Over the last few days the issue has now flared up in the press.  It appears to have begun with an editorial in the latest issue of the Church of Scotland’s monthly publication Life and Work.  The magazine is editorially independent and appears only in print so the editorial is not available on-line as best as I can tell.  Accounts all seem to agree that the editorial in the latest issue takes the side of the Rev. Rennie.  As the Rev. Louis Kinsey says about this in his blog Coffee with Louis:

In her editorial, Muriel Armstrong writes about the General Assembly
of the Kirk, shortly to take place in Edinburgh, and focuses entirely
on the case of the Rev Scott Rennie, whose call to the congregation of
Queen’s Cross in Aberdeen is being resisted by dissenters from that
Presbytery, amongst whom I am one.

The serious mistake that Life & Work has made here is
that the magazine attempts to argue this case and to bring it to a
liberal conclusion long before the General Assembly even convenes.  How
can it be considered fair or proper to discuss a case and to say what
the outcome should be before the Kirk’s highest court has convened and
debated?   This is simply prejudice, not journalism.

Mr. Kinsey goes on to fault the magazine not for being editorially independent but for being “so manifestly one-sided and unbalanced.”  And his concern is with the timing so close to the beginning of GA it will influence the commissioners.  And he has concerns about how she has formed her opinions:

How can she know the evidence?  Has she seen all of it?  If not, and I
most sincerely hope she has not, for the evidence is confidential, how
can she offer anything resembling a responsible point of view.  Her
editorial is factually incomplete and numerically misleading.  It is
naive about the way scripture is to be read and used in the modern
world.  It also demonstrates remarkable ignorance of the biblical and
theological issues that are involved, choosing to try and conclude the
argument with a few sweeping generalizations about homosexuality and
the integrity of relationships. 

And Mr. Kinsey finishes with this:

The editorial ends with a swipe at the dissenters, reminding us of our
ordination vows – which we are presumably forgetting – vows about the
preservation of the peace and unity of the church, the very peace and
unity that is being threatened by those who press this matter,
including Life & Work, and not by the dissenters.  It is no wonder at all that Life & Work
is so disregarded in evangelical congregations and by evangelical
ministers and elders…  It presents itself as the magazine of a
broad church, but it is clear that the broadness of the church works
only in one direction.  It is a broadness that suits those who are
theologically liberal but which shows a growing intolerance towards
evangelicals and their theology. 

You can also check out media coverage of the editorial by the BBC and Christian Today.

But this editorial and the Rev. Kinsey’s response was only the beginning.  Yesterday Mr. Ron Ferguson authored an opinion piece in The Herald that raised the possibility of a modern split in the Church of Scotland like the Disruption of 1843.  Again Mr. Kinsey responds to this article saying:

A divide may indeed eventually come over the issue of the affair of
Aberdeen Presbytery, but whatever form and shape it will take, it will
only be the visible manifestation of a divide that has existed for some
time.

In addition, The Herald has posted some letters to the editor on both sides of the issue.

With these two opinion pieces being widely reported the blogosphere has lit up as well, including this post.  Others discussing it include Anglican Mainstream, Euangelion, and Gay Religion among many others.

While I expected this to be a major focus at the Assembly, I am a bit surprised that it has become such a high-visibility story ahead of the Assembly.  I expect that we can see statements from Forward Together and Affirmation Scotland leading up to the meeting.  We will see how much more this issue develops in the next month.