Putting it all on the line

I’m loath to quote Carl Trueman at length on a Saturday morning, but what he’s saying here is pertinent.

[A] steady stream of courageous ministers are taking a stand and choosing now to leave as the CofS courts seem to have reached a point where it is no longer possible for ministers to expect them to maintain and defend that most important mark of the church – the true preaching of the Word.  The courts of the church seem indifferent, if not hostile to it.  In other words, as the Reformers would have seen it, the C of S as an institution seems to have left the church of God.   Those who leave the C of S are thus not schismatics; as an institution, she is no longer a church in the Reformation (and indeed biblical) sense; she has left them, not vice versa.

My concern is to simply note the courageous Church of Scotland guys putting it all on the line.   To demit a charge with a wife and family as dependents is no small thing.   Job opportunities for such men are scarce – even if they were willing to consider leaving a task they feel called to.   Nor do I want to question the courage of guys staying in to “fight”.   If I had to make one observation of them it would be that I’ve yet to see a strategy for “fighting” that doesn’t involve attacking those brothers who are leaving.   Maybe the stay-in guys feel abandoned, but it’s hardly the fault of men demitting that the CofS has ended up the way it is!

But the challenging analysis is that with the numbers we are now seeing demitting charges, plus the high number of evangelical ministers who are getting very close to retirement (perhaps the 70s were a high point for the training and recruitment of Evangelical ministers in the CofS?) it is going to prove very difficult to turn the ship around in 2013.

But then the question is, “What next?”   The Presbyterian Church is Scotland is notoriously fractured – partly because our brand of Presbyterianism is terribly Victorian with monolithic structures.   I have long suspected a more relaxed Presbyterianism would be better, where doctrine and mission, not money and influence, were the key points of communion.   Just imagine – if men had been humble, and not worried about a tension over Highland/Lowland influence, would the Free Church have had nearly such a horrible schism in 2000 – a schism which ended up disproportionately affecting Highland churches!

The demitting guys should rightly fear entering a Presbyterian union not because of joining “schismatics”, but if the one big factor in driving its functions is money.   If you think I’m wrong, here’s the commonest objection to a lot of CofS guys joining the Free Church: “We couldn’t afford them.”   That’s true, but only because we’re not willing to be agile with our structures, and think outside the neat Free-Church-franchise box.   Victorian monolithic Presbyterianism is not helping.

But at the same time, the alternative is lots of non-Presbyterian Presbyterian churches springing up.   The result is not just chaos, but generations of Christians worried about their tribal divisions. Congregationalist Christians are a whole lot more fractious than Presbyterians!   Practical Independency is not the solution either.

Is there an alternative somewhere in-between – and what will have to be “put on the line” to reach that?

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