The Church of Scotland today: Who calls the tune?  By Campbell Campbell-Jack Layman Correspondent The Presbyterian Layman July/August 1999 For nearly 500 years as a denomination the Church of Scotland has tried to preach, teach and live out the gospel of Jesus Christ at home and abroad. This we have done in good times and in bad. In a kaleidoscopic world of ever-changing thought and practice we have to ask how well we are fitted today to speak the eternal truth to a needy nation and world. Concern about recent trends and attitudes within the Church of Scotland has caused a significant number of ministers and elders to join Forward Together. Forward Together is a broad-based group who have at heart a concern to challenge and encourage the church towards a recovery of the passion to point people to the unique centrality of Jesus Christ. Our ultimate purpose The church as an institution is not an end in itself; it exists to enable Christ’s church of living disciples to draw closer to Him in worship, service and evangelism. If we lose sight of our ultimate purpose we have nothing to offer our nation.
Old-fashioned modernism with its emphasis on reason is disappearing. The new post-modernism rejects any overarching standard of truth. Post-modernism’s emphasis on therapeutic truth, or what makes us feel good, sets today’s agenda. No longer do we only commend the credibility of the Christian truth claim. Today we must first evidence the plausibility of the Christian truth claim. The world asks whether the life of the church provides any evidence that the claims of the gospel are even worth considering. The cultural situation Both wings of the church wrestle with the same cultural situation, and emerge with similar responses. Our evangelism or presentation of the gospel to a watching world increasingly sounds like either a spiritualised political correctness or a Christianised self help and affirmation course. Liberalism too often offers a highly politicised gospel controlled by the decrees of secular culture. Evangelicalism too often offers a highly psychologised gospel controlled by the felt needs of a consumer society. We have been secularised by the culture we are trying to evangelize. The result is that the church no longer influences the nation. Our stance of principled opposition to the National Lottery was spectacularly ineffective. In response, at the 1998 General Assembly, the Church conformed its position to public opinion. Once the watching world asked us to justify our existence. Today the world doesn’t think the question is worth asking. We have tried to impress by assimilation to the world rather than by working to its transformation, and failed to do either. Opinion polls assert that a significant majority of Scots still hold to basic Christian beliefs such as the existence of God, the deity of Christ and the importance of moral order. These beliefs, however, lie stranded above the high-water mark of private awareness and play no discernible part in public debate or individual behaviour. Such polls indicate two disturbing things: • That many Scots are religious in certain ways but this has marginal connection with the living Christian faith. • The beliefs held by Scots have little influence on anything considered of real importance in life. National invisibility Meanwhile the Church of Scotland is plunging into national invisibility. • Communicant membership peaked at 1.32 million in 1956; since then we have dwindled to 660,000 members in 1997, a decline of 50 percent in just 41 years. • Today we are losing communicants at a rate of roughly 400 members each week, the equivalent of the loss of one good- sized congregation every week of the year. • In the last five years the number of candidates for the ministry has fallen by 60 percent. Meanwhile in some Presbyteries up to 50 percent of ministers are due to retire in the next 10-15 years. We should ask why any young Christian should consider the ministry of the Church of Scotland as a possible path in serving Christ. To a young Christian with a God-given yearning for social and creational justice would the ministry seem a viable alternative to working with TEAR Fund, Christian Aid or a political party? If someone had a deep yearning to see Scotland and the world evangalised for Christ, would the Church of Scotland today seem a likely vehicle for pursuing that vision? Many of our most committed young people serve Christ with scant reference to the denomination or even the local congregation. We are being marginalised from within. Losing members, adding staff Meanwhile the one growth area in the Church of Scotland is central staffing. In 1956 with 1.32 million members and 2,080 ministers in charges, the position of principal clerk to the General Assembly was a part-time post held by a parish minister. Now that we have halved in membership and have only 1,149 ministers in parishes the principal clerkship is a full-time job with four full-time staff. Like the Royal Navy which now has more admirals than warships the Church of Scotland has an ever -expanding central bureaucracy and an ever shrinking presence in the world.
Our doctrinal disarray is such that we are left with little discernible identity other than attachment to a denominational structure. Today it is not outsiders who ask whether the Church of Scotland has clear positions on those matters which are foundational for our faith. Every month the articles and letters pages of our denomination‘s magazine Life & Work reveal a church in confusion. Culturally and politically, Scotland today presents a situation of real opportunity for mission and evangelism. An increasingly post-modern society looks for therapeutic truth. No “truth” brings greater healing and wholeness than that embodied in Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. After an absence of 292 years we see the return of a Parliament to Scotland this year. This brings us significant opportunities to influence the future of our nation. Are we in any shape to grab them? Self-examination If we are to be of any future use to Christ in this land our denomination faces a time of painful self-examination and questioning • Who are we who constitute the Church of Scotland today? • Do we have a commonly accepted and coherent system of beliefs which identify us and shape our thinking on spiritual, ethical and social matters? • Does the church in practice have any clear priority other than the hope of survival? Forward Together exists to ask uncomfortable questions of ourselves, to encourage analysis of the situation we face, and to explore how we can go forward together under Christ our only Lord and Saviour. To hold up Christ in Scotland Those of us associated with Forward Together believe that in the light of the Great Commission our primary purpose as a church is to hold up Christ in Scotland and present His unique claims to His people in Scotland. We love the Church of Scotland and are dedicated to its strengthening and growth in worship, service and evangelism. We love the people of Scotland and are dedicated to bringing them the good news of Christ the only Lord and Saviour. Our policy as a church can never be to influence society by assimilation. It must be the transformation of Scotland by bringing it into gracious confrontation with Christ the only Saviour. If this is to happen we as a church must clarify our identify and our purposes. Then we can go forward together. Campbell Campbell-Jack is minister of Knockbain Parish in Ross-Shire, Scotland. |
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