Church of Scotland Tensions and GAFCON

The focus of the current dispute is the appointment of the Kirk’s equivalent of Gene Robinson – The Revd Scott Rennie.[1] Apart from the significant difference that the Church of Scotland is a staunchly non-episcopal body (and so Scott Rennie is not being made a bishop, simply a parish minister), the parallels are quite astonishing. He is in an open same-sex partnership (and has made clear he will live with his parter, David, in the manse) having previously been married, in which marriage he had a daughter. He, like Gene Robinson, has sadly been falsely accused (by some of those opposed to his appointment who have now publicly apologised), of leaving his wife for his current partner when in fact he only entered his relationship with David some time after his marriage ended. Indeed, as with Gene Robinson, his wife is fully supportive of Scott Rennie and his appointment. Having served in the church for some time (at Brechin Cathedral, during which time he was in the relationship now at the heart of the controversy), Rennie was duly elected and welcomed by his new parish (Queen’s Cross Parish Church, Aberdeen) in November 2008 and by the wider Aberdeen Presbytery in January this year. He had the support of 86% of the congregation and the overwhelming backing (60-24) of the presbytery.

However, a dozen of those opposed to his appointment exercised their right to appeal against the decision (reportedly a unique event since the Disruption of 1843) and this has now been referred to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the denomination’s supreme body. This will decide the case in just over a week's time on the evening of May 23^rd. It is claimed that this is the first time a Church of Scotland ordained minister has openly declared himself to be living in a same-sex partnership. As a result, the Assembly’s decision is being seen as a test-case with parallels to the Righter case in the Episcopal Church of the USA (ECUSA) in which conservative bishops took Bishop Righter to court for ordaining an openly gay-partnered man (and lost, with the court judging the action did not contravene core doctrine).[2]

The Assembly also now has a motion (technically called an Overture) before it from the Presbytery of Lochcarron-Skye. This reaffirms traditional teaching and asks the Assembly to affirm “that this Church shall not accept for training, ordain, admit, re-admit, induct or introduce to any ministry of the Church anyone involved in a sexual relationship outside of faithful marriage between a man and a woman”.

There are thus two distinct but related issues before the Assembly – the particular individual case of Scott Rennie (which as with Gene Robinson’s election is also tied into the question of the freedom and rights of parishes and presbyteries to call ministers) and the matter of policy and principle. Given their obvious interconnection, the question as to which of these should take priority in the Assembly’s deliberations is itself a significant political decision.

This controversy about an openly partnered gay clergyman follows on from the earlier conflict over the church’s response to civil partnerships in 2006. Then, the General Assembly appeared to align the Church of Scotland with a more revisionist position. This was because it approved a motion that would have ensured that anyone conducting a service to mark a civil partnership would not be disciplined, and that they could do this in a parish other than their own although they also stated that nobody would be obliged to perform such a service. Those opposed to this development triggered the constitutional mechanism (under the Barrier Act) whereby the Assembly decision required approval by the presbyteries to come into force. The presbyteries overwhelmingly rejected the motion (only 9 supporting, 36 opposed) although the total votes cast each way was much narrower (1007 for, 1563 against).[3] Unsurprisingly, Aberdeen presbytery was the third highest in support of the motion allowing blessings (73% to 27%) whereas Lochcarron & Skye recorded the highest vote against (94% with only 1 brave individual voicing support for the Assembly decision).

A key group behind overturning that Assembly decision was Forward Together – a broad coalition of evangelicals within the Church of Scotland. Opposing their stance was a new network - OneKirk - which is the Church of Scotland’s equivalent to Inclusive Church – and Affirmation Scotland, similar to Changing Attitude in the Church of England. In the last few weeks, however, a new body has appeared online which will immediately have echoes for Anglicans. It is called the Fellowship of Confessing Churches with the strapline ‘meaningful unity between gospel congregations’. As its initial action, it has launched a statement - which it has asked people to sign online and which has the support of Forward Together - about the coming General Assembly. This statement is in support of those objecting from Aberdeen and of the overture from Lochcarron-Skye.

The statement warns that the Church of Scotland is on the verge of “an unprecedented departure from both the Kirk’s supreme standard, the Scriptures, and its subordinate standard, the Westminster Confession of Faith, by its highest court, this would inevitably force a crisis of communion. The majority of congregations of the Church of Scotland have no wish so to depart from orthodox Christian faith and practice, nor to be in fellowship with those who would so abandon the true Church of Jesus Christ”. It ends “We further wish to affirm our continuing solidarity in fellowship with Christian churches worldwide who hold and maintain the historic faith, doctrine, and discipline of the one holy, catholic and apostolic church, once for all delivered to the saints in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments”.

Within two weeks the statement already has over 10,000 signatories with approaching 4500 from the Church of Scotland (including nearly 400 ministers – the Kirk has nearly 1000 active ministers), nearly 2500 from other Christians in Scotland, about 2000 from elsewhere in the UK and a slightly smaller number from other parts of the world. The full list of signatories (from which a Mr A Bigot was apparently recently removed!) is available online. It includes people from almost every conceivable denomination (including many well-known evangelicals from the Church of England such as Chris Sugden, Paul Perkin, Hugh Palmer, Vaughan Roberts) as well as significant evangelical theologians (e.g. Ian Provan, Andy McGowan, Stephen Williams, Hans Boersma, Don Carson and Bruce Hindmarsh).

The name of the new group with its reference to a “confessing fellowship” points to the influence of GAFCON and its Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA). The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) met in Jerusalem in June 2008, convened by a number of orthodox Anglican Primates and leaders from North America and England. It issued the Jerusalem Statement and formed a Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in order to take a stand against what it described as a “false gospel” within the Anglican Communion.[4]

So far I have not seen the links between the new Church of Scotland movement and GAFCON/FCA being highlighted but it is clear that in part the Fellowship of Confessing Churches is a sign of GAFCON’s influence extending beyond the Anglican Communion and other Anglican groupings and that the connection runs quite deep.

The heart of the new Church of Scotland movement is St George’s Tron in Glasgow, the church which nurtured me in my faith throughout my childhood and adolescence and where I was fed by the wonderful biblical expository preaching of Eric Alexander now being made available online. Just after Easter, St George’s Tron hosted a meeting with Archbishop Peter Jensen (the Archbishop of Sydney and Secretary of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) who, after his meeting with the GAFCON Primates, travelled north to speak on Contending for the Faith. Although the Sydney connection with the Church of Scotland is, I believe, new, the personal links with the minister, Dr William Philip, go back some time as Dr Philip when he was for five years Director of Ministry with the Proclamation Trust worked with Peter Jensen. St George’s Tron’s honorary associate minister, Edward Lobb, who now heads Cornhill Training Course in Scotland, was previously an Anglican vicar and Bob Fyall, the other honorary associate minister, taught me and many other Anglicans when he was on the staff at Cranmer Hall where he co-authored the helpful Grove Biblical Studies booklet on The Bible and Homosexuality, in part a response to the work of Michael Vasey, Strangers and Friends.

The connection between the new movement and GAFCON however is not just relational. It runs even deeper and at a doctrinal level. A comparison of the Confessing Churches Covenant with the Jerusalem Declaration of GAFCON is particularly illuminating. Although the former has only 10 points and the latter has 14, it is clearly based very closely on the GAFCON statement as the comparison below shows.[5]

It is clear that the Church of Scotland is on the verge of a major crisis. By the end of this month it may be facing the sort of impaired and broken communion between churches and presbyteries that has torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion. Like the Church of England, it is an established, national church with a range of theological perspectives including a strong and vibrant Evangelicalism on the ground whose beliefs are at the centre of the church’s official doctrine even if not always at the centre of its current institutions and practice. That evangelical voice within the established church has now been roused as it was in the Church of England over the Reading crisis when the Bishop of Oxford appointed Jeffrey John, an openly same-sex partnered – though abstinent - clergyman as bishop. It perceives there to be an attempt to shift the church away from biblical teaching and discipline by creating “facts on the ground”. These enable the church to fit in more with the trends in wider society through the appointment of an openly same-sex partnered individual. The difference now, compared to 2003, is that there are well-established networks and patterns of response from within the Anglican crisis to which those who are concerned within the Church of Scotland can turn and clearly are turning for wisdom and support.

July sees the launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) in the British Isles. This will attract a good number of traditional Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals in the Church of England and likely embrace almost all the beleaguered, largely evangelical, orthodox in the Episcopal Churches of Scotland, Wales and Ireland as the leadership of those churches have expressed at best a cool response to the proposed Anglican covenant and shown signs of wishing to follow the affirming response of the American and Canadian Anglican churches in relation to same-sex relationships. (Peter Jensen also spoke last month at the Evangelical Fellowship of Irish Clergy within the Anglican Church of Ireland).

The significance of this new parallel development within the established Church of Scotland must not be ignored or downplayed. There is the prospect of the established Church of Scotland and the three non-established episcopal churches in these islands increasingly taking a more principled and openly affirming stance to same-sex partnerships. In response, those opposing this will be drawn into these new fellowships taking a confessional stance against their church’s legal authorities and structures. If this were to happen then the fragile situation in the Church of England would find itself coming under increasing pressure not only from the fragmentation of the wider Communion and from ecumenical partners such as the Church of Sweden but from pressures closer to home.

The creation of these two new fellowships – the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and the Fellowship of Confessing Churches in the Church of Scotland - opens up the prospect of a much wider ecumenical confessional network developing in the UK with an orthodox, evangelical and missional heart. It creates the potential for a significant realignment within some of the major United Kingdom denominations that all evangelicals in the Church of England – open and charismatic as well as conservative – will need to take seriously, especially if the Anglican covenant fails to provide the way forward for global Anglicanism and Anglicans here have to start choosing between two different Anglican structures in North America.

With the recent difficulties surrounding the Anglican covenant and the imminent decisions of the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly, now really is a time when we need to keep watching, praying and working for the church’s unity, faithfulness and mission not only in the Church of England and within global Anglicanism but also in the Church of Scotland.

[1] For Rennie’s own account see the recent interview with him at www.onekirk.org/Resources/OneKirk_Journal_Spring09_Issue3.pdf

[3] For information on the votes from the main evangelical grouping (breakdown by presbytery on p6) see www.forwardtogether.org.uk/newsletter/ftnewsletter200612.pdf

[5] In effect the only GAFCON statements having no equivalent are the distinctively Anglican statements “6. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture. 7. We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders”. In CCC4, the Westminster Confession has replaced the 39 Articles of GAFCON4 and the statement been reworded.