63 mins
General Assembly 2018
ASSEMBLY
STRATEGIC PLAN
“GENERAL Assembly can be a bit brutal,” observed the Rev Dr Doug Gay, the Principal of Trinity College, Glasgow, on Twitter after the key debate of the week, in which the Council of Assembly’s proposed 10-year strategic plan for the Church was rejected.
Instead, the Assembly voted heavily in favour of a counter-motion from the Rev Robert Allan which instructed the Council to return next year ‘with a radical action plan for 2019-2022’.
Mr Allan told the Assembly: “To agree to this plan would be to put another nail in the coffin of the institutional church. It’s to our shame in the church that we change slowly… What we need is urgent, radical action. We have had 60 years of decline and it wfill be worse in 10 years.”
He was forcefully backed by most speakers, including the former Moderator the Very Rev Dr Derek Browning, who said of the strategic plan: “I have rarely read a report from any Council of this Assembly that has caused me so much disappointment. (It) is very thick on gloss and very thin on substance.”
Returning to the subject two days later to put flesh on the bones of Mr Allan’s motion, the General Assembly agreed to:
• Instruct the Council to work collaboratively with other Councils, Committees and Presbyteries to bring proposals to the General Assembly of 2019 for structural change, consulting with the Rev Dr Doug Gay about the ideas contained in the recent Chalmers lectures and with other appropriate persons with expertise in the reform of institutions and structures, to enable a Church structure that is lean and fit for purpose to lead reform.
• Instruct the Council, in collaboration with other Councils, Committees and Departments as appropriate, to bring forward proposals to the General Assembly of 2019 that wfill allow more funds for mission work, including the freeing of funds held only for property matters and a reformed Ministry and Mission allocation process.
• Instruct Presbyteries to challenge themselves in their Presbytery Plans to be robust, imaginative and courageous in reducing the number of charges, creating ministry hubs, and enabling new pioneer and new church planting opportunities, supported by a Ministries Council that enables new reformed pathways into ministry.
• Instruct Kirk Sessions to meet in conference, to reflect on the state of decline of the national Church and in particular how that affects the Church locally and determine what their vision and mission is for the next three years in collaboration with Presbytery Planning teams.
• Instruct the Council in consultation with the Mission and Discipleship Council to facilitate and promote a national dialogue between elders younger than 40 and actively seek their views and reflect these in the radical action plan.
• Instruct the Council to devise a method of reporting in which the Annual Report and Accounts can be presented in a way which makes clear to all members of the Church the manner in which the unincorporated councils and committees make savings and reduce spending in order to balance the budget.
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
The Legal Questions Committee was instructed to produce legislation that would permit ministers to ‘opt in’ to marry same-sex couples, as long as the rights of those who do not wish to do so can be safeguarded. The legislation wfill be brought to the 2020 assembly.
Introducing the motion, the Rev Bryan Kerr said: “We have people in our congregations week-in week-out who contribute, fund, serve as elders, youth leaders, Sunday school teachers, organists, administrators and more whose earnest wish is that their special wedding day can be one that also recognises their faith and God’s blessing in their church.”
The assembly accepted an amendment from the Rev Peter White which added that the legislation should be produced ‘only if the Committee ffinds that the said safeguards, in their opinion, sufficiently protect against the risks they identify’.
WESTMINSTER CONFESSION
The role of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Church of Scotland’s subordinate standard, is to be reviewed.
The General Assembly approved an Overture from the Presbytery of Melrose and Peebles which instructed the Theological Forum to review the reports and debates on the role of the 17th century Confession and to advise on the role of a ‘subordinate standard’.
photo credits: Derek Fett Photography
The committee wfill also explore the possibility of producing a book of confessions, as has been done by other churches.
Moving the Overture, the Very Rev Dr Finlay Macdonald presented the issue as unffinished business, having been proposed and agreed at General Assemblies and by Presbyteries in the 1960s and 1970s. He said: “The Church is not well served by a subordinate standard that, let’s be honest, is not taken seriously across the Church.”
Elder Isobel Hunter said that before her ordination her minister had warned her that the Westminster Confession (which both ministers and elders afffirm when they are ordained) might ‘put her off for life’. She said: “Maybe this is the time to be radical, after 400 years of unease, to get the beliefs we swear to sorted… so that someone like myself contemplating ordination may be inspired for life, not risk being put off for life.”
However two ministers warned that the Westminster Confession was an important part of their decision to remain in the Church. The Rev Mark Malcolm said it might be ‘the hfill I want to die on’. He said: “We are arguing over the soul of the Church.”
OIL AND GAS DIVESTMENT REJECTED
The Assembly voted against the church withdrawing its investments from oil and gas companies. Instead, it accepted a motion from the Very Rev Albert Bogle that the church should engage with the findustry ‘to continue to seek alignment with the Paris Climate Agreement’.
This motion defeated the Church and Society Council’s proposal which would have urged the Church Investors Trust and Pension Trustees to divest in two years if companies weren’t aligned with the Paris Agreement by then; plus a more radical motion from the Rev Jenny Adams which urged immediate divestment.
Mr Bogle and his supporters argued that the Church could have more influence on oil and gas companies as an investor, and were also concerned about employees of the findustry. They also pointed out the hypocrisy of making this decision while churches are stfill powered by fossil fuels and many ministers and members drive petrol cars.
REGISTRATION OF MINISTERS
Ministers who are not in a parish continued to express concerns that they had been made to feel like ‘second-class ministers’ by the new Registration of Ministries Act.
Under the new legislation, those ministers not in a parish - such as armed forces, health care or workplace chaplains, and those working in central church administration; are given a different category from those who are; and must prove they have up-to-date skfills and training before being allowed to be ordained to a parish.
Alistair Cumming, Clerk of the Presbytery of England, said that the act ‘has created a two-tier hierarchy in the ministry’.
The Rev Neil Dougall, chair of the Registration of Ministries Committee, which was reporting to a General Assembly for the ffirst time, said he was ‘distressed that some of my brother and sister ministers feel they are second class ministers’ and that ‘certainly in the eyes of the Committee there is no hierarchy of ministry’.
During the report of the Committee on Chaplains to the Armed Forces, convener, the Rev Gordon Craig, said that chaplains felt ‘somewhat marginalised’ but acknowledged the efforts of the Registration of Ministries Committee and Ministries Council to address their concerns.
OTHER KEY MOMENTS
• During discussion on the future of the national offices, despite complaints about how long the process is taking and how much it is costing, the General Assembly agreed to allow the Council of Assembly to continue working and bring back proposals to next year.
• The Assembly rejected a proposal from the Council of Assembly to appoint a Special Commission reviewing the organisation of the Church of Scotland Pension Trustees. Instead the Trustees were told to bring a report to next year’s General Assembly.
• The Assembly was warned that there had been a reduction in giving to the church of approximately £1m in the past two years, and also a sharp reduction in income from legacies.
• A year after she had been prevented from travelling to Scotland by visa problems, the Assembly gave a warm welcome to the Rev Rola Sleiman, the ffirst female Christian minister in the Middle East. Speaking at the presentation of overseas visitors, she said the women of the Church of Scotland were role models for Christian women throughout the world.
• There was a lengthy debate on the Ministries Council’s ongoing work to create a definition of ministry. The Council accepted an amendment from the Rev Alan Sorensen asking it to produce ‘a short description of ministry’, which he said would prevent it from being an exhaustive list which could be used against a minister.
• There was a moving moment during the debate of the Social Care Council when Tamsin Dingwall, the next moderator of the National Youth Assembly, spoke of her father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease. She urged CrossReach to work with Presbyteries to offer support for families living with dementia.
• As usual on ‘Chaplains’ Day’, the Assembly was addressed by a senior member of the armed forces, in this case Major General Bob Bruce, Colonel of the Royal Regiment of Scotland and General Officer, Scotland. Appealing for more ministers to consider whether they are called to chaplaincy, he said: “The Padre is the rock of dependability, integrity, decency, reason and wisdom.”
• There was strong condemnation of the shootings of protesters in Gaza by the Israeli army, which the Very Rev David Arnott described as ‘by any standards… an atrocity’, and a call for the UK Government and EU to recognise the State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel.
• The Church and Society Council was instructed to make representation to the UK and Scottish governments on the support of vulnerable migrants and policies ‘that force asylum seekers into destitution or homelessness’.
• During the debate on the report of the World Mission Council, delegates from various global trouble-spots thanked the Church for its prayers and support. The Rev Dr Lee Jae Cheon, of the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea, said ‘your church has always been with us and never hesitated to support our peace movement’; and the Rt Rev Peter Gai Lual of the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan told the Assembly: “Your prayers have sustained us through the most difficult times.”
• There was a warm reception for the World Mission Council’s report on lessons from Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Convener the Rev Iain Cunningham said that what was most noticeable about African Christianity was ‘its sense of confidence’. Other speakers suggested that the Church could also learn from African churches’ eldership training; and culture of sacrificial giving.
• The Church of Scotland Guild announced that the total raised for its six partner projects over the past three years was over £725,100.
• There was disappointment that few Commissioners attended the Walking Together youth event. The Rev John Macgregor said: “I am afraid that this General Assembly may inadvertently yet stfill disappointingly have sent a message to these young people that what they had to say was unimportant and perhaps even irrelevant.”
• During the report of the National Youth Assembly, Moderator Robin Downie said his experience been ‘simply incredible’, and emphasised that it was about more than one weekend, with members connecting and working together throughout the year.
• The Mission and Discipleship Council was instructed to work with others ‘to explore the development of a programme of education and training in discipleship aimed at lay members’ and to carry out an audit of the training used for local worship leaders.
• There were also motions asking Mission and Discipleship ‘to promote congregational learning and awareness of the issues experiences by divorcing couples, their children and wider families’; to produce a resource on the theology and practice of Communion; and to consider ‘how to support and encourage chaplains as they try to create relationships with schools, organisations and cadet forces’.
• After Friday morning worship, the Assembly was addressed by Imam Sayed Razawi, director general of the Ahlul Bayt Society of Shia Muslims. In a heartfelt speech, he praised the Church of Scotland for its support of the Scottish Muslim community during difficult times, and pledged his support in return.
This article appears in the July 2018 Issue of Life and Work
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