General Assembly shows the Church of Scotland lacks a clear identity or purpose

Another Church of S cotland General Assembly has passed with its accompanying parsimonious pageantry, reinforcing how small and poor Scotland is considered compared with London’s majestic pomp.

Mediaeval court language sets the tone of every Assembly. The Church of Scotland is bound up with monarchy, the inherited class system, the military, with deference, preferments, empire honours, knighthoods and distinct ions, given mostly but not exclusively to the clergy. There is much obsequiousness among the socially ambitious. No wonder the Church of Scotland feigned neutrality before the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. The erstwhile, politically-loud national church was silent on the major issue of the time.

This recent General Assembly was described as radical, having taken decisions to concentrate central management on fewer people, downsize the vastly overstaffed 121 George Street bureaucracy and reduce the number of presbyteries from 43 to 12.

A clearer command structure is to be model led on the businesses and prof essi ons whose offices are all along George Street and this to be implemented by elders and ministers who want to run the Church of Scotland as a corporation. Contrast Canterbury and Rome with their personal and pastoral Christian identities.

Little will change except that congregations will feel further distanced from these regional centres and from 121 George Street. The church is its people, not its institutions.

There are deeper issues which members of the Church of Scotland require to consider. What is the message that the Church of Scotland wants to communicate? Is it core Christianity? What is its relationship to Jesus of Nazareth? How detrimental are the historical associations of the Church of Scotland, the nature of its 16 th century Chexit, the Covenanting battles, the 1707 Union, the Highland clearances, British imperialism, late-20th century leftwing politics, recent social liberalism?

The Church of Scotland has no clear identity or purpose. It has made a significant contribution to Scotland and far beyond. But it is not set for the future. It needs a proper reformation. But can the Church of Scotland which is old enter its mother’s womb and be born again? REV DR ROBERT ANDERSON

Old Auchans View, Dundonald