Doulos McKenzie
Puritan Board Freshman
I was just wondering what the differences were between the Free Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland (continuing) and also why did they split?
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d. The continuing character of the right of protest was freely recognised by General Assemblies of the Free Church in the Nineteenth Century when protesters were free both to submit renewed Protests and to campaign outside Church Courts without fear of being disciplined.
Whilst I enjoyed moving to St Peters in Dundee and gradually seeing a dying congregation revived, the 1990’s was a dreadful decade in the denomination that almost killed us. A declining church struggled with internal infighting over discipline, the future direction of the church, money and how we coped with a changing ecclesiastical and civil culture in Scotland. This resulted in the split of 2000 and the forming of the Free Church (Continuing)- yet another Presbyterian church claiming to be the true heirs of the Scottish Reformation! Despite the dire warnings of a third of the Church leaving, we lost less than 10%, although we did lose 26 ministers. Whilst it was painful, and we lost some good people, overall it turned out that much of it was ‘blessed subtraction’ – we lost a number of people who were significant hindrances to the development and growth of the church. As a result the dam was broken and the church actually advanced 20 years in two.
The 2000’s were a decade of re-building and some renewal. We had major issues to deal with – the most important in a structural sense were worship, the college, mission and finance. We began to face up to all of these, with a number of leaders and thinkers stepping up to the mark. At a personal level I felt that if the Church had not reformed and renewed by my 25th year in the ministry (2011) then it would have been over. However things did change. Dramatically. Not just with the stunning decision over worship but also in a more realistic attitude to who we were and what needed to be done. The worship decision was stunning not only because of the result (which no-one expected), but the way it was done and the fact, that despite all the direst predictions, there was not another split in the church.