Cornerstone No . 190 , page 8
Life & Work
Time for Change
Terry Deary and Martin Brown are the brains behind the Horrible Histories series , which has made history both accessible and interesting to young readers . I ’ ve often wondered about asking them to write a history of the Church of Scotland – I ’ m not sure how many readers it would attract , but it would certainly fall into their genre of writing ! Tertullian noted that the distinguishing mark of the early church was the quality of their love for one another and that they seemed willing to die for each other . The history which has shaped the present-day Church of Scotland does not have as its most obvious characteristic such deep roots in love for those who belong to the same community of faith . Our past is deeply scarred by disagreement , separation and secession and that kind of stuff has become lodged in our psyche , providing an ideal breeding ground for conflict and making it hard for us to know how to live with our differences . Perhaps it is a comment made by Principal John Cunningham of St Mary ’ s College in St Andrews which best sums up the character which has blighted the Church in Scotland for too long . Writing just a few years after the Disruption which gave birth to the Free Church of Scotland , he says : “ Never perhaps , in the history of any Church has so great a voluntary sacrifice been made for so slender a principle – but yet not too slender for the Scottish Ecclesiastical conscience to apprehend and exalt it into a question of life and death .” The 1929 reunion was welcomed in a great public fanfare ; but a few years later John Burleigh , pre-eminent Professor of Scottish church history and Moderator of the General Assembly in 1960 , wrote in his
: “ It is one thing to unite denominations , and quite another to unite congregations which are proud of their traditions and tenacious of their rights . Presbyterianism has always fostered strong congregational life . It is easy to be critical of parochialism or congregationalism in this sense and to demand thorough rationalisation . But grave spiritual damage may be done if this problem is not handled with patience , sympathy and Christian insight .”