Cornerstone No. 190, page 9
He was right. Burleigh notes that in the first 30 years of the Union 700 local
unions and readjustments had been effected. That represents an average of 23
per year and that rate has never slowed up. Given our natural propensity for
resisting change and our inherited predisposition for dispute we have paid no
small price in the process of restructuring the church.
I don’t know how it could have been avoided but I do know that it has cost us
in time, talent and money and it has cost us in a general drift away from the
local church.
The point of this potted history is to encourage us to stop and think about how
we must resist the patterns of behaviour which have beset us in the past and
adopt a new and more positive attitude to building and planning for the future.
Urgent change is needed in almost every part of our church life. The structure
of our version of Presbyterianism is groaning under the weight of too much
bureaucracy. Presbytery reform is still a crucial requirement. The ministry of the
local church needs a new reformation. Even our confession and expression of
faith needs radically reframed.
It was Albert Einstein who famously said, “We cannot solve our problems with
the same thinking we used when we created them.” This Titanic of a church
may well be sailing very close to its iceberg and I wonder if instead of trading
the same old arguments we are any closer to listening to and learning from one
another. I wonder if we might have grown up enough to realise that there are
no knock-out blows on matters of so-called ‘great principle’.
I wonder if we can learn from our horrible history and build a more inclusive,
accepting, understanding and loving community of faith.
From
the magazine of the Church of Scotland
Biblical Faith:
It's not a leap into the dark;
rather it is a step into the light.
Deadline for the next edition of Cornerstone:
11 th March 2018