Scotland's Soul

I really enjoyed reading Harry Reid’s The Soul of Scotland: Celebrating Scotland’s Spiritual Richness. It is a fascinating selection of pieces exploring Scotland’s religious heritage in a variety of ways, and I found it far more interesting than I had expected.

Reid recognises the challenges of a secular society, but also the depth of Christian faith that has been part of Scottish history. I love the comment that: “Scottish Christianity is neither dead nor dying; it may just be having a wee nap before it rises and flourishes once more.”

Reid is clear that it has flourished in the past, and contributed a great deal. Different articles talk about people, places and literature. So, for instance, he says of George MacLeod – “I think of George MacLeod as a world-class troublemaker, and a frequently inspirational one. His legacy may be slightly misty (as Iona often is), but I suspect that it may become more important in time,” and of William Barclay, my first New Testament teacher at the University of Glasgow – “one genuinely great, and utterly natural, television communicator had emerged. This was the perhaps unlikely figure of Professor William Barclay of Glasgow University, a brilliant Biblical scholar possessed of a pleasant, if rather hoarse – and very Scottish – voice, a broadcasting manner that somehow managed to combine gruffness and charm, and the supreme gift of interpreting the teachings of Jesus – and in particular his parables – in a way that was lucid, intelligent and couthy all at once. Barclay was an authentic and very clever scholar, but he was never an aloof academic.”

But perhaps I was most fascinated by his writings about Scottish novels, and their contribution – which set me to reading John Buchan’s “Witch Wood.”

Reforming the Kirk

I have just finished reading Doug Gay’s Reforming the Kirk: The Future of the Church of Scotland, (based on the 2017 Chalmers Lectures), a fascinating, but also extremely challenging, read. Gay is very clearly writing to and for the Church of Scotland context and there is much that is specific to that; but there is also a great deal that can easily be applied to my own United Reformed Church context, either directly or with just a little thought as to the differences. Indeed, Doug Gay has served as a URC minister and seeks to apply some of what he learned there to the ‘Kirk’ context.

He is writing into the situation of decline which challenges the vast majority of mainline traditional denominational Christianity in the UK in these days. As he says of the Church of Scotland context, but it applies much more widely: “From the 1960s, membership began to decline, numbers of church weddings declined, numbers of infant baptisms declined and attendances at worship declined. That such decline has been a painful and dispiriting experience for hundreds of thousands of Scots is beyond question. Some of the ministers retiring now or who retired in the past decade, especially those who were ordained in the 1970s, have spent their whole ministries with declining congregations.”

He is concerned to suggest possible solutions for a refreshing of the Kirk. As he says: “Increasingly, institutional survival will come only through missional renewal. The tide is going out too fast for it to be otherwise. Sessions which had functioned reasonably well as administrative or pastoral bodies are experiencing new and unsettling challenges as urgent questions about missional leadership are put to them.”

I am fascinated by some of what he says about eldership, ministry and church organisation – but exploring that would take too much space here. What can certainly be agreed is that there is a crisis. He talks of the Kirk seeing the threat of congregationalism but, I think, suggests we need to reduce the amount of centralisation. He says: “Without compromising on generosity and solidarity, we need to reinvigorate local motivations to be sustainable and adventurous. Our current highly centralised systems are strong on pooling and sharing, but they look increasingly less well suited to motivating local giving. The acute missional challenges facing the Kirk over the period to 2030 call for a new financial imagination which will maintain a powerful commitment to smart, creative and empowering expressions of national sharing while incentivising a new era of local responsibility and offering greater local and regional flexibility.“  That same debate is very live in the URC, as we, too, struggle with the balance between emphasising the local, the regional (presbytery/Synod) and the denomination, despite those points where he cites us as being a good example. Though many colleagues would disagree with me, I, too, wonder if we have become, and continue to become, too centralised.

Incidentally, I really like his idea of commissioned elders, not replacing, but going alongside the traditional ordained for life model. He suggests: “The Kirk would introduce a new form of eldership alongside the old. Commissioned elders, as I suggest we call them, would be set aside to serve for periods of three years, with that three-year commission capable of being extended indefinitely, subject to concurrence on both sides. The decision to be commissioned or ordained would lie with the prospective elder and they would be asked to make it on the basis of discerning whether they understood their calling to the office in terms of a lifelong consecration or a time-limited assignment. No judgement would be made about depth of faith or degree of commitment, the discernment of vocation would be related to what Moltmann describes as the ‘charismatic freedom’ of the church, recognising that after one or more terms of commissioned eldership, a woman or man might feel called to a different sphere of service. Both forms of eldership would be eligible to fulfil exactly the same functions within the courts and councils of the Church of Scotland. The advantage of this reform would be that without diminishing, altering or undercutting the status of those already ordained to eldership, or preventing others being ordained in the future, new avenues of ministry could be opened up to church members who have the gifting and calling to serve, but have not felt called to be ‘ordained’ to this office for life.”

Could we possibly pull that off?

Discernment

Henri Nouwen has, of course, long been one of my favourite and go-to authors. My latest exploration of his insights came in reading his book Discernment, one of a number of books put together posthumously from his notes and records of his lectures and speaking. As always, there is lots of value.

Discernment is not necessarily easy, or something that helps us find a way of avoiding difficult things. As the book’s introduction says – “In Henri’s view, discernment should proceed from a person’s grounded, ordinary life. He did not want people to think that our goal is to escape from our everyday stresses and conflicts. Instead, we should invite the Holy Spirit into our direct experience, into our thoughts, memories, worries, and plans. Instead of seeking a life free from pain and suffering, we should trust that Jesus is present in our pain and suffering.”

Nouwen points out that discernment is about discovering where God wants us to be. “To discern means first of all to listen to God, to pay attention to God’s active presence, and to obey God’s prompting, direction, leadings, and guidance.”

He adds: “When we are spiritually deaf, we are not aware that anything important is happening in our lives. We keep running away from the present moment, and we try to create experiences that make our lives worthwhile. So we fill up our time to avoid the emptiness we otherwise would feel. When we are truly listening, we come to know that God is speaking to us, pointing the way, showing the direction. We simply need to learn to keep our ears open. Discernment is a life of listening to a deeper sound and marching to a different beat, a life in which we become “all ears.””

God is there for us, but it is all too easy not to notice that – if we lack discernment. It is important to notice that we are valued by God. As Nouwen puts it – “Claiming our belovedness does not come easily for many of us. There are competing voices we hear. When one voice says we’re nothing but a sinner and another voice says we are the beloved of God, we are called to discern the spirits and follow the inner voice of love.” Yes, we matter!