This is a book about a hugely significant episode in recent and current Scottish Church history, but it is more than that. As well as giving us the background to these decisions, and a detailed but succinct account of the events as they unfolded, David Randall supplies a very helpful chapter in which he gives an overview of the biblical teaching on the issue at the heart of this controversy – though he is at pains to point out that ultimately this is not a dispute about sexuality but authority – the authority of Scripture.

This is a book that frankly you wish didn’t have to be written but which you are glad has been. It became necessary because of the recent developments in the Church of Scotland which have seen the denomination reject the authority of Scripture and its biblical roots and accept the ordination of ministers who are practising homosexuals.

There are few more qualified than David Randall to guide us. David spent 40 years as a Church of Scotland, serving all that period in one parish in the northeast of Scotland. He also served the denomination in a number of capacities so is very familiar with the inner workings of the church. Now retired he has left the denomination in which he ministered for so long, precisely because of the issues he addresses in this extremely readable book

The author sets out to chart the recent and sad history of this once great, reformed denomination that boasted a gospel presence in every town and village of the country. However, in recent years, it has been in freefall numerically, a decline matched only by its spiritual and theological decay.

In what Sinclair Ferguson describes in the foreword as ‘almost novelesque’, David Randall records how over several recent General Assemblies, the highest court and decision making body in the church moved inexorably towards its current position which places its own authority over that of Scripture. In 2013 they passed the self-contradictory motion that while they ‘affirm the Church’s historic and current doctrine and practice in relation to human sexuality; nonetheless permit those Kirk Sessions who wish to depart from that doctrine and practice to do so.’ A personal friend told me that proposal had been drafted on the back of an envelope over a coffee break and if that isn’t actually factually correct it might as well have been! The 2015 General Assembly officially ratified the right of Kirk Sessions to call as ministers those in same-sex civil partnerships and also opened to door, subject to further discussion, to those in same-sex marriages.

The overall tone of this book is reflected in its title. There is nothing triumphalist in the tone of writing, no ‘holier-than-thou’ judgmentalism; just genuine grief that such a state of affairs has come to pass. In the words of one of the churches who felt constrained to leave, ‘…if we must leave our church, it should always be with tears – not with drums playing and flags flying.’ The author is also at pains not to ‘name and shame’. He refers to job titles and roles within the church but there is no public shaming of the key protagonists in this sorry saga, something I find impressive in this day and age.

This is a book about a hugely significant episode in recent and current Scottish Church history, but it is more than that. As well as giving us the background to these decisions, and a detailed but succinct account of the events as they unfolded, David Randall supplies a very helpful chapter in which he gives an overview of the biblical teaching on the issue at the heart of this controversy – though he is at pains to point out that ultimately this is not a dispute about sexuality but authority – the authority of Scripture.

Read More