In the name of Christian liberty and freedom of conscience, these men are demanding the freedom, not to practice what they believe is right, but to prevent others from doing what, in their own consciences according to the Word of God, they believe is right.

In this second essay on the issues facing the Free Church after the Plenary Assembly and the reactions to it, I continue to offer a personal reflection on some of what is going on.

We are at a very dangerous time. After a harmonious and well conducted procedure, including the Plenary Assembly, it appears as though the Devil is not just prepared to allow things to go by so smoothly and a number of people are stirring up a real fuss.

Amidst all the noise there are some real issues that need to be addressed – not least this one – The Tyranny of the Conscience. I hope that you enjoy reading this and that it provokes to love and good works…if I have got anything wrong (that is not according to the Word of God) then forgive me and ignore it. And above all pray….that we may have liberty and freedom to worship Jesus Christ according to the His Word.

Defending the Free Church (2) – The Tyranny of Conscience.

WCF 20:2. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in any thing, contrary to His Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.

The more I go on in life, the more I appreciate the importance of the teaching of the Westminster Confession. Sometimes it just gets it spot on. None more so than in the section above on the liberty of the conscience. As someone committed to the teaching of the Confession, I am astonished that some people in the Free Church do not seem to grasp or understand or accept the Confession’s teaching on the conscience, and seem to have made conscience the be all and end all.

In this second essay on the dangers facing the Free Church, let me explain why the ‘Tyranny of the Conscience” is such an important issue.

I have suspected this for some time, but it all really hit home at the plenary assembly. One of the commissioners stood up and, to my utter astonishment, declared that we, as governors of the Church, governed by means of our consciences. He implied that our consciences were sacred and that they were the criteria by which we determine things.

After the Assembly there were many murmurings about liberty of conscience and people’s consciences being offended – indeed as I write I have just received an e-mail from a man claiming that I am attacking his conscience. At least one presbytery there were men who stood up, made emotional speeches and tugged at the heartstrings about how their consciences were being violated.

Martin Luther-like – there men were declaring ‘here I stand, I can do no other’. It is a powerful emotional argument. And it is one of the most dangerous heresies facing the church today.

In order to explain why, let me shift to another Presbytery. This time in the Church of Scotland. An older minister stands up and addresses the presbytery in sincere, moving and very emotional terms. He too speaks of his conscience and how his son is gay and how he must support and show love to his son. How dare the church condemn his son? How dare the church go against his conscience?

After such an emotive speech, those who believed the bible’s teaching on homosexuality hadn’t a leg to stand on. Actually that is not true. They did. They had the legs of Scripture, but in our touchy feely, postmodern, individualistic, emotional culture, they hadn’t a hope. Not unless people were prepared to put the Word of God above everything else.

In the Free Church we don’t need to be smug and superior about the Church of Scotland, as though we were in no danger of letting this post-modern individualism be the trump card. We are in constant danger of letting Scripture be second – using it only to back up our already pre-conceived positions.

In the Free Church we accept two vital doctrines about the Church, firstly that Christ is head of the Church, and secondly that those who are leaders in the church, the undershepherds, govern only by his Word. That is the point of the confessions teaching. Not to absolutise the conscience, but to bring everything, including the conscience, under the authority of the Word of God.

When a man stands up and says that his conscience will not allow him to do this or that, the Presbytery should not immediately bow before his conscience. To do so is to undermine the Word of God and to establish the tyranny of the conscience. I remember a man once telling me that his conscience would not allow him to say the Lord’s Prayer in church, another who declared that his conscience would not let him read the NIV in church- in both instances these men walked out of the church.

In fact one of the biggest curses in the Christian church today is those brothers and sisters who have such hypersensitive consciences. I don’t wish to appear unsympathetic, but surely the response to such people is just simply “get over yourself!

You are not that important. Since when did your conscience or mine become the standard by which this church is run?”

Is this to say that conscience is unimportant? No. Of course not. But it is to say that our consciences are to be subject to the Word of God. They are not absolute. They do not get everything right.

The criteria by which everything should be judged is the Word of God. The fact is that those who argued against allowing some Free Churches to use hymns and play instrumental music did not win the scriptural argument. In fact their case was so weak that many of those ‘in the middle’ or who had doubts were won over by the case presented on the other side. That is the only way that such a change could have occurred within the Free Church.

We set aside time for prayer and asked to receive the mind of the Holy Spirit. And we did. So now the only arguments left are the legalistic constitutional ones (of which more in the third essay) and the emotive plea of ‘what about my conscience? How dare you offend my conscience?”

I am almost embarrassed to go any further into this because it becomes so ridiculous. This is not to say that conscience is not an important thing. When Martin Luther made his famous protestations and declared that he could and would not recant from the Word of God, he was making a bold and heroic stance for Christian liberty, which could very easily have cost him his life.

What about our modern day wannbeheroic stance are they taking? Will they be martyred as they stand unflinching in front of the harps?! What are they being asked to do, that hurts them so much, causes them to have sleepless nights and so traumatises them that it even induces one presbytery to offer compassionate leave to those who consciences have been so brutalised? Public praise. But what aspect? Are people being compelled to take the mass, to deny the Scriptures, to worship idols?

No. It is about singing hymns and praising God with musical instruments. And is anyone being compelled to do that? Did the Free Church make a law that makes mandatory the singing of Amazing Grace to the accompaniment of a piano? No. So what precisely is their conscience offended by? If they are free to practice and to preach exclusive psalmody, just what is the issue?

It’s simple. Their consciences are offended that someone else, somewhere else may at some time sing Amazing Grace and use a piano to do so. It reminds me a bit of the old cruel adage that the definition of a Scottish Calvinist is ‘someone who is miserable at the thought of someone else, somewhere else, enjoying themselves’!

Mind you these are very modern, sensitive and astute consciences – apparently they are not offended if this is done in other churches, or if you do not call in it public worship (even though it is held in public). No, apparently, this devastating trauma is only caused when a Free Church minister issues a call to worship in a Free Church building on the Sabbath, and finishes it with a benediction. Anything else is fine. Worship the Golden Calf in private if you will!

There is an extraordinary irony here. In the name of Christian liberty and freedom of conscience, these men are demanding the freedom, not to practice what they believe is right, but to prevent others from doing what, in their own consciences according to the Word of God, they believe is right. In other words what their conscience is telling them is that they should have the freedom to throw me out of the Church, for daring to sing the name of Jesus or singing a psalm (meaning – song of praise to be sung with stringed instrument) with a stringed instrument.

Now you see why I am embarrassed. It is petty, pathetic and perverse. I have no difficulty in giving them freedom to act according to their consciences (in all things of course being subject to the Word of God and the boundaries it places), why then do they insist that their consciences should govern mine?

Speaking of which, let me admit, my conscience often bothers me…. sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about things I should not have said or done, about how I could be a better husband and father, a better pastor, about my greed and materialism, my sin and selfishness. But I must admit that I can never envisage either myself or anyone lying in bed at night, tossing and turning, heart ripped apart in angst, because Smithton Free Church sang ‘To God be the Glory’ last Sunday morning. That to me would indicate at the very least a somewhat distorted conscience, if not one ‘seared as with a hot iron’.

So here is my plea to those who are using this argument. Stop it. Get a sense of Gospel perspective. I think your views about exclusive psalmody are wrong, but I will defend your right to hold and to practice them. Please extend the courtesy likewise. Don’t ask me to obey your commands just to appease your conscience. I can’t. I am committed to the Confessions understanding of Scripture and it’s teaching on conscience. To obey because of fear (whether of hurting you, offending your conscience or your punishing me) would be to betray that teaching.

I am not saying that you have to obey my conscience. I am saying that my conscience is subject to the Word of God. So tell me the Word of God. You were given plenty opportunities over the past four years to prove that your position was the only scriptural one. If you could have demonstrated that then it would have been dead easy. But you didn’t. You blew it. So stop the emotional bullying – I honestly don’t really care about your conscience, if is it based on nothing more than how you feel.

Let me tell you what I do care about.

I care that you want to throw me out of the church in order to assuage your conscience.

I care that you can get so worked up about these relatively minor issues.

I care that you are so obsessed with this that you are prepared to disregard the Presbyterian government and the public witness of the Church, and all the procedures we went through, just so that you can get your way.

I care that in order to ‘defend the church’ you are prepared to destroy it, that in the name of unity you are prepared to disfellowship all who disagree with you.

I care that you play on people’s emotions and ignorance, that you use tradition, culture, fear and personality, to manipulate and twist people.

But most of all, today of all days, I care that when an elderly man in my congregation has just been taken to hospital, when I have just heard that a baby boy is dying, when a relative has been diagnosed with cancer, when half my congregation on Sunday evening were lost sinners who came because we sang carols which you want to ban, when the pressures, stress, coldness and needs of 21st Century Scotland are pressing in upon us – that this is what floats your boat, motivates your conscience and seems to drive you – and that this is what I am wasting my time on.

Would that the passion you and I invest in this were used instead on the people of Scotland, who are lost, like sheep without a shepherd. Instead of seeking to destroy other parts of Christ’s vineyard, why not just get on with the real work, and leave the rest of us to do likewise? I cannot claim any moral or spiritual superiority over you.

After all I have just wasted a precious hour writing this. And I am all too conscious of how spiritually cold and weary I am. But please, keep your conscience to yourself, start getting a grip on the reality of the Scotland we live in, and leave me alone to follow Christ, according to my conscience – not yours. All in subjection to his Word, and the praise of his glorious name.

David Robertson is a minister in the Free Church of Scotland. He is currently serving as the pastor of St. Peter’s Church, Dundee (a pulpit once filled by Robert Murray M’Cheyne. He serves as editor for the Free Church of Scotland Monthly magazine, as well as being chaplain for the University of Dundee. This article first appeared on his blog, http://www.stpeters-dundee.org.uk/davidblog  and is reprinted with his permission. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]