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History
at Glasgow 2000
United Reformed Church
Among the various Puritan groups which emerged
from
the English Reformation were the Presbyterians and the Independents, or
Congregationalists. The first group was much the larger and varied. All
Puritans were for simplicity in worship, the public exposition of
scripture
and corporate leadership of the Church. They were against elaborate
ceremonies
and prelacy. Some of these Puritans felt so strongly about their
beliefs
that they endured fines, imprisonment and exile rather than compromise.
After
their triumph under the Commonwealth, when Cromwell was particularly
sympathetic
to Independents, they were forced to abandon the idea of a National
Church
of England based on presbyterian or congregational principles by the
1662
Act of Uniformity. From 1689 they were tolerated by the Establishment,
but
not encouraged. Although excluded they retained a large view of the
church.
William Bagshaw, ejected from his Derbyshire living of Glossop in 1662,
exercised
a ministry throughout the Peak District and said of himself in his will
of
1701 that he professed himself "a member of the truly called Catholic
and
Universal Church, and an honourer of that famous part thereof that is
in
Old and New England & elsewhere, holding my inward communion
with all
the faithful and outward with all the owners of truth so far as I can
without
sin. . . "
By the middle of the eighteenth century many of
the nominally
Presbyterian congregations in England were turning to Unitarianism.
Attempts
to bring Presbyterian and Independent congregations into national union
had failed. Some Independents still carried on a vigorous life, under
the
leadership of such ministers as Isaac Watts and Philip Doddridge. The
old
evangelical Puritan traditions were rekindled by the awakening preached
by
John Wesley and George Whitefield
Whitefield, a Calvinist, exerted particular
influence on old
dissent in England and Wales. By 1800 old Presbyterian and Independent
causes
were being revived and new ones begun. What were to become the Churches
of Christ can also be traced from this time, especially amongst Scots
Baptists.
County associations of Congregationalists were begun, culminating in
the
formation of a Congregational Union for England and Wales. Scottish
migration
helped revive and reconstruct Presbyterianism, particularly in northern
England. The various strands came together in the Presbyterian Church
of
England. Though never as numerically strong as the combined branches of
Methodism, Congregational and Presbyterian churches, and their members,
played a leading role in civic and national life, especially after full
civil
liberties were extended to Dissenters and Roman Catholics. R. W. Dale
of
Carr's Lane Birmingham is the archetype of all these intelligent and
creative
minds, usually aligned politically with the Liberal party, since the
Conservatives
supported the Church of England. They played a significant part in
opening
up provincial universities, libraries and art galleries and in
promoting
commerce. Their traditions of scholarship were carried into our own
times
by such people as H H Farmer, John Oman, George Caird, C H Dodd.
Congregationalists,
Presbyterians and the Churches of Christ were also involved in forming
the
Evangelical Alliance, out of which grew the modern ecumenical movement.
In the twentieth century various attempts were
made to bring
Presbyterians and Congregationalists in England into a single
denomination,
but this was not achieved until 1972, when a minority of
Congregationalists
still felt it right to stay apart. The Reformed Association of the
Churches
of Christ, in England and Scotland, enlarged the numbers and widened
the
polity of the United Reformed Church in 1981. The denomination exerted
an
influence in ecumenical affairs out of proportion to its numbers. In
the
language of liturgy and hymnody members of the United Reformed Church
were
at the forefront of change from 1960 onwards. Questions of social
justice
and international issues, what were termed the "life and work" issues
of
the ecumenical agenda, much occupied Congregationalists and
Presbyterians.
They, too, tentatively pioneered the way on the ordination of women and
the remarriage of divorcees in church. The willingness to change is
evidenced
by the many local URC congregations in England and Wales which
constitute
ecumenical projects and the numbers of ministers of other denominations
represented
on the pastoral roll.
Out of this background of evangelical and
ecumenical commitment
the United Reformed Church comes to this moment, hoping that our
experience
of creating a church defined by conviction and not by territory will
contribute
to the church catholic.
Stephen Orchard (Revd) |
Congregational
Union of Scotland
Scottish Congregationalism in common with the rest of Christendom
derives from the early Church - the foot of the cross and Pentecost.
Contrary
to a popular assumption it is not an import, but as native as tartan.
With
the rest of the Scottish Church it shares the heritage of Ninian,
Columba
and the Celtic Church, and that church's later translation to an
Episcopal,
Roman model.
Scotland's Reformation was as confused, messy and
complex as
that of any nation. It was born during forty years of struggling
regency.
Protracted arm-wrestling between Kirk and Crown on the issues of
Presbytery-versus-Bishop
and Church-versus-State turned the visionary, Presbyterian
Church of the Scottish Reformation by the time of the Civil Wars into
an
intolerant one. The time was not ripe for a Scottish Congregationalism.
Cromwell's New Model Army did attempt to hard-sell Congregationalism to
Scotland, during its eight-year occupation, but these efforts barely
survived
the Restoration.
In the 18th Century voices dissenting from the
Kirk could
be heard in Scotland. The Glasites, the Old Scots Independents and the
Berians,
three indigenous forms of Congregationalism, came and went as movements
concerned to synthesise the primitive New Testament Church. Their
example
however was still in currency when a more dynamic movement began.
In 1798 Robert and James Haldane with others
founded The Society
for Propagating the Gospel at Home. Its purpose was
evangelical revival,
and it used lay catechists and preachers as well as ordained. Sunday
Schools
for adults and juveniles were part of the agenda which was ecumenical
in
vision, driven by mission and more concerned with promoting faith and
spirituality
than founding a new denomination. Excluded from Presbyterian pulpits
they
established tabernacle preaching stations, which would become
Congregational
Churches. Ten years later a schism occurred when the Haldanes became
Baptists.
Greville Ewing gave leadership to the on-going Congregationalists, and
was
instrumental in founding the Theological Academy in 1811. The
Congregational
Union was formed the next year with the twin aims of mission and church
aid.
In the middle years of the 19h Century hard-line
Calvinism was
being questioned by James Morison in the Secession Church and by John
Kirk
in the Congregational Union, both of whom moved steadily towards
Universalist
doctrines.
Morison with others who had been expelled from the
Secession Church
formed the Evangelical Union in 1843, and John Kirk and others from the
Congregational
Union who had been disassociated soon joined them. It formulated a
Doctrinal
Declaration to explain its position to other bodies, but treasured
freedom
of conscience and never required a credal affirmation from its
membership.
From 1843 until 1896 Scotland had two unions of voluntary, independent
churches
with similar membership standards and an aversion to creeds. At first
they
were alienated by theological differences but, as decades of more
liberal
theology came in, the small print of Calvinism lost much of its
importance
to both bodies. Negotiations lead the two Unions to a Uniting Assembly
on
1st October l896.
In the weaving trade, a tartan is defined by its
thread count.
The numbers and arrangement of the threads on the loom determine the
blocs
of colour in the ground together with the lines, which give it its
distinctive
character. In the story of Scottish Congregationalism certain colours
stand
out.
The first is mission. It has been one of our
raisons d'etre. Mission
drove the Haldanite revival and the theology of Greville Ewing. It
motivated
both Unions in their engagement with the social issues of the
Nineteenth
Century. Inspired by the World Missionary Conference of 1910 in
Edinburgh,
the recently united Union was constant in its support of the London
Missionary
Society and in its participation in the Council for World Mission.
There
were also in the Twentieth Century three periods of planned church
extension,
and at least three periods of soul-searching and reappraisal in which
commitment
to mission was reaffirmed. In 1993, after the last of these periods, we
took
on the working practices of a church and built mission into our
structures,
from local to national.
Ecumenism also runs broadly through our history.
The Society
for Propagating the Gospel at Home was originally intended to serve the
whole
Church in Scotland. The founders of our two parent Unions were excluded
from
their original churches, and the form of church government chosen by
each
was a principled but pragmatic response to their exclusion. The Union
formed
in 1896 played its part in the formation of Scottish Churches' Council
in
the 1920's. It made an Ecumenical Committee part of its structure in
the
1940's in a period of ecumenical enthusiasm which saw the founding of
the
Church of South India and the World Council of Churches. From
recognition
that the visible disunity of the Church was hampering mission and
squandering
resources, there came a growing commitment to what became known as the
Ecumenical
Imperative. Between 1965 and 1988 the Congregational Union of Scotland
explored
unity with the Church of Scotland, the Churches of Christ, the United
Free
Church of Scotland and the United Reformed Church in the United
Kingdom.
Although the proposals from the latter won in our Assembly a 65% vote
in
favour of Union it fell short of the legal requirement. We reaffirmed
our
commitment to the Ecumenical journey in 1991 and in 1996, having
survived
schism, and having set our house in order, we concluded that Christ was
leading us to approach again the United Reformed Church.
If mission and ecumenism are the two background
colours of the
CUS tartan, the pattern is completed by the lines which cross it.
Education is the first. From its beginnings, the
Congregational
Union was at the heart of the Sunday School movement for teaching
adults
and children. Both parent Unions were founded with theological training
institutions
up and running, and the priority of education was reclaimed most
recently
in the new structures of 1993.
Church Aid - the second line - was a founding aim
in the formation
of the Congregational Union and, from sharing the financial
responsibilities
of ministry and mission to mutual empowerment and dealing with outside
bodies,
interdependence was being constantly rediscovered.
The third is perhaps more of a loose thread than a
line. In 1928
the Revd Vera Kenmuir became the first woman ordained to the ministry
in
the CUS as well as Scotland's first woman minister. In 1951 she became
the
first of six women called to the presidency of the denomination. Women
in
the ministry and in leadership have been part of the Union's life since
early in the twentieth century. Six presidents in fifty years with
never
a woman in the chair, however, makes 'the community of women and men'
unfinished
business at the dawn of a new century.
The achievements of the Congregational Union of
Scotland did
not come painlessly. The early Scottish Congregationalists had
experienced
schism before the Union was founded. Controversy, healthy and
otherwise,
seems to be one of the ways in which we have grown up. As recently as
1993
we haemorrhaged about a third of our member churches in a time of
divergent
visions, differing agendas, and fear, suspicion and mistrust. Adopting
the
working practices of a Church, reasserting our commitment to the
Ecumenical
journey, and achieving the unanimous vote in Assembly that brings us to
this
point of Union have all been costly, but it has been the price of
faithfulness
- faithfulness to a vision and an imperative to which there was no
honourable
alternative.
So the tartan that is the Congregational Union of
Scotland is
offered today, a little frayed, slightly bloodstained, but guaranteed
colourful
and hardwearing.
Alan G M Paterson (Revd)
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History at
Glasgow 2000
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The
URC is part of
the Reformed tradition of the Christian faith and believes in one God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Regarding the Bible as the supreme
authority in the
Church for conduct and guidance, the URC is always looking for renewal
to
carry out its witness and service in the name of Jesus Christ.