Sword & Trowel 2020: Issue 1
FROM DIVINE REVELATION TO HUMAN REASON
The Case of the Scottish Free Church – by Dr Nick Needham –
How did an entire denomination move from being fervently evangelical and reformed, to total liberalism in a single generation? In this article theologian- historian Dr Nick Needham traces the course of theological collapse in the (pre-1900) Scottish Free Church. A similar disaster has been the story of numerous denominations and church associations in the West – here is essential reading for pastors and church officers.
T
HIS is a story set in Scotland, the land of John Knox, about how divine revelation was dis-
lodged from its throne, and human reason set in its place, this sad turn- ing taking place within an evangelical context – the Calvinism of the Scot- tish Free Church. A word of explanation is necessary
here. The term ‘Free Church’ means something quite different in England and Scotland. In England, a free church, or the free churches, are the Protestant churches other than the state Church of Anglicanism. They are free from state control in their doctrine and organisation. In other words, the English free churches are what otherwise have been called (since the 17th century) the non- conformist or dissenting churches, English Presbyterians, Congrega- tionalists, Baptists, the Quakers or
Society of Friends, Methodists, Breth- ren and Pentecostal churches. In Scotland, the Scottish Free
Church is something very different from any of these. It was formed in 1843 (therefore much more recently than the English free church tradi- tion). And its name, the Free Church of Scotland, meant the historic Church of Scotland, the national Scottish church, now set free from state control. So the Free Church of Scotland claimed to be the actual Church of Scotland, the national Protestant church of the kingdom of Scotland, which had now shaken off the cramping chains of an ungodly state – the state in question being the British parliament. (There was no separate Scottish parliament back then.)
While none of the English free
churches claimed to be the true na- tional church of the English people, the Scottish Free Church claimed that it was indeed the true national church of the Scottish people. If one grants there may be such a thing as a na- tional church, then the Scottish Free Church actually had a pretty good claim to be what it professed. At its birth in 1843, the Free
Church of Scotland was a solidly evangelical body. Its ministers or pastors were those evangelicals in
From Divine Revelation to Human Reason page 19
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