General Assembly 2011

The General Assembly was quite a disappointment but an invaluable experience. Convenors often did not answer questions, or at least I did not think they answered the question, and they seemed to just duck the good searching questions. One man stood up and asked for an amendment indicating moderators would be chosen on merit rather than familiarity. Perfectly valid I thought. He was called to order most aggressively by the moderator, when the man indicated that his concern was that 9 of the last 12 had all worked at 121. The poor guy was visibly shaken and overall I have left with the abiding impression that Edinburgh rules the committees and the assembly.


Listening to the same sex debate was also very helpful for me because I could see that this was not really about homosexuality. The revisionists (not liberals, more upbeat word, clever) time and again went to the notion that God made us in his image, God loves us and wants us to love others. All true but not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Its Christianity Lite, the low calorie version with lots of artificial flavouring, the more marketable commodity for this age, no need for repentance and faith.... and sin.... duh, wots that?
The tradionalists (not evangelicals, more downbeat word, clever) responded graciously and accurately, reminding the assembly of the nature of fallen humanity and the gospel of repentance and faith based on Gods love shown to us in Jesus.

However, the vote went to the revisionists, so that sets me to thinking hard about my own future.

The good news (and I say this tongue in cheek) is that the Church expects us all to holds hand and rejoice in the fact that very soon we will have a range of gospels to suit every taste :)  Presumably when the congregations turn up for Sunday worship they will be able to select the 'good news for the day' they want to hear, then the preacher of choice will appear on a large screen streamed in live from some location, or be shown a sermon that we had conveniently 'prepared earlier'.

Thank God I had to come back early to bless the MV Finlaggan tomorrow,  followed by a busy rest of the week doing good old traditional parish ministry stuff.