Going To Law
The Free Church was born in 1843 out of a separation from
the Church of Scotland because of the interference of civil law in the
Church. In 1900 the controversy was within the Church but again the
relationship of the Church to the state was central. Church and state
both have their proper spheres of influence and judgment. When Christ
says "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Mat.7:1), He cannot mean that
Christians must abandon all judgment. Many use it in this way as an
excuse for laxity in church discipline. A brief look at the context
makes plain that Jesus is against the hypocrisy of condemning others
when you yourself are doing the same thing. The church will judge angels
and she must also judge things that pertain to this life (1Cor.6:3).
Dare any go to Law?
There is much misunderstanding also with the statement of Paul: "Dare
any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust,
and not before the saints?" (1Cor.6:1). This does not mean that Christians
must ignore proper legal remedies. Otherwise how could Paul cry, "I
appeal unto Caesar" (Acts 25:11)? Many Christians have been delivered
from trouble, not by an Assembly helpline, but by dialling 999. In 1843
the unchecked madness of patronage resulted in separation of the Church
from the state, and similarly in 1900, the unrestrained evil of liberalism
drove the faithful "Wee Frees" to cry to God that the law would defend
the rights of the minority in another separation. Had they not gone
to law it is doubtful if there would be a Free Church today. Paul in
1Corinthians 6 is simply against brethren taking brethren to law in
private disputes when this should be handled within the Christian church.
In a church-wide dispute there is no doubt a role for introducing universally
respected arbiters from sister churches. We note how this solution was
recently rejected by the Free Church Commission of Assembly.
What we say goes
History warns the modern constitutional Free Church that she faces her
most arduous test in living memory. Labouring under alleged serious
mal-administration of the Constitution by some of her leading men and
their followers, the Free Church enters the new millennium as a deeply-divided
and polarised denomination. Onlookers gasp at the pursuing to the point
of suspension from the ministry, and, in the end, eviction from gospel
service, of around 30 ministers. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed English,
Irish, Dutch, Australians, Africans and Americans raise the question,
'How can they?'
For gospel ministers, their wives and children, the unchristian spectre
of being 'cast out' becomes a painful prospect. In the name of Christ
and under guise of His authority, today's super-cure is the charge of
'contumacy' with the ghastly result of sundering "what God has joined
together". Reinterpreted, contumacy now means 'what we say goes
- or else'. Popes do not always live in Rome.
It may embarrass majorities but no person is contumacious who disobeys
an anti-scriptural instruction and the many strangely overlook the fact
that Christ was among the minority when the majority demanded "Crucify
him! Crucify him!" Assemblies are obliged to make only "declarations
of the laws of Christ, and applications of...the principles involved
in them" and therefore no anti-scriptural instruction is ever to be
obeyed. (Catechism on the Principles and Constitution of the Free
Church, 1847, Q/A 61). The Lord Jesus Christ is the infallible and
alone Lawmaker in the church and whenever churchmen enact and bind where
God has made free, fragmentation and misery is the result.
For good name and property
Majorities and minorities rattle sabres about going to law over manses
and churches. But should professing Christians go to law over one's
good name, bricks and mortar and assets? The consistent, biblical and
Free Church response is that in certain situations it is right. Going
to law over property at times is not an option but a Christian responsibility
akin to defending one's country. Christian property is not to be transferred
to those who will undermine the Bible, and its truth and justice. Manses
and churches are in fact Christ's. The Free Church is simply a trustee
of Christ's property and has a duty to guarantee that it is used for
the sole purpose for which it was given in trust. The conditions of
use in Free Church terms entail that such property is to be used in
harmony with the principles embodied in the Constitution and none have
a right of use except they who rightly use it. Consequently, no-one
should abandon the Lord's property. We are to be good stewards of all
He has entrusted to us. All of it is Christ's.
The place of the Law
Lawyers are not to decide the principles of the Church. Christ has infallibly
settled these by His Word. Yet in all questions of property the civil
power has the right to operate. We are to "Render therefore unto Caesar
the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's"
(Mat.22:21). If your minister's car is stolen you call the police not
the presbytery. Likewise when manses, churches or salaries are plundered
the civil power is a rightful arbiter.
When the Church enforces Acts of Assembly contrary to the Constitution
and by mere majority decisions alters the terms of obligation on office-bearers
of the Church, and if men are made homeless for simply resisting these
anti-scriptural instructions then, like Paul defending himself, men
have a right to appeal to the civil law. The state was driven to determine
which was the Constitutional Free Church in the past, but only for the
singular end of deciding the matter of property. It appears that the
lessons of history may be about to be repeated in all their pain with
the full array of dirty linen spread before the world.
Civil law is sometimes necessary for the stewards of Christ's property,
and if a church evicts her own children then do not be surprised if
the children appeal to Caesar.