Skip to main content

Free Church of Scotland permits hymns and musical instruments

News flash: the Free Church of Scotland, one of the most significant Presbyterian denominations which split in the 1800s from the Church of Scotland, has permitted hymns and musical instruments in its churches. To be precise, they have given "liberty to its congregations to sing hymns and use instruments, if individual Kirk Sessions [Church Elder's Committee] so choose".

Yes I know that sounds really lame, but bear with me while I explain why it's important.

The Free Church is theologically conservative, but has also been historically energetic. They set up New College at the University of Edinburgh, which now hosts the School of Divinity - that is, the university's theological faculty. They sent missionaries to Africa, India (Calcutta, Bombay, Poona and Madras), Canada, Australia (!) and the Middle East. Their theology was probably the closest to the Old Princeton Presbyterianism of Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield.

A lot (most? all?) of this energy has come from the Free Church's theological strength - their focus on the Bible, allied with a thoroughgoing Westminster Calvinism. An aspect of that theological strength has been a conservative view on the Regulative Principle - the view that Sunday church worship (and all of life) must be regulated by the Bible. If it's not permitted in scripture, it's not permitted in church. That's why this church historically hasn't used musical instruments, or sung anything beyond Psalms - which of course are inscripturated songs therefore permissible.

But now, as noted above, they've permitted musical instruments and songs beyond the Psalms.

I think this is a step forward, in that I don't subscribe to such a biblically prescriptive view of the regulative principle as noted above. I think the Bible gives us principles which regulate our response to God - our "worship" - in any and every situation. But I also think God gives us the responsibility of thinking deeply about how to apply those principles in any particular historical and cultural context.

So, let's speak to and teach and admonish one another through psalms, hymns, and Spiritual songs (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16). God breathed out the Holy Scriptures for our teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). So if we meditate deeply upon the Bible, and express Biblical teaching in songs that are carefully crafted so that they're easy to sing, memorable, and with tunes which fit the mood of the words, then we'll be achieving what Paul means in these verses. I think this step by the Free Church will lead to more evangelism, and more authentic worship - worship which is simultaneously biblically faithful, culturally engaged, and deeply personally satisfying.

But of course I could be wrong. This could be a step backwards - a compromising with culture, a loss of biblical and theological clarity, the beginning of the end. We'll have to wait another 50 or so years and see.
Labels:

Comments

John McClean said…
Did you notice that congregations are still required to use Pslamody in every service. That's something seriously missing from most PCNSW churches and evangelical worship generally. I that was part of what Paul was expecting that in Col 3!
28 November 2010 at 08:46
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A better understanding of nonbelief

The Nones Project is an ongoing study into the belief systems of people who call themselves non-religious. A few weeks ago one of the project leaders,  Ryan Burge  of Washington University,  posted some really interesting preliminary results  on his Substack.  1. We've probably heard of people who are spiritual but not religious (SBNRs). SBNRs were "the largest group of nones" in the sample. They believe in the supernatural realm but not necessarily in "a God." They are "deeply skeptical of religion but highly interested in spirituality," therefore individualistic and anti-institutional.  2. But this study differentiated SBNRs from people they called Nones In Name Only, NiNos. They different to SBNRs by being religious about their spiritual. They believe not just in the supernatural but in "God." And they tend to engage in traditional communal religious practices while SBNRs practice individualised eclectic bespoke spiritual practices. The s...
Post a Comment
Read more

The different distractions of secularity and spirituality

There has been a lot of discussion about the recent 'vibe shift' away from radical atheism back towards an openness to the supernatural. I don't think this new spirituality is necessarily an openness to the unique claims of Christ. It will more probably replace one set of commonly-accepted misunderstandings about Jesus with another.  Under radical atheism, people dismissed the Biblical claims about Jesus' resurrection because they 'knew' that it was impossible. Jesus hadn't really died. He just passed out (after being beaten and whipped and crucified) and then woke up in the tomb (and rolled away the stone himself and overcame several guards). Or the disciples hallucinated that they saw him (even though Jewish beliefs of the time didn't expect one person to rise possessing eternal life himself; they expected a general resurrection at the end of time - see John 11:24 ). Or something else.  The so-called 'explanations' of Jesus' non-resurrectio...
Post a Comment
Read more
TGC Australia recently published an analysis by Dr Sarah Quicke of whether we are experiencing a 'quiet revival' of interest in and/or conversion to Christianity  here in Australia. It does it a good job of describing the difficulties involved in both gathering and interpreting data about religious beliefs and behaviours, e.g. the difference between the 44% who (still) call themselves Christian and the 8% of people aged 18-35 who actually "believed and lived out the gospel."  Quicke refers to the very insightful McCrindle report An Undercurrent Of Faith , released in March 2025, which uses an analytical method called cohort analysis to try and work out how a particular group of people tend to behave over time. The purpose of this post is to draw attention to one element of that report which agrees with Quicke's analysis but also adds some detail to it.  Here is what the cohort analysis showed about different age groups' identification with Christianity:  As y...
Post a Comment
Read more