Article 3, What's that about then?

I’ve been reading the report of the Special Commission on the Third Article Declaratory of the Church of Scotland in this year’s Blue Book. Just in case someone reading my blog doesn’t have the Articles Declaratory off by heart, here’s the text of Article 3:


This Church is in historical continuity with the Church of Scotland which was reformed in 1560, whose liberties were ratified in 1592, and for whose security provision was made in the Treaty of Union of 1707. The continuity and identity of the Church of Scotland are not prejudiced by the adoption of these Articles. As a national Church representative of the Christian Faith of the Scottish people it acknowledges its distinctive call and duty to bring the ordinances of religion to the people in every parish of Scotland through a territorial ministry.

And a link to the text of the full Articles here.

I’ve been a minister in rural parishes for 17 years now, so I have some commitment to the idea of the Church of Scotland being in all the parishes of Scotland. I know things need to change but I’m generally not unhappy with Article 3 as a ‘mission statement’ for the Church of Scotland. There are some phrases which do need changed to better reflect the cultural context within which we find ourselves and more clearly commit the church to a missional engagement with that culture.

I am amazed, however, that this Special Commission finds no need to change the text of the Article, but that it is recommending to the General Assembly an Act of the Church declaring the sense in which the church understands this Article. If the wording of the Article is sufficiently unclear as to require an Act to explain it, then it needs changed. Elements of our constitution, such as the Articles, should be clear in themselves. An example may serve, in the proposed Act, section (4) reads:

The Church of Scotland understands the words “a national church representative of the Christian faith of the Scottish people” as a recognition of both the Church’s distinctive place in Scottish history and culture and its continuing responsibility to engage the people of Scotland wherever they might be with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (Reports to GA 2010 page 25/24)

But these two phrases don’t say anything like the same thing! The text of the Act is making an assumption about the Scottish people, namely, that the Scottish people have a Christian faith which is represented by the Church of Scotland. Now, this assumption in 2010 sounds plain daft, Scotland never was a Christian nation and there never was a time, except perhaps between 1560 and the 1620’s when the Church of Scotland could claim to be in a meaningful sense representative of any Christian faith held by a majority of the people of Scotland.

Section (5) of the proposed Act:
The Church of Scotland understands the phrase “bring the ordinances of religion to the people in every parish of Scotland through a territorial ministry” to mean a commitment to maintain worshipping, witnessing and serving Christian congregations throughout Scotland. (Reports to GA 2010 page 25/24)

But this is a withdrawal from the terms of the Article, ‘throughout Scotland’ is nowhere near the same as ‘in every parish of Scotland’.

However, my main question about this is what is meant by ‘the ordinances of religion’? Traditional I was taught, and have taught others, that this phrase specifically refers to offering services of burial and marriage to the people of one’s parish, that is, every person in Scotland has a parish minister upon whom they may call to marry them or conduct a funeral for them, and that parish minister should respond to all such requests as a duty laid upon them by Article 3. In 31 pages of text of the report the Special Commission do not mention marriage or burial services once, except by way of the euphemism ‘matching, hatching and dispatching’ (page 25/23). Are we to understand from the proposed Declaratory Act that parish ministers are no longer under any duty or obligation in terms of Article 3 to conduct services of marriage or burial for those in their parish?

So, I find substantial differences between the text of the Article and the proposed Declaratory Act, of such a serious nature that if we adopt the sense given to the Article in the proposed Act we really do need to change the text of the Article to properly reflect what is a completely new understanding of this Article.