The rebellion of the Church of Scotland

A majority of presbyteries of the Church of Scotland have voted to adopt same-sex marriage, with 29 presbyteries in favor and 12 opposed. Once, the national church of Scotland was reformed under the leadership of John Knox, but now it is being thoroughly reformed by the world.

In 2005, Scotland legalized civil partnerships for homosexuals, and in 2014, it introduced same-sex marriage. Instead of the church leading and shaping the culture, now the non-Christian culture leads and the church meekly follows.

The whole idea of “same-sex marriage” is, of course, a metaphysical impossibility. If one knows the definition of marriage, one knows it requires a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant with one another who are open to new life. This is natural marriage, and it can be known by reason apart from any consideration of special revelation. Apart from that definition, marriage has no limiting principle to accept continued redefinition.

The Bible, however, reinforces and provides even stronger support for natural marriage by rooting it in the doctrine of creation in passages such as Genesis 1:26–28 and Matthew 19:4–6. Jesus specifically defines marriage as God joining together a man and a woman as the foundation of a new family unit and quotes Genesis.

Reason and faith mutually reinforce each other. The idea of same-sex marriage can never be more than a parody of real marriage. Yet, across the Western world, one liberal denomination after another embraces it. Why?

Some argue that the church must be relevant to the world or mission will be impossible. However, membership and church attendance in churches that embrace the sexual revolution and the concept of same-sex marriage is now in free fall. The Church of Scotland has been accommodating itself to the spirit of the age for most of the past 20 years, yet its membership has fallen from 607,000 in 2000 to 325,000 in 2018. This is a trend that can be observed in all liberal, Protestant denominations. In Canada, for example, the Anglican Church lost a million members in just over 50 years, declining from 1.36 million members in 1961 to 360,000 in 2017.

One might wonder if embracing the sexual revolution and importing pagan sexual ethics into the church is the cause or the result of the decline. The answer is surely both. The church has no compelling reason to exist when it simply reflects the world’s morals and ideas on itself. On that point, conservative Christians and secularists agree.

The embrace of same-sex marriage does nothing to convince anyone that the church has a life-changing message for anyone who is disillusioned and seeking the meaning of life. The message that God accepts you as you are is not great news to those who are sad, depressed, lacking in purpose, and struggling with meaninglessness.

But the message of liberal Protestantism is that, apart from their therapeutic needs being fulfilled, people are already fine and need nothing but affirmation and acceptance. Their message is that you don’t need to be told you are a sinner, and you certainly don’t need to worry about hell—even if it turns out that you do have an immortal soul after all.

The liberal churches simply have nothing to offer those who desire hope, change, meaning, or a new life. They have no gospel.

At the end of the day, this is what is so unspeakably sad about the liberal embrace of the sexual ethics of the post-Christian, pagan culture. The church is supposed to be a lighthouse beaming out the good news of redemption, but it instead has turned into a propaganda center for the message of hell, namely that this life is all there is and you might as well give in to whatever desires you have and try to be comfortable while you are alive. The devil wants you hopeless and discouraged, and liberal churches help him spread that anti-gospel.

In my Bible study last week, we looked at Christ’s letters to the seven churches in Revelation. We noted that what is going on today in the rapid decline of liberal Protestantism was already occurring in the first century in Asia Minor. What should sober us is the vehemence with which Jesus condemns those who acquiesce to false doctrine and sexual immorality. He tells those at Pergamum that because of their tolerance of false teachers who practice sexual immorality he will come to them and war against them with the sword of His mouth (Revelation 2:16).

The Church of Scotland is asking for God’s judgment by prioritizing friendship with the world over obedience to the Lord of the church.