Praying for Scotland

Two very significant items passed across my desk in the last few days. The first is a new book by Tom Lennie, published by Christian Focus Publications, entitled Glory in the Glen. It is one of the best written studies of evangelical revivals in Scotland from 1880 to 1940. It dispels not a few myths, and is a useful addition to literature on Scottish church history. It will be interpreted differently by modern evangelical leaders, I suspect, but is an inspiring story nonetheless.

The other was a news item on a case coming to this year's Church of Scotland Assembly, where a congregation wants to call a minister who is living in an open gay relationship. The congregation in question is Queens Cross Church, Aberdeen, in which I have some interest, since it was where George Adam Smith (the focus of my doctoral research) began his ministerial career. The church was built under his leadership. Now it has become the focus for a test case that will exercise our brethren in the CofS.

I can't help feeling that there is a link between these two things. If ever we needed revival in Scotland, it is now. The church, as well as the nation, has jettisoned the authority of the Word of God in the name of political correctness. How we need men of mettle and conviction to stand up and to stand out. Pray for us, and for our Scottish Presbyterian denominations.