Our brother McCheyne

This week the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly is debating a couple of controversial issues. It will be considering whether from a biblical point of view the land of Israel is a God-given territory, and discussing what the Church’s view should be on the involvement in ministry of folk in same-sex relationships.

This Tuesday was the 200^th birthday of a hugely-influential Scottish minister, Robert Murray McCheyne. He died at the age of 29 in 1843 – weeks before the most divisive General Assembly in the Church of Scotland’s history, when 450 ministers left the Church to form the Free Church of Scotland over concerns that the state was diminishing the spiritual autonomy of the Church.

McCheyne was a man of passionate evangelical faith. He had discovered early in life through the example of his eldest brother David, who died in 1831 that morality is not enough, that if we are to please God we must seek from God forgiveness and grace.

The young minister, despite struggling with ill-health, served at St Peter’s Church in Dundee from 1836 until his death, committed to courageous, energetic preaching, to persistent prayer, and to extensive home-visiting in his parish, calling on up to 30 families in a day. He had in addition, a Scotland wide ministry.  Had he lived another seven weeks, he would have been among the 450 ministers who left the Church in May 1843.

I have learned through reading about McCheyne – about the bigness of God, and the extent of my imperfections when contrasted with God’s perfection. Some of McCheyne teachings I find I must disagree with – he seemed, for example, to see turning to God in very clear-cut, black-and-white terms when it seems to me that finding God is often a life-long journey rather than a decisive turning point.

But above all, I acknowledge Robert Murray McCheyne as a Christian brother, who knew and spoke of the glory of God, but also experienced the tenderness of the divine. ‘Live much in the smiles of God,’ he advised a fellow-minister. Somehow, through these words, I sense God smiling on me.

McCheyne was no stranger to disagreements within the Church. He worked closely with people from other denominations who shared his passion and theological convictions. But he was critical of what he called ‘the frigid Evangelical’ whose theology was entirely orthodox but ‘whose heart is cold in seeking the salvation of sinners.’

And he was opposed to the religion of the ‘moderates’, the other main grouping in the Church of Scotland at that time alongside the evangelicals. ‘It is confessed that many of our ministers do not preach the gospel – alas! Because they know it not.’

Now 450 ministers left the Church in 1843. 45 who identified themselves as evangelicals remained within the Church. Which left close to 700 other ministers. I fully recognise the danger of formal, outward religion, the religion which aspires to good living, and ideas about God while lacking humility and open-heartedness to the grace of God.

But it would be tragic, and hard to credit if there were not, among the moderates many who honestly sought God for themselves, and encouraged their congregations to seek God. I just wonder if Robert Murray McCheyne did not understand modes of living for and with God which were less dogmatic, quieter, less intense than his own.

McCheyne inspires us, but I believe his story also reminds us at a time of debate and disagreement within the Church of the need to be open to others and their thinking, as we reflect, evaluate and weigh what is said.

This is precisely what the report of the Theological Commission on Same-Sex Relationships and the Ministry invites us to do, as it sets out clearly the bible-based thinking on both sides of the issue.

I think whichever side of the debate we are on as Christians when dealing with controversial issues, we must be willing to learn, to have our thoughts challenged. We must create an environment in which it is acceptable to voice disagreement with grace, and we ourselves must be open to hearing the views of those who disagree with us.

But all of us, who genuinely believe in the mystery we know as God, and in humility seek God in the name of Jesus are God’s family, Christian brothers and sisters wherever our precise beliefs may position us on the Christian theological spectrum.

And we must all humbly seek that Christlikeness which so marked Robert Murray McChyene. In all our debate and struggle, our disagreements, our seeking and sharing glimpses of the glory of God may it be said of us as it was said of McCheyne ‘He is the most Jesus-like man (or ‘She is the most Jesus-like woman’) I have ever met with.’ 

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 23rd May 2013)