A Fellowship of Confessing Churches

We are a fellowship of congregations of the Church of Scotland, united in the communion of the one Spirit and committed to work, pray and support one another in the common mission of Christ to the people of Scotland and beyond.

We are a confessing fellowship in that as members we confess the faith of Christ crucified, stand firm for the biblical gospel, affirm the historic creeds of catholic Christianity, and subscribe to the subordinate standard of the Church of Scotland, the Westminster Confession of Faith.

It is a covenanting fellowship in that as congregations we covenant together to support one another in remaining faithful to these standards, not denying our only Lord and Master Jesus Christ in our practice, but actively submitting to his word in Scripture as the supreme rule of faith and life for all, and calling others similarly to the obedience of faith.

We are not a breakaway group, but are alarmed at the determination of some within our denomination to force heterodox teaching and practice into the churches. We therefore believe it is necessary at this time to publicly mark the boundary between orthodox Christianity and spurious forms that claim the same name, and make clear and public our rejection of new teachings and practices which depart from the historic Christian faith, turn away from the orthodox gospel of repentance and faith, and publicly sanctify what the Bible proclaims as sin.

We reaffirm the contemporary rule of Christ Jesus as the sole King and Head of his Church, and acknowledge that all leaders, officers and courts of the church are subject to him and to his authority. We are members of his body, the church, only through his grace and mercy, and are called to trust and obey him at all times.

We reaffirm the primacy of the local church as God’s vehicle for mission in the world and call on others to reaffirm the true and real rule of the one Lord Jesus Christ and, with all such faithful congregations within the Church of Scotland, to reform and revitalise our churches and expand Christ’s mission to Scotland and to the world.

We hereby publish the following Covenant as the basis of our fellowship.

Confessing Churches Covenant

In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit:

We, as congregations of the Church of Scotland, express our loyalty to Christ Jesus, the only King and Lord of the Church. We affirm the eternal gospel of the kingdom as the good news of salvation, liberation and transformation from sin for all who believe, and we embrace the commission of Jesus to his church to make true disciples, calling people to repentance and faith in his gospel, and teaching them obedience to all that he has commanded through his apostles.

We covenant to stand together in promoting and protecting the biblical gospel, and our mission to Scotland and to the world, solemnly declaring the following in reaffirmation of our historic identity as the Church of Scotland.

1. We rejoice in the gospel of God through which we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because God first loved us, we love him and as believers bring forth fruits of love, ongoing repentance, lively hope and thanksgiving to God in all things.

2. We gladly proclaim and submit to the unique and universal Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgement and hell, who lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserve. By his atoning death and glorious resurrection, he secured the redemption of all who come to him in repentance and faith.

3. We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written, and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is therefore to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.

4. We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church, and the Westminster Confession of Faith as agreeing with Scripture and expressing the true doctrine of our Church, as its subordinate standard.

5. We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations, to seek those who do not know Christ and to baptise, teach and bring new believers to maturity. We are mindful of our particular responsibility to the people of Scotland, and are committed to seeing living churches planted, nurtured and matured through the proclamation of the gospel, and a new generation of evangelists, pastors and missionaries sent into the harvest field for the advance of the Kingdom of Christ.

6. We celebrate the God-given unity in diversity among those devoted to the true gospel of Christ. We are therefore committed to fellowship with all those who love and obey the Lord Jesus Christ, and to building authentic ecumenical partnerships with all congregations who cherish and proclaim the transforming and liberating gospel of Christ.

7. We acknowledge our calling to shine as lights in the world, demonstrating the true life of the Kingdom of God within our churches, and also our responsibility to love our neighbours and to be good stewards of God’s whole creation. We therefore embrace our duty to society, to promote that which is good, healthy and just in public life, and to oppose that which is harmful to individuals and damaging to the welfare of our communities as a whole.

8. We recognize God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family. We acknowledge the great harm that has come from our failures to maintain this standard, and we repent and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.

9. We reject the authority of those who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.

10. We rejoice at the prospect of Jesus’ coming again in glory, and while we await this final event of history, we praise him for the way he builds up his church through his Spirit by miraculously changing lives.

Developments

We are publishing a list of congregations who are part of the Fellowship of Confessing Churches as they join up.

A number of helpful meetings for discussion are being held, around issues about opportunities for working together for the gospel, and supporting one another in various ways.

David Court, minister of New Restalrig Church in Edinburgh is the FCC Chairman. A steering group made up of the following members aims to give geographical representation for contacts:

• Peter Dickson (High Hilton, Aberdeen)
• Peter Humphris (Kinmylies, Inverness)
• Ivor MacDonald (Kilmuir and Stenscholl, Skye)
• Jeremy Middleton (Davidsons Mains, Edinburgh)
• William Philip (St George’s-Tron, Glasgow)