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Scottish Episcopal Church Unites with Church of Scotland to Pause Inevitable Death
By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
December 6, 2021
British author, commentator and curmudgeon Malcolm Muggeridge once opined that ecumenism is like two drunks walking down Oxford Circus each holding onto the other for dear life. If one falls, they both would go down together.
Were Muggeridge alive today, he would note that not only is the Church of England in steep decline and heading into the sunset of its days, but the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Church of Scotland, the established church, are in a race to obscurity. The two church's recent signing of a "Declaration" to work together, was little more than putting lipstick on a pig in the hope that organ music emanating from dying churches and cathedrals was not the death rattle they were hearing.
This week these two denominations offered a series of acknowledgments and commitments between the churches intended to deepen their relationship, and look at new ways of working together to serve the people of Scotland.
The agreement was welcomed and approved at both the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the established church, and the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church earlier this year.
The Most Rev Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church said: "In many places in rural Scotland there is now only one church building. It might be Episcopalian or it might be Presbyterian, yet there will be people of both churches in the community.
Membership of the Scottish Episcopal Church in 2019 was 27,585, of whom 19,784 were communicant members. Weekly attendance was 11,782.
This is a bit like two men in hospital dying of COVID sharing the same life support system.
It is also code for, "we are declining so fast we soon won't be able to give empty churches away."
A senior Church of England official told VOL that both churches are vanishing faster than the snow before the sun.
"Following its decision to approve homosexual 'marriage' the Church of Scotland has imploded, with many faithful members leaving, and attendance falling like a stone at its churches. It is in the process of closing vast numbers."
"One senior minister told my source that he has been delegated to close half the churches in his Presbytery. Many had already gone before the new round of closures. The roads in some cities are lined with boarded up former kirk buildings."
VOL was told they could be bought for pennies. "The early medieval Cathedral Church (c.950AD) in Brechin was put on the market by the Kirk for £150,000 ($198.000 US) not long ago, and there have been no takers. The surviving congregation meets in a nearby hall."
There are no signs of any revival anywhere in Scotland, VOL was told, which must be the most damming indictment of all.
If you want a vignette of the state of Western Christianity it can surely be found here. As goes Scotland so will go Wales and inevitably England.
So long as the Archbishop of Canterbury keeps railing on about climate change and Covid vaccines for all, and doesn't see the spiritual desolation and wilderness he resides in every day, one can only conclude that Satan has blinded his eyes, something he is apparently very good at.
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