How Do We Relate to Professed Evangelicals in the Church of Scotland?

I had filed this away to put in the blog after the 2015 G.A. of the Church of Scotland, and forgotten it!  I found it challenging, as I struggle to know how to deal with those who remain in and offer implicit support for an apostate denomination. 

These words of Fairbairn, in a forgotten treasure of pastoral advice, show that while we must at an ecclesiastical level remain at a distance from those who compromise with doctrinal and moral error, we nevertheless at a personal level must seek to maintain a loving and caring brotherly attitude towards them.  In the heat of polemics that is easily forgotten; in the desire to maintain fraternity the opposite error is to think that their unity in error with those who themselves are apostate should make no difference in corporate and ecclesiastical relationships.  Is it wrong to see this issue having different outcomes on the corporate and personal level?  Hopefully, Fairbairn can teach us something:

“There is still another distinction to be made, and in that another principle of direction to be found, in respect to the exercise of Christian love ; which is, that we are not called by it to countenance or show ourselves indifferent to any error or delinquency into which, whether as individuals or as Churches, they may have fallen. Love rather requires us to give a clear and unequivocal testimony against the evil, and seek its removal.

It was, doubtless, through an infirmity, a defection from the gentle and forbearing spirit of the gospel, that Paul and Barnabas fell out between themselves, since in the matter of dispute no vital truth was at stake. But it was no infirmity, it was a noble proof and exhibition of love, when Paul withstood Peter to his face at Antioch for acting in a manner which tended to mislead the disciples; or when he rebuked the Churches of Galatia for their weakness in suffering themselves to be withdrawn from the simplicity of the faith, and the Corinthians for their party strifes, and abuse of supernatural gifts of the Spirit.

There may be sections of the Protestant Church so far removed from what we take to be the proper ideal of a Church of Christ in creed or government, that we could hold no direct or ostensible fellowship with them. Fidelity to the cause of truth and righteousness seems to require that, in that respect, we should stand aloof; love itself compels us to show, by the position we occupy, or the testimony we at fitting times deliver, wherein we conceive them to be in error; and openly to fraternize with them might naturally be construed into an indifference toward our points of disagreement.

But if in such communities we meet with individuals who by their spirit and behaviour give evidence of being true disciples of Christ, holding by the great principles of His gospel, and living to the glory of His name, we should then fail in our duty if we did not eye them with affection, and declined to reciprocate the feelings of kindness and goodwill which they may exhibit toward us. The Master, as appears from their spirit and behaviour, has accepted them; who are we, that we should dispute the propriety of His choice, or disown the seal which He has put upon them? Though they will not follow with us, nor may we follow with them in what is peculiar to us both, yet in what is common, in what concerns the fundamental principles of the faith in Christ, the repression of iniquity, the advancement of righteousness in the world, it is in accordance with the spirit of the gospel that there should be brotherly recognition, harmony of thought and action.

How much may not be learned in this respect from the bearing and procedure of Christ Himself? The spirit of love which was exemplified in His course was not more remarkable for its depth and fervency in one direction than for its tenderness and forbearance in another. Himself the light of the world, in whom dwelt all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, there was necessarily an immeasurable gulf between Him and those about Him as to the degrees of knowledge and spiritual discernment respectively possessed by them. There would have been so even if the disciples had made the most diligent improvement of their privileges; but as matters actually stood, the distance was much greater than it might have been. In spite of Christ’s endeavours to teach them, their notions of divine things continued to be crude; their minds remained full of misapprehensions respecting the nature of His kingdom ;  and indications were ever and anon appearing of the carnal tempers and sinful misgivings which cleaved to them.

Yet how meekly did Christ bear with them under all! With how gentle a hand did He try to remove from their minds the clouds of darkness and prejudice which rested upon them! How gladly did He avail Himself of the opportunities which arose to impart to them the truth as they were able to receive it! And, again, how considerately did He hold His hand when He saw that they were incapable at the time of receiving more!

Altogether, we have here most valuable materials for our guidance, peculiarly valuable for the time and circumstances in which we live. If the spirit of our Lord's behaviour is imbibed, it will dispose us, whenever we perceive the honest and childlike heart of faith, to bear with much that may appear weak and defective; and to be more ready to convey instruction and dispense blessing, or should that be impracticable, to make due allowance for personal imperfections and failings, than in a feeling of actual or fancied superiority to boast it over others. 

Were this but more generally done, were the truth, without being less firmly held, more frequently combined with the meekness and gentleness, the patient and considerate spirit of Christ, it might conciliate more hearts ; not the interests of the truth, but rather those which are opposed to it, would suffer by such line of behaviour."

Patrick Fairbairn, Pastoral Theology, (1875) page 36