Vox Populi, Vox Dei

Vox Populi, Vox Dei

The Church of Scotland continues in its search for relevance by decreeing that its focus will now be determined by public opinion poll:

http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/speak_out/10000_voices

10000 Voices for Change has a simple premise: “Ask 10000 people in local churches and in every part of Scottish society - politicians, voluntary organisations, people from every walk of life, including those who are the most disadvantaged and excluded in Scottish society - to help us develop new ideas and priorities to work on in the future.”

Having rejected the ultimate authority of Scripture, no longer feeling constrained to follow either the ethical teaching or doctrinal instruction of the Bible, the increasingly desperate denomination has now decided that the voice of the people is the voice of God.  Their declaration has no reference to God, Christ, or Scripture – only to the aggregate wisdom of their opinion poll sample, which will of course embrace all walks of life, religious and non-religious and perhaps even anti-religious.  This is where the increasingly progressive liberal agenda of the denomination leads – the vertical God dimension is reduced to the horizontal human dimension.

Issues of inequality and injustice are addressed by Scripture, and it is right that Christians in obedience to Scripture seek to see “justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24)  But it is the God of Scripture who gets to define what these issues are, and not the latest whim of a secular society that rejects both God and his Word.

As Professor John Haldane, the Catholic philosopher, says addressing this new campaign by the national church, “The reality is that the Kirk has lost its way, lost its confidence and largely lost its faith. I fear it is finished as a significant force in Scottish society and is visibly dying.…  As regards a changing Scotland, a more urgent matter for the Kirk might be the dying of the Christian light, and I seriously doubt whether in 2035 the Kirk will still exist save as a residual legal corporation..” 

(See his excellent article- apart from the bit about the papacy - at http://tinyurl.com/q2kcybh )