Religious people often need to be reminded that should be kind to one another, tender-hearted, ready to forgive. Strange as it may seem, it is as true of the Christian religion as of every other religion, that the ultra-orthodox make as their first target those holding more moderate views than themselves. When zealots find their co-religionists unwilling to endorse their extremism, they accuse them of disloyalty to teh truth.

Christians are certainly not immune to this self-destructive tendency. And although Paul tells us that he who villifies his brother has not learned Christ, some defenders of the faith seem on occasion to have directed their energies more to undermining the good standing of their own brethren than to confronting the real enemies of the Gospel.

Jonathan Ranken Anderson, who was deposed from the Free Church ministry in 1853 for maligning his brother ministers, has served as a role model for many who have come after him. While protesting that they hated not their brother but his faults, such men conceived it to be their duty to affirm their faith by making outspoken attacks on those who favoured a different emphasis. One unfortunate consequence of disparaging another man's ministry is the effect it has on the reputation of those who resort to this practice. Instead of being remembered for the excellence of their own gospel preaching, they are chiefly remembered for their involvement in controversies.

Another consequence of pulpit denunciation is the effect it has on the preacher's message. Wittingly or unwittingly, it undergoes a significant change, winsome, earnest pleading all too often giving way to pointed declamation. This could perhaps be illustrated from today's pulpiteers, but it will be safer to take an example from history. One whose preaching seemed to move in that direction was the Rev. Donald Macfarlane (1834-1926), one time Free Church minister at Kilmallie and subsequently Free Presbyterian minister in Raasay and Dingwall.

Field Preacher

Donald Macfarlane was the founding father of the Free Presbyterian Church. As such he is referred to in highly favourable terms in the autobiography of Dr Norman Maclean, the Skyeman who became minister in St Cuthbert's in Edinburgh. Dr Maclean claimed to have been an eye-witness of the formation of the Free Presyterian Church. Its first presbytery was officially constituted in July 1893, but Maclean traced its beginnings to an open-air conventicle held at Braes in 1892, at which Donald Macfarlane was preaching. Being at home in Skye at the time, Maclean chanced to hear Macfarlane address the meeting at Braes. He was favourably impressed. Contrary to his expectation, there was no note of discord in the sermon, no declamation against the Church he was about to leave, no berating of invisible foes, only "the gentle gracious pleading of love".

Maclean's next encounter with Macfarlane was in the summer of 1893. Maclean was then parish minister at Waternish, where Macfarlane happened to be lobbying support for his new denomination. The local Free Church minister, with an understandable concern for the protection of his flock, did not see his way to accommodate a Free Presbyterian rally in the Free Church. Maclean, as parish minister, was then approached by the Free Presbyterians for permission to hold their rally in the parish church, and, remembering the irenic spirit displayed by their leader at Braes the previous year, Maclean not only agreed to the request but attended the proceedings. The preacher again impressed him as one who exemplified the brotherly love of the Gospel, and who truly sought the peace and felicity of the new Jerusalem.

The tribute given by Maclean is in accord with other contemporary reports, all of which acknowledge Macfarlane to have been a humble and gracious man. Indeed, his gentleness and timidity gave Neil Cameron, a student activist of the Secession movement, doubts as to whether Macfarlane could be relied on to stand firm in 1893. But ecclesiastical disputes can put iron in the soul. Macfarlane turned out to be not just steadfast in 1893, but militant in his subsequent contendings for his church and its testimony. Had Norman Maclean heard him preaching thirty years later, he would have found himself and many others to be under attack.

Marching as to war

With the passing of the years, both Maclean and Macfarlane acquired a new persona. Maclean achieved prominence as an Edinburgh ministers and became even better known for his weekly articles in the press which reached a wide audience. In these articles he gave free range to his progressive theological views, which were not always in keeping with the Westminister Confession. One such divergence was his support for a probationary state for departed souls. This aberration earned him a public rebuke from the man whose preaching at Braes in 1892 had so impressed him as being free from villification.

Preaching from the text "Holding forth the word of life", Macfarlane took issue with Maclean's view of a probationary state. Rejecting his claim to be called a minister of Christ and describing him as a minister of the devil, Macfarlane informed his congregation, "If Dr Maclean goes to hell, as he is very likely to, he shall never be brought out of it". After 25 years of contending with adversaries within and outwith his own denomination, pulpit denunciation had become standard fare. Resort to this type of preaching would no doubt be justified on the basis of 'faithfulness' to the truth; but one is left wondering if the hidden agenda was not simply to give satisfaction to the groundlings.

Demonic possession

Another who came in for Macfarlane's censure was Professor Alexander whose book on Demonic Possession (1902) was regularly cited by Free Presbyterians as evidence of the willingness of the Free Church to harbour heretics. Despite Dr Alexander's public retraction of any unorthodox statements in his book, a majority of the Free Presbyterian Synod continued to cite his alleged unorthodoxy as a barrier to reunion with the post-1900 Free Church. According to Macfarlane, Dr Alexander "wrote that book with a view to a Professorship in the United Free Church but for some reason or other he was not received by that Church; and then he applied to the Free Church who received him with open arms although his heretical book was known by at least some of them".

One of those whom Macfarlane identified as being conversant with the book and therefore guilty by association, was Archibald MacNeilage, a distinguished editor of The Scottish Farmer but probably only known to today's public as the editor who sacked Lewis Grassic Gibbon from his staff. Among the ranks of the eldership, MacNeilage was the most talented spokesman that the contitutionalist party had in the pre-1900 Free Church Assembly. After the Union of 1900, he was the first editor of The Monthly Record.

Pressing home his message from Philippians 2:16 (a message that was less concerned with the word of life than with 'death-dealing moderates') Macfarlane told his congregation that MacNeilage had approved of the book Demonic Possession, adding, improbably, that he had claimed to have "found it very useful in his teaching in the Sabbath School"! At the time MacNeilage, himself no stranger to controversy, was recovering from a serious operation. Declining to get involved in further controversy, he asserted that his days of ecclesiastical warfare were over, adding, "Zeal in the public cause I have for more than 30 years displayed, and my own soul has been neglected". Ecclesiastical warfare, he had found, exacts a heavy price. he was a fighter both for the Scottish farmer and for the Scottish church. But the battles which he fought for the Church were not all against the enemy at the gates .There were warring camps within the walls.

Party banners

Referring to these divisions, Dr Norman Maclean, in his autobiography mentioned above, commented on what he saw as the ultimate tragedy to overtake the church in the Highlands. This was that the communion season had become the occasion for parading party banners. Then, as now, the church had its factions. No minister who was not acceptable to the party with which the host minister was identified, would be invited to the sacramental services. Divided opinions in the denomination almost invariably meant there would be differing sympathies in the congregation. Yet at the comminion it was a case of 'winner takes all'. Only one party would be represented at the services even although several ministers would be involved. And so the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which was instituted not only as a bond of fellowship between Christ and his followers, but also as a means of uniting in fellowship all who acknowledge Christ as Lord and Saviour, was made to serve factional interests. Where partisanship of this kind is practised at the communion, unity in the Lord is made subservient to loyalty to the party.

This practice is not a recent innovation. It was evident in the Church of Scotland at least from the early 19th century when the division was between the Moderates and Evangelicals. It reappeared in the Free Church during the first union negotiations (around 1870) and it persisted in the years leading up to the Union of 1900. It was seen again in the Free Presbyterian Church after 1900. It exists in the Free Church today and to a degree unknown in living memory.

My own memories of communion seasons extend over half a century. Throughout that time, the ministry has always reflected a range of opinion regarding allowable practice as, for example, in respect of participation in non-Free Church worship. And of course within the confines of our own denomination, arguments have raged often enough over whether men could justly be accused of Arminianism or hyper-Calvinism in their presentations of the Gospel. Accusations of this kind have given rise to bitter controversy and ministers from opposite sides who rallied to the defence of their brethren were themselves excoriated by one side or the other.

But hitherto, when the tumult died down, the protagonists were not black-listed or excluded from pulpits identified with the opposite side. In 1956, R.A. Finlayson was once again assisting at Lewis communions only a year after an intemperate outburst on the floor of the Assembly against the minister of Stornoway and his associates. Forgiveness was more readily forthcoming in those days and the standard-bearers of opposing viewpoints were equally welcomed in most of the congregations. That was certainly true of Aberdeen where Professor Finlayson and the Rev Kenneth Macrae of Stornoway officiated at successive communions in 1957. Have these days gone forever?

The present divisions in the church, if they persist, must raise the question as to the wisdom of maintaining the tradition of visiting communion preachers. And if the tradition is to continue, is there not a case for going back to an older tradition and consulting the congregation as to its preference?