Bishops in the Kirk?

Presbyterianism is no religion for a gentleman.

--Charles II in 1660 The word "bishop" in Scotland is not a nice word.

--The Rev. Thomas F. Torrance, Church of Scotland, in 1957

The last time a pastor tried to practice the Anglican ritual in a Church of Scotland kirk, a stout-armed Presbyterian shopwoman named Jenny Geddes hefted the stool she was sitting on and threw it at his head. That was in 1637, in St. Giles Church. Edinburgh. This week the Church of Scotland's General Assembly sat down in Edinburgh to thresh out a proposal that has already provoked an almost equally violent reaction from parishioners, press and clergy. The plan: 1) unite the Established Church of Scotland and the Established Church of England; 2) standardize the administration of their sacraments; 3) coordinate the Presbyterian and Episcopal governing bodies by appointing lay elders for the Anglican Church, electing bishops for the Church of Scotland.

Source of the explosive proposal was a committee of 30 Anglican and Presbyterian churchmen, established in 1954 to examine the idea of a merger, after decades of mellowing relations between the two churches. This spring the committee hopefully recalled the uniting of Anglicans. Presbyterians, and other Protestant denominations in South India (TIME, Oct. 13, 1947), unanimously advocated the merger. "Disunity . . ." wrote the committee, "spells a deeply damaging contradiction between message and life . . . The church cannot be but one."

Near-Idolatry. Membership of the united churches would be impressive (Anglicans: 3,000,000 in England, 55,000 in Scotland; Presbyterians: 1,300,000 in Scotland. 70,000 in England). But the notion of worshiping with Sassenach ritual is still unsettling in the Highlands, and the idea of church rule by bishops really provokes the independent Scots. The Economist spelled out their indignation: "In the real split between Low Church and Anglican Church attitudes--the pomp and circumstance which Anglicans regard as a display of beauty for the greater glory of God, and which older Presbyterians regard as near-idolatry and even younger ones regard as play-acting--the bishop in his robes has long been one of the most potent symbols. The ordinary Scot will find it surprisingly difficult to get himself, let alone his grandfather, to swallow this." Equally hard to choke down is the committee's stipulation that the Scots' bishops be consecrated initially by a laying on of hands by Anglican bishops.

It was 16th century Calvinist John Knox who thundered loudest against hierarchical control of the kirks in Scotland, then Roman Catholic. Knox and fellow theologians declared that church authority passed directly from the word of God to the church congregations, and the present system of church rule by locally elected elders and a nationally elected moderator who administers the presbyteries evolved from Knox's pronouncement.

Vigorous Shush. From Glasgow, Balmoral and elsewhere, the merger plan has brought threats of secession from the church by outraged dominies. Anglicans had little to say, possibly because the addition of elders to an already existing hierarchy is not so shocking to them as the creation of a new hierarchy is to Scots. But privately, Church of England leaders kept their ears trained on Edinburgh. Last week the General Assembly in Edinburgh elected Dr. George F. MacLeod its new moderator despite his known promerger leanings, vigorously shushed a delegate who opposed his election. But whatever sounds of ecumenical accord come this week from the General Assembly, in the background there will be the rumble of dour dissent from clergy and churchgoers. Rumbled the Scottish Daily Express: "The spirit of Knox is not dead."

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