I am a Christian (presbyterian with a 'Wee Free' background). AMA

[NoHaudinMaWheest]

This is a follow on from the brilliant orthodox Jewish threads to enable people to ask questions about Christianity without derailing those ones.

I was brought up in the Free Church of Scotland. It is often known as the Wee Frees so I have put that in the title but it is a somewhat derogatory term and not one I would usually use.

I left the Free Church when I was about 30 for really complicated reasons. I spent a long time as an Anglican but having recently moved back to Scotland I now go to the mainstream established Church of Scotland.
I have also attended various independent evangelical and Baptist churches in my time.

So I am happy to try to answer any questions but please note I really am not qualified to speak on behalf of Catholics, or many other Christian branches.

According to Wikipedia, he was a Congregationalist.

Forgive my ignorance: how does Congregationalism differ from Presbyterianism?

I just wanted to add a personal family note to the history lesson.
After the Disruption a lot of landlords, especially in the Highlands, didn't allow Free Church buildings on their land. This did eventually get sorted out but some held out longer than others.
One place where the refusal lasted a long time was Strontian in Argyll. The congregation there obtained a corrugated iron building and floated it on a platform in the sea loch to use as a church. My great-great grandfather was a member of that church, possibly an elder though that bit may just be family legend.

Congregational churches are more self-governing

fink the main difference between Congregationalists and Presbyterians is in church government. Congregationalist churches are each independent and govern themselves. Though there is a kind of loose national organisation which can provide help but doesn't have any authority over the individual congregations. Most Congregationalists in Scotland are now part of the United Reformed Church.

Presbyterians have a different system. Each congregation elects elders from among its members and they govern the day to day work of the congregation. They also send representatives to the local presbytery which consists of members from all the churches in an area. They are kind of overseers of the individual congregations' work and are involved when a congregation wants to call a minister. Ministers are also members of presbytery.
All the presbyteries in a denomination send representatives to their church's annual General Assembly. The General Assembly decides overall policy and may hear cases of dispute which haven't been resolved at local level. Major changes have to be agreed by all the individual presbyteries too.

The General Assembly is chaired by the Moderator who is chosen each year for that year's assembly. He (or she) doesn't really have any authority outside the General Assembly but they are often used as a representative of the church at eg state events. So the Moderator of last year's General Assembly will be the Church of Scotland's representative at the coronation.

What's the difference between high and low church?

Hi @NoHaudinMaWheest 👋

Thanks for starting this thread :) I've been googling lots to try to follow the conversation! I have a question please.

I have a friend from Eastern Europe who is Christian. A big part of celebrating Christmas for her was a big (traditional) meal on Christmas Eve, which I have never heard of before or since. It seemed quite different to the way I've always seen Christmas depicted. Would this be something you would do? is the way Christmas is observed (and other festivals) country specific, or sect specific, or a mixture of both? Is there are a lot of variation between countries/ between sects in the way festivals are observed?

Thank you😊

Ella I really don't know much about Eastern European Christianity but I have read quite a bit about Christmas customs and I think a lot of Europeans Catholics and, I think Lutherans too, have their main Christmas feast on Christmas Eve to celebrate the actual time of Christ's birth. I could be wrong though . Hopefully someone with more knowledge can explain. My reading suggests that there is a lot of difference in celebrations between countries but different branches of Christianity will have similar religious traditions across countries. i.e. the food will be different but the church services broadly similiar.

The tradition I come from doesn't actually celebrate festivals in a religious way. The rational behind this is that everything we do in worship should have an explicit command in the New Testament. There is no command to celebrate the Nativity so we don't. The Resurrection is celebrated every Sunday as is commanded but there is no command to have an additional celebration annually.
A lot of Presbyterians (including the present day Free Church) are moving to celebrate Christmas and Easter, sometimes Pentecost too, but usually in a very low-key way. The more conservative Presbyterians still don't.
Families often do have some Christmas celebrations as a purely secular thing and this is what we did growing up.

goosey High church and low church are really mainly Anglican terms.

High church will have a lot of ritual. They are likely to have elaborate vestments and to use holy water and incense. The churches will be highly decorated and have images. To a Protestant like me they feel like a Catholic church but maybe not to a Catholic.

Low church is more Protestant. Simpler furnishings and liturgy, usually more focus on the sermon than the communion service. It might feel more like a Methodist or Baptist church.

There are also middle of the road or Broad Anglican churches which have a bit of both.

I have a question please.
Are most (or any) Free Churches registered for same-sex marriage? In case I move to Scotland, it's always a bit of a palaver trying to find a church I can go to when I move towns, so I like to collect all the general information I can to make it a bit easier

This seems a little disingenuous, or very naive, I'm not sure which!

Drawing maps no Free Churches will be registered for same sex marriage as they completely disapprove. Any Church of Scotland church can be but not all are. You would have to find out individually. The same applies to the Scottish Episcopal Church ( Anglican church in Scotland).

Maybe a tiny bit disingenuous because I don't actually expect an evangelical church tradition to be okay with my being gay. But, it's also a tiny bit of hope. A tiny bit of hope that one day more Christians will be okay for people like me to be practicing Christians and not condemned for who we love. The experience of emailing round all the local churches that might be okay with it every time I move is exhausting. So now I can cross off Free Churches from the potential list. Thankfully I have family in the Church of Scotland so I know their stance already.

And yes, I could have googled. But I didn't want to. I wanted to make a record of my existence as a queer Christian on this thread.

Many thanks, I already knew about Church of Scotland but by choice I prefer smaller more independent denominations, not that I have a lot of choice. I go to a completely independent church at the moment, the style of worship isn't really my thing but it's my only option locally. Thanks for doing this thread, I was especially interested in the history

Thankyou for a fascinating thread.
The divisions in the church's is incredible.

Many churches are struggling with falling congregations, Inc the CoS.
Do you think the churches will ever reunite or do you think they are all still to different?

Christmas isn't the central holy day of Christianity (Easter is) and where holy days are concerned, it's the church celebration that matters from the religious pov, with all sorts of individual variation, and variations from country to country, when it comes to traditional food and domestic observance.

Each Christian denomination has its own way to celebrate holy days. In the Roman Catholic Church, the church celebration will be the same no matter where you are in the world - same readings, psalm, gospel, and eucharistic prayers. The daily Mass is the same regardless of where it is celebrated. Music can vary.

Individual RC families all over the world will have their own individual way to celebrate at home, foods they eat, etc. I was introduced to the custom of a celebratory Christmas Eve meal when I moved to the US. I think it's a custom brought to the US by German/Austrian/ other central European immigrants.

Thanks @mathanxiety

Thanks @NoHaudinMaWheest So are Congregationalists aligned to Presbyterians theologically? I only know one Congregationalist and she's very theologically liberal, but it's a sample size of 1 so I'm interested in the broader picture.

You have to remember, @EllaDisenchanted that Christmas was a pagan midwinter festival, adapted for Christianity in Europe. (Yule) Some very strict Christians don't observe it for that reason (have a look at Puritan rule in England). When the Christian church became Roman, they did these adaptations to keep it familiar eg midwinter and spring festivals, Sunday as the Sabbath (Roman "sol" day) etc.
The old Celtic festival of Samhain became All Saints Day. That's why some Christian sects reject them.

@mathanxiety I disagree that Easter is bigger than Christmas for RCs. That's a fairly recent import from a Reformed interpretation of the Incarnation (to oversimplify, the idea that the Incarnation is solely in view of the Passion). Catholics and Orthodox traditionally have seen the Incarnation as the defining moment of salvation history in itself, along with the Passion. Both are equally important theologically, although Easter has more key solemnities leading up to it (Holy Week). Both are celebrated with an octave.

@EllaDisenchanted foods vary from culture to culture. One of the defining features of Christianity, written in to the scriptures themselves and from the earliest interpreters, it that it is not ethnically defined. It welcomes hundreds of ethnic and national traditions on food, clothing etc. and sets only quite loose boundaries (no food which has been sacrificed to idols, nothing which would make a fellow Christian scandalised and fall into sin). As an aside, this causes mockery and confusion, e.g. amongst modern atheists who complain that Christmas is a corruption of a Pagan festival. Anyway, in a lot of mainland Europe, and by extension the places that are former colonies (e.g. South America), the main Christmas meal is on Christmas Eve night. Christmas Eve was traditionally a fast day (rarely observed now amongst Western Catholics) and the big Christmas meal was the feast that broke the fast. In the UK, midnight Mass is still a big thing (in a lot of the continent it has gone), so we would break the fast after that with some sort of treat that we hadn't had through Advent (e.g. chocolate), then go to bed and eat the big meal on Christmas Day.

@NoHaudinMaWheest Do the Frees have midnight services at Christmas?

sugarfree I think total unity is unlikely. Even if some of the current denominations were to unite, new divisions are likely to arise.

Some churches are so far apart that reunion just wouldn't happen. For others it is probably more fruitful to work on understanding and agreeing to disagree on non- core beliefs.

The present day Free Church may have a carol service at some point before Christmas and some even a service on Christmas day, but not all. Previously, and until quite recently, there was no celebration of Christmas in the Free Church at all. If Christmas day fell on a Sunday, Sunday services would proceed as normal. Families who did some secular Christmas celebrations would postpone them until Monday as the Lord's Day takes precedence.

Many Free Churches would have a service on New Year's Day though to reflect on the year ahead.

The village historical society have a brilliant model of the floating church

Fink I don't know a huge amount about Congregationalists. The few churches I do know off are pretty liberal. However quite a lot of the mainstream Presbyterian Church of Scotland is quite liberal nowadays too.

Thanks for that insight into Catholic views of the Incarnation and Passion. It was not something I was aware of before. Actually because as the traditional Free Church we didn't celebrate Christmas at all, I think the Incarnation tended to get ignored more than it should.

maireas While I would agree with the rest of your post, I don't think Sunday replacing Sol's day is correct (apart from the name). It is clear from the New Testament that Christians were meeting on the first day of the week in recognition of the Resurrection from the earliest days.