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.

As @ghislaine says, the non- Catholic has to sign a document acknowledging that they won't prevent the Catholic from raising children as Catholic, it's up to the couple whether the Catholic actually does so ... In practice there are no other restrictions. In theory, mixed marriages should be discouraged, but in practice they very rarely are: it's just not talked about at all.

Mixed marriages are very common, although much more so the less practising the Catholic is. It also depends on the country/region, and, in the case of the UK, the country the family are originally from. Filipino Catholics frequently marry out, for example, whereas Polish Catholics hardly ever do.

The Church makes a distinction between marrying a baptised Christian of another denomination and marrying a non-Christian. The former is a sacrament, the latter is not.

Catholics have to get a dispensation to marry anywhere other than a Catholic church building, whether another denomination's church, a registry office, a beach or whatever. Mine was refused, so we had a small Catholic wedding which was a week before the big ceremony. A lot of non-practising Catholics get caught out by this rule and end up in invalid marriages. Non-Catholics, of course, aren't bound by it, so two Anglicans marrying on a beach is valid, but an Anglican and a Catholic marrying on a beach is not.

Then there's a whole load of other things to do with Eastern rite Catholics, but since most people associate Roman Catholic solely with the Latin rite, I'll stick to that!

Catholics have to get a dispensation to marry anywhere other than a Catholic church building, whether another denomination's church, a registry office, a beach or whatever

The reason CoS ministers can marry people anywhere (within reason) dates back to the reformation and churches meeting wherever possible, sometimes outside, sometimes in people's houses.
Church is seen as a body of people rather than a building.
I've been to two weddings held outside. Going back a couple of generations it was common to get married either in a hall or at home - cheaper to pay just the minister than to have the church opened up.

More recently registars have been allowed to marry people outside the registry office to make things more equal.

@NoHaudinMaWheest will Free Church ministers marry people outside church?

sugarfree yes absolutely Free Church ministers will marry people anywhere.
As there is no particular sanctity about the church building and marriage is a 'creation ordinance' (open and desirable for everyone) not a sacrament, there is no problem about doing that.

Getting married in a church building is a relatively recent thing in Presbyterian Scotland and at first it was mainly the well-off who did it. As well as getting married at home, the couple and witnesses would often go to the manse and get married in the minister's study.

I remember my father doing that once or twice though it was becoming uncommon in the 60s and 70s. He has also married people in hotels.

I think the church being the people rather than the building is a doctrine common to all Christian strands but fink could probably correct me if I am wrong.

I was quite taken when I married to learn that in Catholic theology, the couple marry each other themselves and the priest is simply there as a witness, very similar to Quaker understandings.

Absolutely right, it's the people not the building who are the body of Christ.

The building itself does hold more value in Catholicism and Orthodoxy than in Reformed churches, probably a lot to do with a sacramental world view, but it's still not the primary meaning of the word church.

And yes, a marriage is considered to be a sacrament that the couple confer on each other, in the western Catholic tradition. In the east, it's the priest who marries. It is beautiful! It's also how we can have a relatively high rate of annulments (but not divorce), because a defect of consent from either party invalidates the marriage.

in the Free Church there are only two sacraments Baptism and Communion.
Marriage is considered a creation ordinance the other 3 are a) work then b)rest after work ie the Sabbath and to c) procreate ( not specific to the Jews like the Mosaic law) so this is for all people not just those of the faith, there is no requirement of faith in order to be married and all people should be given a day of rest whether they share your faith or not.
Therefore generally speaking the Free Church will marry those who ask for marriage as set out Biblically one man one woman with the intention of it being for life, general prohibits such as incest being under legal age for marriage etc. They will in some circumstances remarry divorced parties, though not if you were the one guilty of adultery there will be a meeting to see if they agree the divorce was on biblical grounds; whether you were divorced against your will, or if your ex has remarried so there is no hope of reconcilation, as there is a biblical ban on remarrying a former spouse if they have been married to someone else since.the divorce . if the divorce was not due to adultery or you were divorced without consent then there will be further discussions as to what went wrong to avoid similar things happening, Some churches may insist on doing marraige counselling programme before marriage. In Scotland it is the minister/ priest / celebrant that is registered to do marriage not a building so if your minister will agree to marrying you in a hotel or on the beach that is fine
Jews refer to a similar principle as the seven Noahide laws meaning these are God's laws for all people in all ages times and areas
This is a quotation of Noahide laws from Wikipedia
"The Seven Laws of Noah include prohibitions against worshipping idols, cursing God, murder, adultery and sexual immorality, theft, eating flesh torn from a living animal, as well as the obligation to establish courts of justice."

@Fink I generally believe in Sola Scriptura but parts of the Bible are descriptive rather than prescriptive and some is written as poetry etc I am not a Young Earth creationist but do believe in God as creator. I also believe that not all doctrines are absolutely essential to salvation, but some are like the death and resurrection of Christ, others like your views on the end times or whether we should have exclusive psalmody or whether you need to be a 5 point Calvinist is different

@Cottagecheeseisnotcheese What's exclusive psalmody? That sounds interesting.

What do you do about passages of scripture that contradict e.g. the five points? Isn't believing one position over another in itself a doctrinal position which is inherently based on something other than scripture? I'm not being goady, I just don't see how this position is tenable and I want to understand it from your POV.

Exclusive psalmody is using only the psalms in public worship i.e. no hymns or other songs. It is based on the principle of only using in worship things commanded in the New Testament.

It is usually accompanied by not using any instrumental music in public worship.
It was the position of all the Presbyterian churches in Scotland at one time.
The C of S dropped it a long time ago.
The Free Church of Scotland now (since 2011)allows simple music and theologically sound hymns but there are some congregations which stick to exclusive psalmody.

Oh, thanks @NoHaudinMaWheest, that's slightly less exotic than I was imagining. I thought it might be a particular psalm melody/ chant tone that was mandated on pain of excommunication!

Would they use other parts of Scripture set to music, or literally just the book of Psalms?

That is what doctrinal debate is about, and somethings are not that clear cut from scripture, ie infant baptism versus baptism of believers only, you can probably argue both cases, though the Free church would always call it infant baptism and not a Christening as they do not believe it makes a baby or child a Christian, but rather baptism of the children of believers is a sign that they will be brought up in the Nurture and ways of the Lord, they expect parents to take vows seriously and that at some point in the future they will commit to Christ themselves visibly. This is done by becoming a church member it is rare for a young person to become a member before age 13 much more common is late teens early twenties,
Most people in Free Church agree that once past the age of early childhood, baptism is only for believers, there is internal debate on whether children of believers means only children of church members or children of regular attendees ( called adherents) or children somehow connected with church ( their parents married there other family members attend etc) or any child whose parents request baptism
regarding Calvinism there are some texts that would appear to contradict it, there are other texts that contradict Arminianism the sort of balance between fully believing in the Sovereignity of God as well as the Free will of People is called Molinism. I was bought up with hypercalvinists ( I left that position in my late teens) and definitely Hyper Calvinism is not something Calvin would have recognised

@Lamelie A hard YES to non-Catholics taking communion at Mass .
I grew up as a Presbyterian in the USA, and then was accepted - without conversion into a local small town parish in France and taught catechism for 11 years. Why ? Because there are not enough practicing Catholics in certain places. Ecumenism and tolerance are the way forward.

fink just the book of Psalms. There are both old and new metrical versions and tunes can be anything that fit, though there are traditional ones.
As a side note some of the Dutch Reformed Churches which also use exclusive psalmody do have a restricted number of tunes which they can use.

It’s not something I’d ever object to but in theory it’s not allowed. Similarly Catholics aren’t meant to take communion elsewhere but I do- randomly I know several CofE vicars and would always take communion from them; they always comment on it and say thank you.

There is one provision in canon law for a non-Catholic to receive Catholic sacraments (which in practice would only ever mean Eucharist or confession) and it is very restrictive, including the impossibility of receiving the sacraments in one's own church, a 'grave and pressing need' which has to be determined by the national bishops' conference, and the demonstration of a Catholic understanding of the sacrament.

In practice, you will find some priests who play fast and lose with the rules and either operate a don't ask don't tell policy or actively welcome people of other denominations. This is less common in the UK, at least amongst British-born clergy, because they've grown up with some understanding of Anglicanism and Reformed churches and in a situation where Catholics are the minority. You will see it more often in France (where I also used to live and teach catechism, incidentally) because Protestants are such a tiny minority there and a lot of the clergy have no real experience with them.

Thank you, all of you for this very interesting and educational thread . I am delighted to have been able to learn more about the (7?) Presbyterian Churches of Scotland from such knowledgeable sources and appreciate Fink 's pertinent questions and insight into the RC church.

Fink I am going to have a go at some of your other questions.

The ceremonial, sacrificial, 'cleanness', food laws are all considered to have been fulfilled in the work of Christ and therefore no longer applicable.

The moral laws still apply though if they are no longer directly relevant and principle behind them will be extracted and applied. E.g. as we no longer have slaves laws about their treatment would be applied broadly to employees.

Similarly, these principles would be applied to modern moral issues. On the whole people would discuss issues among themselves and read anything from written by people within the broader tradition (both Reformed and Evangelical). It is up to each individual Christian to make a final decision on things that are not definitely forbidden. Someone might consult the minister, especially for difficult or important decisions but they are not obliged to take any advice given.

Obviously some people are more confident to make their own decisions that others. There is also a fair amount of social pressure to do what has always been done.

I would say that most of the Bible is taken literally. Poetry and parables are obvious exceptions to this. There may be a bit of disagreement about e.g. the length of days in Genesis 1 but only the whole if something can be taken literally it will be.

A lot of work goes into trying to reconcile discrepancies etc. Sometimes I feel with tortuous results. If reconciliation is not possible, it will be considered part of the mystery of God but something that has to be accepted.

I remember my mother coming down on me firmly when I innocently (aged 9 or so) said about some discrepancy in the resurrection accounts, 'perhaps one of them made a mistake'.

I think most ordinary Christians are not really aware of issues around the canon. Those who read more and ministers will have encountered arguments to justify the current canon as divinely chosen through human instruments.

As far as Jesus's understanding of what is Scripture, I think it is barely considered that it could be anything other than the current canon. I think I am right in saying that any direct quotations or references in the Gospels do come from the current canon and so the question doesn't really arise for most Christians unless they are serious theologians.

As for Christians before the Reformation, they tend to get totally ignored. There is a huge gap in knowledge between the New Testament church and the immediate pre Reformation period. There are a few individual exceptions - Augustine, Wycliffe and Jan Hus spring to mind.
I think I am right in saying that even most ministers would have little awareness of the Early Church Fathers for example.

Your questions have made me realise that there are quite big gaps in my knowledge. I was unaware that Catholics considered sola scriptura as a 16th century invention.

Maybe all Christian groups spend a lot of time talking to themselves?

Can I ask what is the Canon?

Thank you so much for this thread. I came to faith in the Free Church, having grown up Jewish. I now live in Canada, and attend a more contemporary-feeling Presbyterian church. Nevertheless, your thoughtful explanations of Free Church doctrine are making me feel quite nostalgic!

Canon has a few meanings. In the sense we've mainly been using it here, it refers to the canon of Scripture: which books are considered to be divinvely inspired and which are not, i.e. what made it into the Bible.

There's a debate because Catholics believe that the Jewish canon of Scripture (what we call the Old Testament) was not fixed until well after Christianity became a separate religion from Judaism, the two religions as they are currently practised grew up in parallel around the same time; some books were definitively considered scripture from very early (several centuries BC) but there was debate around the edges. The Christian canon of scripture was fixed in 382AD. Then, at the Reformation, the Reformers went back and decided to use the current Jewish canon for the Old Testament, which is narrower than what we have. That's why I was asking above what the current Presbyterian view on the Hebrew canon is: I wanted to know whether they accept that they are using a canon that was established well after the New Testament was written or whether there is a different understanding of this.

In a different sense, Canon also refers to any pronouncement made by an ecumenical council, in the Catholic vocab. So the canons of the First Council of Nicea in the year 325, for example, include the statement that Jesus is the Son of God, co-eternal with the Father. This means that it was a statement that the whole Church agreed on and that those who refused it were considered heretics (in this case, Arians).

And, by extension of the second sense, we talk about Canon Law, which is the collection of rules governing how a Church governs itself. It deals with practical issues rather than theology, but obviously each of the laws is underpinned by a particular theology (e.g. I gave the example above of who could be admitted to communion). The Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox churches each have their own Canon Law (and Catholics have several for the smaller sui iuris - self-governing - churches).

But the main sense we've been using in the thread so far is the canon of Scripture. I think I'm the only one who has mentioned the other meanings.

Thanks for this, very thoughtful. I will come back to it later because I have to run to church now 😁but I just had a shortish question as an immediate follow-up: when I was asking about moral, ceremonial etc. laws, I was more wondering how a Reformed Christian would decide which was which, whether they accept an authority on this or each person decides for themselves and with what tools. So some Catholics, for example, consider all tattoos to be wrong because of the prohibition on tattoos in Leviticus. But the more mainstream Catholic position would be that Leviticus is talking into a situation of tattoos as markings for a false god and therefore part of idol worship, and so they would see tattoos as ok for a Christian as long as they are not antithetical to a Christian message (no tattoos of swear words, indecent images etc.). Others would use the latter interpretation but more strictly say that a tattoo must be explicitly Christian in nature. I was wondering how someone from a Reformed church would decide whether tattoos are a moral precept or a ceremonial one?

Up to my elbows thanks.

Yes I do feel nostalgic for the Free Church at times although it has changed in practice quite a lot since I was a member.

The things I miss most are the psalm singing and the sense of community. I am not sure that I have managed to convey that sense of community on this thread very well. The willingness to help each other, the hospitality, the teas after big events.

fink I don't remember any particular discussion of tattoos, probably because they weren't really a thing for the general population when I was growing up.

However that gives me a chance to see if I can work it out from the principles. Looking at the verse in Leviticus it is one of the trickier ones since it is unclear whether it is only talking about the context of false religion and therefore a 'purity' law or whether there is a moral point.

Whichever view is taken, the more important principles used in decided whether tattoos are acceptable are; a general rule not to mutilate the body God has given you and another general rule about modesty and restraint in personal appearance. These are both derived from attitudes passim in both Testaments. If the Leviticus verse is considered moral law, it would be used to reinforce a prohibition derived from the other principles.

So some people would feel that tattoos are undesirable based on these principles but others would think that a discreet (and non-offensive) tattoo is Ok. I don't think anyone would consider that a specifically Christian tattoo would alter their view either way.

This issue would in any case be viewed as a matter of individual conscience and would not attract any sanctions. (Unless it was something offensive but the thought of a Free Kirker getting a naked lady tattoo just doesn't compute!)

It is the kind of issue that people tend to discuss and reach conclusions among themselves, possibly asking advice of more experienced Christians. I don't think people would really go to the minister about it. My view on that may be skewed by living in the manse and having the minister 'on tap' though.

I am interested in what an 'ordinary' Catholic would do if they were unsure about whether it was alright to get a tattoo.

@NoHaudinMaWheest I would agree on that exegesis on tattoos the levitical rule is in context of when the Jews reach the Promised land they must not adopt the idolatrous practises of the other surrounding nations which include
tattoos , trimming your beard by rounding corners, cutting yourself for the dead , or tell fortunes or consult mediums / wizards etc or sell your daughter to be a prostitute ( temple prostitution was something that did happen and families would offer daughters to the temple in this way to try and pacify the gods)
the general gist is that you must not adopt these practices that are common because the practices were all immediately associated with idolatry
Generally the principles of these rules would be part of the guidance we get from OT law do nothing that even resembles idolatry outwardly
Similarly other laws like having a parapet around your flat roof ( people would often sleep on the roof so the parapet would stop a sleeping person rolling over and falling and injuring themselves or dying this would be reflected in health and safety like rails on a balcony, or if your animal hurts someone it should be killed (PTS) if you don't and it hurts someone again you are liable
I think tattoos are a matter of conscience with the caveats mentioned above no grim reaper type, naked bodies, profanities etc. I think if someone who became a Christian in latter life that had tattoos that were maybe dodgy in content they would keep them covered or get them removed

I'm getting ready to host a (Catholic) study group so I don't have long, there is more I wanted to ask about the interpretation of Scripture, but it will have to wait for another time.

I loved your cosy description of tea after events and the sense of community, and I completely agree that I think we all spend lots of time within our own groups and absorbing the language and thought processes of them without maybe realising that others view things quite differently.

On the tea thing, you could help to confirm or deny my personal Biscuit Theory of Ecclesiology by telling me what is served after services ... I developed the Theory (it deserves its capital letter 😂) whilst on a walking pilgrimage where we were welcomed into various churches. It basically states that you can tell a church's ecclesiology by what's on offer:

Catholic - something popular but budget, e.g. own brand Bourbons, cheap selection pack
High church Anglican/Anglo-Catholic - something expensive and decadent, e.g. Fox's chocolate cookies, Waitrose lavender shortbread
Low church Anglican and equivalent (e.g. Methodist) - something not too showy, but branded and relatively tasty, e.g. Ginger Nuts, plain Hobnobs
Evangelical mega church - doughnuts (American import)
Calvinist - either no biscuits at all, or very plain, e.g non-chocolate digestives, Rich Tea

Obviously all churches have rogue home bakers, who might bring anything! And churches like mine have a high proportion of non-British-born people in the congregation, who could also be more inventive. But if we stick to shop-bought British congregations then this is my Theory. Any comments?