Scottish Presbyterian, Methodist publisher encourage convocation
The Layman Online, June 16, 2005
EDINA, Minn. – The New Wineskins Convocation, an evangelical renewal initiative, has received some pats on the back from a Scottish theologian and the publisher of a United Methodist magazine.
The Rev. Dr. Andrew McGown, principal (president) of the Highland Theological College and a member the steering committee of “Forward Together, a renewal group serving the Church of Scotland, sent a letter of encouragement.
“When I heard about the New Wineskins, I was excited to think that others, in a similar position, were working to achieve similar objectives,” McGown said. “We in Forward Together wish you well in your endeavours and would seek a continuing relationship with you.”
James V. “Jim” Heidinger II, president and publisher of Good News – A Forum for Scriptural Christianity in the United Methodist Church, said he was “amazed at the unity and common purposes shared by evangelical and traditionalist believers in the mainline Protestant churches in America.
“All of us struggle with the virus of theological confusion and the loss of Scriptural authority which have brought significant collateral damage to our communions,” Heidinger said. “I believe a critical mass of our members are saying ‘enough’ to trendy, theological fads that have preoccupied us for too long.”
McGown said the Scots’ “Forward Together has existed for a number of years as a small gathering of like-minded evangelicals who were concerned about the lack of clarity in the preaching of the gospel, the lack of commitment to the authority of Scripture and a real drift away from many of the foundational moral and ethical positions which the Kirk has always held.”
He said Forward Together was recently “reconstituted and relaunched, with a national platform and with considerable media exposure. It is our intention to work within the Church of Scotland, in order to call the Kirk back to her Gospel roots and to a Biblical Presbyterianism which takes seriously our Reformed and evangelical tradition.”
He said it was his hope and prayer “that you will be led by the Lord in all your deliberations and that you will have a real sense of the unity of the Spirit. May God bless and encourage you as you seek to bring your denomination back into the mainstream of Reformed and evangelical Presbyterianism.”
Heidinger quoted Dr. Thomas Oden, one of the premier evangelical theologians in the world, in his remarks about the students who attended his theology classes at Drew University a few years ago. Oden said, “They wanted from me not political messianism, but the faith of the apostles and the martyrs.”
“That is what many folks want and it is what they all deserve,” Heidinger said. “I pray your time together will be blessed in every way as you pray, dream and set strategies for the future. May God bless you and do know of our prayerful interest in your strategic convocation.”