Presbytery allowed Rev Ron Johnstone and Rev Marcus Lecky to make statements in Presbytery on 1st May. I only received on 22nd May a copy of what Rev Johnstone had said.
Presbytery Officers had given Rev Johnstone and Rev Lecky permission to make personal statements about myself and Rev David Linden, five days before the Presbytery took place on May 1st, but did not inform myself or Rev Linden that such would be happening.
That was a clear breach of Rule 10.5, which states:
‘Presbytery business will be strictly according to an agenda agreed and compiled by the moderator and clerk. In normal circumstances, any member who wishes to have a matter raised must notify the clerk no later than one week before the meeting.
The Moderator will read the agenda at the start of the Presbytery meeting. Any business relating to any member of Presbytery shall be brought to the member’s attention as soon as possible.’
There was a period of at least 5 days in which we should have been informed.
Rev Johnstone’s statement to Presbytery is some 2000 words long but there is scant reference to the Bible except for direct reference to a verse in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. It was verse 11.
There is NOT ONE verse which justifies his actions which I criticised in my article and which he is complaining to Presbytery about. But rather a verse which he implies is an indication of my character.
The verse in question reads:
“But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.”
He then quotes Albert Barnes, whose full comment on the element of this verse that Rev Johnstone highlights is:
“A reproachful man; a man of coarse, harsh, and bitter words; a man whose characteristic it was to abuse others; to vilify their character, and wound their feelings. It is needless to say how much this is contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and to the example of the Master, “who when he was reviled, reviled not again.”
It was repeatedly stated to me that Rev Johnstone, when making his statement to Presbytery, made no accusation against me.
Mr Johnstone delights in ‘oblique’ wording, but I can see no other meaning to his quoting the above verse than that he is applying it to me.
If that is the case, I can think of no greater accusation to be levelled against a minister, and yet the Commission has repeatedly stated that Rev Johnstone had levelled no charge against me in Presbytery! (more…)
