Looking Back: Peace Society Merger

From March 1964

Independent Societies have never been looked upon with enthusiasm by the Courts of the Church of Scotland, but not a few of these groups have from time to time been responsible for stirring the conscience of the new General Assembly and producing new thought and action within the official Church.

The little group of ministers who banded themselves into the Ministers’ Peace Group soon after the First World War, and later joined with laymen and women to form the Church of Scotland Peace Society, held by their convictions in years when anti-war propaganda and pacifist views were condemned by the majority as despicable, unpatriotic and quite unchristian. Perhaps it was the sincerity and forthrightness of these men which prevented the Assembly from ever declaring pacifism to be heresy, and which later prevailed on the Supreme Court to accept a report which recognised the right of those within the Church to hold the minority view – that the teaching of Christ was incompatible with modern warfare. Certainly they prepared the way for a great change in public opinion, both within and without the Church, which has resulted in the Press, the BBC, and plain ordinary folk being able to discuss the subject without temper-losing or breaking of friendships.

Since the second World War the whole nature of warfare has changed and become so much more frightening that opposition to it has passed, it must be admitted,  from the mild and perhaps too academic protests of such small groups, to the powerful and vociferous mass movements, with their marches, sit-downs and active civil disobedience.

By no means all of this opposition has been pacifist or based on Christian conviction, and so the need for a true and full Christian pacifist witness continues. But the setting changes, and a new situation demands re-organisation.

The former Church Of Scotland Peace Society has voted itself out of existence in order to unite with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the ecumenical and international body linking Christians who work for peace and hold the pacifist position. For long the two societies have worked closely together, but now the division between those in the Church Of Scotland and those in other denominations will be broken down, while at the same time a new self-governing Scottish F.O.R. will provide the focal point for all who share these views, and will better take advantage of the wind of change in public opinion than either of the old societies could do when working together.

-          Edwin S. Towill, Chairman

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