The Return of Patronage

Patronage is not a word we hear in everyday conversation. However, the concept behind it is alive and well in today’s church.

To get the current gist, we need to know the past debacle.

The 16th century Reformation resulted in the Church of Scotland that was Presbyterian in structure and Reformed in doctrine.  While God used John Knox in the founding of the Church, further reform came with the National Covenant of 1638 and the reception of the Westminster Standards of the 1640s.

In 1711 the Parliament of Great Britain restored the ancient feudal rights of nobility to present a candidate to Presbytery in the Church of Scotland when a pulpit was vacant—the Patronage Act. Essentially, the chief landowner of the parish had primary influence and veto power over the parish’s selection of a pastor.

 If the landowner, a patron, failed to put forward a candidate for a vacancy within six months, his right of patronage fell to the Presbytery. The General Assembly of the Scottish Church in 1732 passed an Act establishing an older 1690 rule, granting the patronage right to leading landowners and the elders.

Ebenezer Erskine and his allies vigorously opposed patronage as a means of securing ministers for open pulpits. They labored to preserve the rights of church members to select their own ministers. They wanted the policies of 1649 applied, by which all heads of families in a congregation called a Minister. 

Erskine understood that at the heart of Presbyterian government is the right of a member to select who will serve as his Minister. Any infringement upon that right smacked of episcopal prelacy.

Failing to convince the General Assembly of the merits of this prime feature of Presbyterian polity, Erskine and three others established the Associate Presbytery in 1733. Erskine and the leaders of the Associate Presbytery were known as “Seceders.” 

Transplants from the Associate Presbytery of the Church of Scotland to the New World became a composite part of the later Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States, established in 1782. 

In Erskine’s day, as in ours, the principle that members should determine who led them as office-bearers and as pastors was essential.   

Today, patronage is afoot. There is a move in some Reformed and Presbyterian circles to take away the vote of members for their ministers. It does not take the form of landowners exerting chief sway, but sessions hiring and firing assistant ministers without congregational approval. 

The prime argument for the practice of patronage today is pragmatic: After all, the argument goes, the elders are elected by members to make the decisions, and the elders know what is best for the flock.  While Presbyterianism may not always appear pragmatic, it is the form of government that most clearly reflects the teaching of the Bible. 

In a day when pragmatism reigns, we must remain faithful to Scriptural principles that preserve the right of members to select ministers of Christ’s Church.   

This modern practice of patronage is not the tradition of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. But there are some who promote this new session patronage. May we remain faithful and principled in our Biblical and historic Presbyterian roots—even if it at times may not seem pragmatic.