GS 2025 art 163 – Office Bearers

Article 163 – Appeal against GS 2019 art. 23 & GS 2022 art. 120 dec. 3.8.1: Lord’s Supper Forms

2.1 The appeal was declared admissible.
- Grounds: It is an appeal against decisions of GS 2019 and 2022 and was received on time.

3.1 Kerwood (Grace) requests GS 2025 to find that: GS 2019 and GS 2022 erred in giving the Standing Committee for the Publication of the Book of Praise (SCBP) the mandate “to study and propose appropriate changes as per consideration 3.1, 3.2” (GS 2019 art. 23; Synod 2022 art. 120 dec. 3.8.1) to the Lord’s Supper forms without considering the historical and scriptural implications.
3.2 GS 2019 art. 23 mandated the SCBP “to study and propose appropriate changes as per Considerations 3.1, 3.2.” The text of these considerations are as follows:
- [3.1] “RSE Nov. 2018 makes a valid point that the English language has changed and therefore the use of masculine pronouns in the forms for Lord’s Supper could make them liable to misinterpretation.”
- [3.2] “General Synod has been served by SCBP in matters of linguistic changes to the liturgical forms (see GS 2013 Art. 101). It would be advisable to ask the committee to study this and propose appropriate changes to the Lord’s Supper forms giving special attention to the personal nature of self-examination. In this process the churches would have opportunity to interact with any proposed changes.”

4.1 A general synod has the authority to issue a mandate to any duly appointed committee.
4.2 Kerwood (Grace) fails to prove that the content of the mandate itself is not in accordance with Scripture or the Church Order (see CO art. 31).
4.3 The content in the appeal from Kerwood (Grace) is irrelevant to the mandate and assumes a particular outcome of the mandate.
4.4 If Kerwood (Grace) wishes to respond to the results of the mandated study, this can be done by sending a letter to interact with the SCBP report.

That Synod decide: