
Yes I know that sounds really lame, but bear with me while I explain why it's important.
The Free Church is theologically conservative, but has also been historically energetic. They set up New College at the University of Edinburgh, which now hosts the School of Divinity - that is, the university's theological faculty. They sent missionaries to Africa, India (Calcutta, Bombay, Poona and Madras), Canada, Australia (!) and the Middle East. Their theology was probably the closest to the Old Princeton Presbyterianism of Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield.


But now, as noted above, they've permitted musical instruments and songs beyond the Psalms.
I think this is a step forward, in that I don't subscribe to such a biblically prescriptive view of the regulative principle as noted above. I think the Bible gives us principles which regulate our response to God - our "worship" - in any and every situation. But I also think God gives us the responsibility of thinking deeply about how to apply those principles in any particular historical and cultural context.

But of course I could be wrong. This could be a step backwards - a compromising with culture, a loss of biblical and theological clarity, the beginning of the end. We'll have to wait another 50 or so years and see.