‘Ministers are getting scruffier by the year’

IT started with a predictable rant. The leadership of the Kirk’s General Assembly, it was claimed, was “spineless” and “dithering” on the controversial issue of the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy.

“Let them hear the voice of John Knox thundering out against the perversions of the holy love of God” another retorted.

It appears the General Assembly’s recent decision, when it voted by 351 to 294, paves the way to allow openly gay people to become ministers.

Scotland’s first openly homosexual minster, the Rev Scott Rennie, of Queen’s Cross Church in Aberdeen, welcomed the move saying it “reaffirmed” the Church of Scotland as a “church for all Scotland’s people”.

A Kirk source estimated that one in 20 of its ministers might be gay; 40 minsters are expected to declare their homosexuality following the assembly’s vote to set up a special theological commission to move the Kirk in a more inclusive “trajectory”.

All this as a presbytery survey found 58 per cent of its members believed the ordination of gay minsters was contrary to the teachings of the Bible and were, therefore, opposed to it. Thirty-six per cent declared their support for the ordination of homosexual ministers.

The letters to the editor pages of The Press and Journal descended into an orgy of correspondents compulsively obsessing not just about the gay ordination but, more importantly as readers saw it, the attire of some Church of Scotland ministers who, along with their flock, had taken to wearing “scruffy” jeans and T-shirts.

As an outside observer, with no particular views on either issue, I was amazed by the scale of the debate.

‘NO wonder congregations are dwindling,” asserted Aileen Ramsay, of Aberdeen. “It was very obvious,” remarked Tom Kirsop, of North Ballachullish, “from the assembled gathering that many now have no respect for the Church or the office they held in public life. Only six of the assembled crowds were attired in the proper dress of a minister. They are getting scruffier by the year.”

The Rev Rennie, claimed Gerald Cunningham of Aberdeen, in preaching that the Church should be “engaging with the culture of the time and learning from secular society” had omitted to take into account that the “common modern dress code demonstrates a lack of self respect and is an insult to beholders”.

“This is the type of society being foisted upon us,” Mr Cunningham lamented. “Not for me, thank you”.

Other correspondents sought to “re-dress” the debate. “I have no issue if someone sat beside me in T-shirt and jeans,” said Amelia Tunley, of Peterhead. “I would be delighted, as a Christian, that this person had come to God’s house.”

“The quicker the Church of Scotland becomes more open and welcoming to people,” reminded Scott Secker, of Potterton, Aberdeenshire, “and focuses on relevant biblical teaching that reaches out to everybody the better.”

The Rev Ken Warner, of Halkirk, advocated the benefits, as he saw it, of wearing the clerical collar in allowing people to “identify who I was. Sadly no-one knows who we are in the crowd because we appear to have gone into hiding,” he reflected.

Michael Burch, of Banff, was succinct. “A Church which thinks it is important whether or not ministers

The debate had all the hallmarks of a moral panic.

WHEN, back in the late 1980s, the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev heralded a new era of perestroika and glasnost it seems his American counterparts went into a tailspin, unsure how to cope with the Russian leader’s commitment to reform and openness.

The Cold War was over and the CIA needed a new enemy – someone or something else to target.

According to Spitting Image, the satirical puppet TV show that took no prisoners, the Yanks’ next focus was, wait for it... Brussels sprouts! It fed into their paranoia and obsession with conspiracy theories.

I imagine the Church of Scotland in a similar tailspin. Think of it. The association with Christmas and the revered festive culinary ingredient... Surely, some sort of subversive satanic ploy to negate the season of peace and goodwill to all men?

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has been more focused by comparison this last week. In a stinging critique of the coalition Government’s planned reforms of the NHS and schools he claimed: “With remarkable speed, we are being committed to radical, long-term policies for which no-one voted.”

His criticisms of government initiatives extended to the “Big Society” suggesting there was “widespread suspicion that this had been done for opportunistic or money-saving reasons”.

His comments led to an astonishing rebuke from Prime Minster David Cameron who “profoundly disagreed” with the remarks. Tory MPs rallied quickly to suggest Dr Williams’s comments were “a little unbalanced and unfair” and “ill-judged”.

Not so, according to one of the archbishop’s supporters, the Rt Rev Christopher Hill.

He said: “Government cannot at any stage abrogate its responsibility. One of the prime, core functions of government is the care of all in society, especially those at the bottom.”

With so much to debate, so many “undeserving” to defend it seems the very role of the Church in society is being challenged – and not just from the relentless march of secularism but also forces from within.

Up and down the land the Christian tradition has just celebrated Pentecost Sunday – a time when it renews its commitment to spread the good news to a groaning world. A commitment borne, presumably, regardless of how it is attired and what private sexual orientation its adherents follow.

But as one noted theologian once queried: “How can a church divided represent one God?”

One suspects the rants will continue.

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