Kirk looks to end gay row as minister takes up post

Published on Thursday 2 July 2009 20:02

THE gay lover and former wife of a homosexual minister who almost caused a schism in the Church of Scotland will tonight attend the service to mark his controversial appointment to a new post.

The Rev Scott Rennie, 37, will be inducted at Aberdeen's Queen's Cross Church where he will become the first openly-gay preacher in the Kirk to minister to a congregation.

He should have taken up his appointment in January, but the furore surrounding the move came close to creating a devastating split in the Kirk.

More than 12,000 people, including over 200 serving Church of Scotland ministers, 5,000 Kirk members and more than 700 ministers from Protestant and Catholic churches in Britain and Ireland, signed an online petition opposing the appointment, which was approved by 326 votes to 267 at a stormy meeting of the General Assembly in Edinburgh.

The Assembly also introduced a two-year ban on the ordination of homosexual ministers, while a commission investigates the induction and ordination of active homosexuals in the ministry.

Mr Rennie's partner, David Smith and Ruth, his former wife and the mother of his child, are expected to join the 400-strong congregation at tonight's service. Church of Scotland leaders will be hopeful that the ceremony will draw a line under months of controversy.

But yesterday the senior clergyman who will lead the induction service conceded: "There is still a lot of hurt around." The Rev Dr Alan Falconer, minister of St Machar Cathedral and the Moderator of Aberdeen Presbytery, told The Scotsman: "As a presbytery, as well as the rest of the Church, we are still coming to terms with the healing processes."

Mr Rennie, who preached his last service at his former charge at Brechin Cathedral at the weekend, was elected to take over the charge at Queen's Cross by 86 per cent of the congregation – a decision endorsed by the Aberdeen Presbytery, which voted 60-24 in support of his appointment.

A senior member of the congregation, who did not wish to be named, said that only ten members of the congregation had left the church as a result of Mr Rennie's appointment while five people had joined.

The Rev David Randall, of Macduff Church in Banffshire, a leading opponent of the appointment, said: "I have a huge feeling of sorrow and dismay at the prospect of the Church of Scotland crossing a line … in which it departs from its own foundations in scripture."