We are the Free Choice Church

Published on Saturday 5 April 2008 19:47

CONTRARY to the report 'Wee Frees call on Salmond to set up religious schools' (March 30), the Free Church has not called for Alex Salmond to set up Free Church schools "espousing strict biblical principles", nor based on "hard-line Presbyterian principles". And for the record, we are not a "conservative" denomination – we are actually a radical biblical church.

What I was calling for in my letter was that our schools should return to their Christian roots and resist the infiltration of one minority secularist perspective. If that is not to be the case then those of us who believe in the basic principles of a Christian education (tolerance, respect, knowledge, inquiry and love based upon truth) should be allowed to have our children educated according to that philosophy – as much as the secularists want their children to be educated according to their philosophy.

The difference between what we are requesting and the secularists is that we want freedom of choice, whilst they want everyone to be educated according to their philosophy, at taxpayers' expense.

David A Robertson, editor, The Monthly Record, Dundee

SOME statistics may reveal an ulterior motive for more sectarian schools. Christian Research's Religious Trends Bulletin (No 5) reveals that from 2000 to 2003, the Free Church has shed 1,500 members, and by 2020 membership is projected to be half its current level. Similar spectacular decline is reported for all other Christian denominations. The Reverend David Robertson might therefore care to reflect on the value of any religious belief that needs to be force-fed into the minds of innocent children in order for it to survive.

Alistair McBay, National Secular Society, Edinburgh