Whose Church?

Published on 11/02/2013 00:00

I SEE from your report (8 February) that Aberdeen’s Rev Dominic Smart has resigned from the Church of Scotland and is hoping to take his congregation with him over his objection to the appointment of an openly gay minister. He claims that this is in response to what “the Bible teaches quite clearly” and has been informed by “careful study, sincere discussion and prayer”.

The Old Testament, from which I assume Mr Smart derives his anti-gay justification, is full of prescriptions of racism, genocide and misogyny, which he chooses to ignore.

Here we see a perfect example of the need generally to abandon the notion that the Church of Scotland is OUR church. If Mr Smart and others were to be involved in an entirely private organisation, they might welcome the freedom no longer to be accountable to inconvenient modern notions of morality and equality as much as we would be glad they no longer assumed to speak in our name.

Neil Barber

Edinburgh Secular Society