Confidence crisis church to pay back withheld cash

A CHURCH whose congregation has decided to withdraw tens of thousands of pounds in annual funding to the Church of Scotland due to its controversial stance on gay clergy, is to pay back the withheld funds to the Kirk.

Members of the High Church Hilton in Aberdeen announced in June that they had decided to withhold contributions to central Kirk funds because they no longer had “confidence” in the national church to spend the money wisely.

Last month the Reverend Peter Dickson, the minister of the church, announced that he was resigning his post because of the Kirk’s “tragic drift away from the gospel”.

Mr Dickson will leave his post next Wednesday and is planning to set up his own church in the city. A large number of members of the 500-strong congregation are understood to be set to join the new church.

In his farewell letter to his congregation, Mr Dickson has confirmed the funds which had been withheld are to be repaid.

Writing in his newsletter, Mr Dickson said: “Those who disagree with the direction of the Church have faced a serious problem of whether and how to give financially, while being members of a denomination which is changing the content of the gospel.”

A Church of Scotland spokeswoman welcomed the decision. He said: “The congregation have been completely open and honest about what they have been doing. We wrote to Aberdeen Presbytery and asked them to have discussions with the congregation, to encourage them to reverse this decision, and obviously they now have done so.”