Gay minister debate must not 'muddy the waters'

OPPONENTS of the appointment of a gay minister were told they could prejudice his court hearing as the General Assembly got under way yesterday.

They said a debate on openly gay ministers should take place before the hearing into the appointment of the Rev Scott Rennie to a church in Aberdeen.

Rev Peter Park, of the Presbytery of Fraserburgh, who wanted the running order to be changed, said:

"It would seem to me that what the Assembly is being asked to do is simply to affirm what most of us thought was the status quo."

Quoting the motion, from the Presbytery of Lochcarron-Skye, he added: "'Not ordaining anyone engaged in sexual activity outwith the sanctity of marriage' is perhaps stating the obvious and shouldn't be necessary, but it is necessary because in recent years some people in our Kirk have questioned the validity of our sexual morality."

Mr Park's motion was supported by Edinburgh minister, the Rev Jeremy Middleton, who said the order in which the motion and case were heard was vital to the church's integrity: "As I understand, the overture of Lochcarron-Skye is to simply affirm and clarify what has always been understood and agreed to be the principle underlying Christian sexual morality, nothing more than that."

Conservative evangelical Kirk members, who set up a petition against the minister's appointment, have warned that the issue could split the Kirk.

However, yesterday a group of liberal evangelical bodies issued an open letter to the Assembly supporting Mr Rennie and stating that the church had been wrong in its interpretations of Bible on sexuality.

Rev Ruairidh MacRae of CourageScotland, one of ten evangelical bodies supporting Mr Rennie, said: "We uphold the historic orthodox teaching on Scripture as the infallible Word of God. In the question of homosexuality, it is not that the Bible is wrong, it is our interpretation that has been wrong.

"The Church has erred through the ages – questions like slavery, racial tension and the treatment of women are all examples of this. It is time for the Church to recognise the breadth of opinion and embrace faithful homosexual relationships as a picture of Christ and the Church as much as heterosexual marriage."

The attempt to change the running order ran into stiff opposition from Assembly members. The Rev Dr Derek Browning, of Edinburgh Presbytery, said that the Kirk had to resist departing from "what is just".

"The eyes of the church, the eyes of the country and the wider world are upon us at this time," he said. "It seems to me that if we were to approve this motion, we would have departed from justice."

The Rev Dr Donald MacEwan insisted that Mr Rennie's case had to be judged on the legislation that stood at the time of the case's initial presbytery hearing in January this year.

In the only speech of the day to receive a round of applause, he said that to allow a debate on the motion to be heard before the hearing would "muddy the waters" of the principles and issues. The motion to change the running order was defeated on a show of hands.

'People need spiritual hope in time of financial crisis'

THE General Assembly was told yesterday that the Kirk has to do more than simply challenge consumer culture during times of economic turmoil.

The Lord High Commissioner George Reid, the Queen's representative at the Assembly, said that the Church had to help give people hope and spiritual support.

Addressing the Assembly on its first day yesterday, he said the country had experienced a "tempestuous year" that had left people "deeply concerned by the financial crisis and by the apparent breakdown in standards of public life".

Mr Reid said: "The trillion dollar economic crisis has spawned constant headlines about storms and shipwrecks. In Scotland, the sinking of flagship financial institutions has been particularly painful.

"People ask: 'Is my job safe? Can I pay the mortgage? What about my pension?' How do we reach out to the 800,000 Scots living on the poverty line?"

He said that while the Kirk had campaigned against poverty and for a fairer society, it and other churches had to give people the spiritual strength to build a better society.

"If the economic storms are to produce a wind of change they must do more than challenge conspicuous consumption," he said. "They must engender hope.

"I recently met a man made bankrupt. He said: 'I've lost all hope. I might as well be in my grave'. This Assembly knows, to the contrary, that hope was born in a grave. The biggest of all issues is how the Kirk takes that message of resurrection and salvation to the people of Scotland and the world."

Mr Reid praised the Kirk for its efforts to move away from traditional structures, stating that "as society changes, so must the Church".

He appealed to the Assembly not to ignore the world outside, saying it was "the duty of the Christian to keep his Bible in one hand, and his newspaper in the other".

He added: "They recognise, as do so many papers to this Assembly, the challenge behind The Scotsman headline the day the Bank of Scotland went under. It read: 'How the Masters of the Universe Ran Amok and Cost Us the Earth'."