Letter: Ancient rules

I now look forward to seeing articles by Dr Kelly explaining why, as a practising Catholic who strictly follows biblical teachings, he is not calling for the killing of disobedient children, the reintroduction of the slave trade, the burning of witches and the stoning to death of adulterers.

These things are all explicitly ordered by the vengeful fanatical God of the Old Testament. Yahweh was not, as the trendy liberals in the Church of Scotland would have us believe, a moderate.

The debate around the ordination of gay clergy perfectly summarises everything that is wrong with organised religion. They are having discussions now on things the majority in society settled on 40 years ago.

We are facing unprecedented cuts and a drop in living standards and wages yet all the Church talks about is what Bronze Age farmers wrote about on homosexuality.

Alan Hinnrichs

Gillespie Terrace

Dundee

Dr Stephen Moreton (Letters, 26 May) believes Christianity has little to offer gay people. He is wrong. The Christian gospel conveys God's offer of forgiveness, relationship, transformation and eternal life with Him. Becoming a Christian involves acknowledging one's own failings, and we all have plenty of those, and inviting God to work in us to overcome them.

There are many Christians who have been helped to change their sexual orientation, and many more who live celibate and fulfilled lives. I'm not saying that either path is easy, but neither is our ongoing struggle with other sins, such as pride and greed.

You cannot become a Christian by telling God that He needs to change His standards to accommodate particular cherished sins, as a precondition of your deigning to enter into a relationship with the Almighty.

The key question, of course, is whether the Christian message is true or not. If Dr Moreton is correct and the gospels are fiction, then the Christian message can be ignored with impunity. Just as it is by a large part of the Church of Scotland, in fact.

Richard Lucas

Broomyknowe

Edinburgh