Why is the Kirk frightened of Yes vote?

FOR once in my life I can agree with the Rev David Robertson – that “talk of holding reconciliation services is an embarrassing indictment of Scottish society” (your report, 16 May), but particularly of the Church of Scotland.

Why is the Church so frightened of fierce, thoroughly democratic debate on an issue of vital importance to the people of Scotland? Does the Church somehow forget that its founder, the historical Jesus, was a Jewish nationalist revolutionary, whose earliest followers were akin to the communists of the modern era?

Does it not recognise that “flyting”, or intense disputatious argument, is part and parcel of the Scottish psyche?

And has it turned its back on the legacy of John Knox and the other Protestant reformers who successfully challenged the totalitarian religious hegemony of Rome?

Instead of wallowing in mealy-mouthed “reconciliation”, the Church of Scotland should focus on the moral issues of securing a fully democratic future for the fledgling Scottish Parliament, giving it full powers, including power over the constitution, so that it can rid this country of immoral nuclear weapons and create a better place for all its ­citizens to live in.

It is totally incomprehensible that the Church of Scotland, in the person of its Moderator Designate – the Right Reverend John Chalmers – can fail publicly to support its own anti-nuclear and democratic policies and relate these to the current referendum campaign.

And finally, I must ask: why does the Church of Scotland appear to be so frightened of a Yes vote?

Marilyn Young

Rannoch

Perthshire