Senior cleric warns issue of gay clergy will 'tear Church apart'

THE new Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church has said the issue of appointing openly gay clergy threatens to tear the Church apart and will not be resolved in the near future.

In his first interview since taking up the role, the Most Rev David Chillingworth said he believed the issue had to be addressed without "fudging" or "blurring" any decision.

However, he expressed his respect for the way the Church of Scotland dealt with the issue of appointing gay clergy during the General Assembly earlier this year, when it postponed its decision on the same question.

Elected to the position in June, Bishop Chillingworth served as a Church of Ireland minister during the Troubles before taking up the diocese of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane in 2005.

Addressing the issue of openly gay clergy, he said most church members were aware of the contradictions it raised.

He said: "This is an issue that has been threatening to tear us apart, and many of us live across a spectrum in which out of one side of our minds we can say there is a justice and inclusion issue here, and out of the other there is a dialogue that needs to go on with the traditional teaching of the Church and what the Bible says.

"You can't wish either of those away. You have to deal with both."

He added that because it was an issue that many church members felt concerned a "fundamental truth", they were not currently willing to compromise. "What we are trying to do is live with as much diversity as you can tolerate and hope the nature of the debate will change."

Bishop Chillingworth said he hoped that with the passing of time, the issue of homosexuality would move forward and lose its potential to cause an irreparable split. But he said it was "still early days" in the debate and that though progress had been made, there was still considerable distance to go before it was settled.

The issue of openly gay clergy dominated the Church of Scotland's General Assembly in May with the appointment of Scott Rennie to an Aberdeen church, which resulted in the Kirk postponing any final decision as to whether it should be allowed in future for two years.

Bishop Chillingworth said he was "profoundly respectful" of the Church's conclusion.

"They reached a decision that was open and compassionate and they reserved their position about the future and that's the most that any of us can do," he said. "There are some kinds of issue that you cannot immediately resolve through argument or debate."

Speaking about the role of the church within modern Scotland, he said: "We find we almost have the opportunity of starting from scratch with people.

"They're not carrying any particular preconceptions about churches, so we can start with a blank page: wedding, baptism of a child, and we can start to actually re-form those connections in a new way, without some of the language of the past, which they have found oppressive."

He added that he felt: "People are interested in exploring spirituality … they're not particularly interested in institutional churches or denominations".