The majority of the Church of Scotland’s presbyteries have voted to allow local congregations to appoint ministers in same-sex civil partnerships. The measure is likely to be brought to the Kirk’s General Assembly in May for final approval.
The denomination’s 46 presbyteries voted 32 to 14 in favor of the measure, with the Kirk revealing the results on the same day that the new law legalizing same-sex “marriage” in Scotland came into effect.
The General Assembly instituted a two-year moratorium in 2009 on homosexual issues within the Kirk.
In 2011 the moratorium was lifted and a theological commission was created to consider the ordination of openly and actively homosexual clergy, the blessing of same-sex unions, and to allow homosexual ministers and deacons ordained before May 2009 to be given pastoral responsibilities.
The 2009 moratorium came after a firestorm of controversy leading up to the General Assembly’s decision to approve the appointment of openly homosexual Scott Rennie as the minister for Queen’s Cross Church in Aberdeen. Rennie had been married for five years and had a daughter, but by the time of his appointment was openly in an ongoing homosexual relationship.
Liberal elements applauded the result of the vote by the presbyteries, saying it represents support for the General Assembly’s hope that embracing homosexuals will help reverse rapidly declining membership.
According to Forward Together, an organization for conservative evangelicals in the Church of Scotland, official membership currently stands at about 400,000, but has dropped by almost 50,000 in the past three years, leading to claims that the Kirk was “struggling to stay relevant.”
Lindsay Biddle of Affirmation Scotland, a group that advocates in support of homosexuals in Kirk ministry, told homosexual news service KaleidoScot, “It is important that this is supported as it will allow the Church to take a significant step forward. It is easy to forget the change that has taken place in the Kirk and in Scottish Society in a relatively short time.”
However, Rev. Douglas Cranston of Forward Together sees the vote as divisive and another reason for more defections from the Kirk, with the resulting financial impact on congregations a serious consideration.”
“I really don't think this is going to provide the unity that everyone thought it would,” Cranston said.
“More people are going to leave and more people are going to stop giving. I know congregations where this is happening.”
“I think to begin with,” he added, “it will be people leaving in ones and twos. Then it will be more. By the very nature of the votes, it is really fairly divisive.”
Even the chief executive of the Scottish Humanist Society, Douglas Mclellan, said giving Kirk congregations the freedom to appoint a homosexual minister in a same-sex relationship if they wished would not necessarily make the Church of Scotland more “attractive.”
The Free Church in Scotland may be the beneficiary of those who object, with their feet, to the direction the Kirk is taking.
David Robertson, the recently appointed Moderator of the Free Church and who is widely regarded as one of Scotland’s boldest Christian broadcasters, said in his acceptance speech that, “We are a growing and developing church, reversing the trend in a society which is becoming increasingly secularised and in a nation which is seeing significant changes.”
“My hope is that the Free Church will continue to bring the Good News to all the people of Scotland and beyond and that the Lord will use us as salt and light to help his people, of whatever denomination, and to see Scotland return to its Christian foundations.”
Robertson is on record for vehemently opposing same-sex “marriage” and homosexual “rights” in Scotland.
He also called the debate within the Church of Scotland over the ordination of homosexual ministers a “perversion of faith.”