Church of Scotland struggles with gay ministers and falling membership

The Church of Scotland is short of ministers. The Presbyterian church’s membership peaked in 1955, the year the Conservatives won the majority of Scotland’s seats in the House of Commons and a majority of all votes cast.

In the days before the re-establishment of the Scottish parliament in 1999, the church’s annual general assembly came as close to a local political gathering as Scotland then had.

Today, the church is struggling, hit by falling numbers and problems recruiting ministers but also by divisions about the ordination of gay people. Two ministers, Rev David Macleod from Lochcarron and Rev Roddy MacRae from Glenelg and Kintail church, were the latest to quit this week, unhappy about the church’s “drift away from the Bible”. Their departure means one full-time parish minister must now cover Assynt, Wester Ross, Skye, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist and Harris – an area the size of Wales.

Saying his decision had not been easy, Rev Macleod said: “I say this with a heavy heart and with much grief but I do not believe that I can continue.”

Rev Macleod (40) took over in Wester Ross seven years ago, holding weekly services in Lochcarron and Applecross and monthly ones at Shieldaig, Torridon and Kinlochewe.

A former surveyor who had eventually gone part-time to study for a divinity degree in Aberdeen, he said at that time that he had been drawn to the ministry by scripture and preaching.

Abandoned the church Seventeen ministers, including Rev Macleod, have abandoned the c

hurch for Scotland’s Free Church over gay ministers, believing approval for them will inevitably be given.

In May, the Church of Scotland’s general assembly agreed by majority to give permission to local presbyteries the right to debate whether they could make such appointments.

Last year the head of University of Edinburgh’s divinity school, Rev David Fergusson, said squabbles about sexuality had to end or else the church risked alienating more young people.

Five years ago the issue provoked deep divisions within the church when the openly homosexual Rev Scott Rennie was chosen for Queen’s Cross Church in Aberdeen

Rennie had been married, with one daughter, before divorcing. Later he met a male partner. Having told the Queen’s Cross congregation of his change in circumstances he was chosen as minister by a majority of five to one in a vote.

However, opponents challenged the decision all the way up to the general assembly – the first time a presbytery’s decision to appoint a minister had been challenged in more than 150 years.

Speaking later, Rev Rennie said: “As a young man growing up in a conservative church it felt impossible to deal with issues around my own sexuality.”

Explaining why he married his wife, he said: “I came to believe that I had to ignore it and do what I thought was the right thing at the time: live a heterosexual life.”

The church’s acting principal clerk, Rev George Whyte, argues that feelings about gay ministers explain only part of the problem the church has in finding ministers for Scotland’s highlands and islands.

The bigger problem, he said, is finding people – most of whom come from the well- populated central belt which runs from Glasgow to Edinburgh – who “are comfortable living” in remote locations.

“There is an issue that we are trying to address. We’re working with locals to come up with short-term solutions,” said Rev Whyte.

Local congregations now left without a minister are being encouraged “to continue to meet and to pray together”, he said, adding that the congregations are regretful about the decisions of ministers to quit.

Retirements Two hundred of the c

hurch’s 1,400 congregations are now without ministers, though 30 ministers will be ordained this year – enough to cope with retirements, says Rev Whyte.

However, the pace of retirements is accelerating, since a third of the church’s ministers are due to retire over the next decade – “age cliff”, as it was described to the general assembly.

Matters could be worse. The average age of the ministers is 48 but that is due to the numbers of ministers who have come to the cloth after a career in secular life.

Candidates study for six years to become ministers, along with 18 months as a probationer “shadowing” a serving minister.

Thought is now being given to training new ministers more quickly.