Dear Sir,
I would like to add two more reasons to Andy Hunter’s interesting and insightful article in July’s en. as to the reasons for the decline of the church in Scotland. The Church OF Scotland is still by far the most influential denomination /church grouping in the land, yet its influence on the nation has declined in recent years – partly because of the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1997.
Before then the Church’s annual gatherings in Edinburgh, the General Assemblies, were seen as the best available opportunity for matters of national interest to be debated. This has now been replaced by the Parliament (ironically, its own first year of existence was held in the church’s debating chamber until their own building was ready!).
Also the CofS’s agonising, in recent years, over whether to permit gay ministers has, on the one hand, had the negative effect of portraying believers as being at odds with each other, while also labelling it in the minds of increasingly secular Scotland as being intolerant of the new ‘equalities agenda’. May God have mercy on our nation.
Yours faithfully,
