Kirk pushes forward ‘Go For It’ community innovation fund; Kirk opens a door it will be very difficult to close again; Irish Presbyterian and Church of Scotland relations will be strained by gay clerics
Kirk pushes forward ‘Go For It’ community innovation fund
Ekklesia – The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has been urged to help people ‘Go For It’ through its recently launched community innovation fund.
The Kirk’s highest body discussed the initiative on 22 May 2013 at its annual gathering in Edinburgh, with the aim of pushing forward the work it supports.
The convener of the Church of Scotland’s Ministries Council, the Rev Neil Dougall, presented a report on the work of the Go For It fund which gave out a third of a million pounds in grants to 12 groups within its first five months of operating. It is on track to distribute some £900,000 during the whole of 2013.
‘Go For It’ is about “funding change in Church and community and helping to transform local lives and communities”, the Kirk announced.
The aim is community benefit, but any application must be able to demonstrate clearly its association with at least one Church of Scotland congregation.
“This has been a terrific success for us and we want more congregations to come forward with applications for funding in the coming year,” said Mr Dougall.
One project helped in the first main grant round was Befriend Motherwell, based in Dalziel St Andrew’s Parish Church, which works with isolated older people in the community.
As well as distributing larger grants, the fund awarded £30,000 in the first six months to smaller projects such as Carnwath Parish Church for ‘Midweek Musings’ which aims to build activities and programmes to help and engage local people.
The General Assembly commended the work of the ‘Go For It’ Fund in establishing means for resourcing local congregations, for praying for its continued successful development in the coming year, and for encouraging congregations to consider making applications for funding.
* More about ‘Go For It’ here: http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/serve/go_for_it
Kirk opens a door it will be very difficult to close again
To a slightly bemused watching world, the pace with which the Church of Scotland is facing up to issues of sexuality seems painfully slow.
Given the centuries by which ecclesiastical history measures itself, however, the General Assembly’s decision to allow individual congregations to depart from its traditional closed door towards partnered gay and lesbian people in ministry looks like a giant leap forward.
This contrast tells you all you need to know about how tough it is for a historic institution to remain faithful to its inheritance while negotiating a fresh place in the fast-paced modern world.
In theory, yesterday’s ‘deliverance’ (resolution) squares the circle by allowing those who oppose change to say the official position of the Kirk remains theirs, while permitting local variation according to conscience.
But whatever conservatives claim, this vote shows that the drift towards accepting gay people in the Kirk is continuing. Indeed, while seeking pastoral sensitivity towards their opponents, the advocates of change believe that full inclusion is now inevitable.
Nevertheless, it will not happen instantly. The next year will be in limbo. At the 2014 General Assembly, a measure to enact this week’s deliverance within Church law will be voted on. If passed it will need to be approved by a majority of presbyteries. So further pitfalls remain possible.
But it will be exceedingly difficult for the Kirk to turn back on what it has now done, which is to recognise that partnered homosexual people may have a legitimate divine calling to ministry.
Meanwhile, the longer this reform takes, the more painful and damaging it is for a church that still aspires to a central role in the life of a nation contemplating its own future.
Convincing people it has a message of both relevance and abiding importance is central to the Kirk’s mission. Further introspection and dissention is as harmful to the prospects of a religious body as it is to a political party.
Stories of growth and vitality are what the General Assembly wants heard. But that requires a public perception of pulling together. Unity is the commodity Kirk people are keen to speak of. But the institution they are part of still struggles to manifest it.
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Simon Barrow is co-director of Ekklesia. This article is adapted from one that appears in The Scotsman newspaper, 21 May 2013, and is reproduced with acknowledgment: http://www.scotsman.com/news/analysis-small-but-significant-step-for-kir…
Irish Presbyterian and Church of Scotland relations will be strained by gay clerics
News Letter – Relations between Irish Presbyterians and the Scottish church from whence they came four centuries ago have been strained by the Church of Scotland decision to allow gay ministers.
On Monday the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly voted to permit its ministers to enter homosexual relationships – while at the same time reaffirming traditional church teaching that such relationships are wrong.
Yesterday the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland said that the vote would have implications for how the two churches relate to each other.
The two churches have not seen eye-to-eye on a number of issues in recent years as the Church of Scotland has adopted more liberal positions.
Presbyterian Moderator the Rt Rev Dr Roy Patton, who was present as a guest at the Edinburgh General Assembly – and who spoke strongly against the proposed change – said yesterday: “Presbyterians in Ireland will have difficulty agreeing with yesterday’s decision of the Church of Scotland which, pending a further decision next year, will probably allow for the ordination of actively gay ministers by 2015.
“While the Church of Scotland also reaffirmed its traditional belief of faithfulness within marriage between a man and woman and celibacy outside of that, which the Presbyterian Church would hold to, it is in danger of saying one thing while allowing congregations to do another.
“I respect the desire of the Assembly to find a unified position but think that the lack of clarity will make people, both church members and others, wonder exactly what the Church of Scotland’s position really is on this important issue.
“While a decision of the Church of Scotland has no standing within the Presbyterian Church in Ireland Monday’s vote will clearly put further strain on the good relationships that we have traditionally and historically enjoyed.”
On Monday the General Assembly backed a motion affirming the Church’s “current doctrine and practice in relation to human sexuality”, but permitting liberal congregations to depart from that approach if they wish to do so.
The decision will come back before next year’s General Assembly for further analysis. Church commissioners backed this motion to “affirm the Church’s historic and current doctrine and practice in relation to human sexuality, (but) nonetheless permit those Kirk Sessions who wish to depart from that doctrine and practice to do so”.
The motion was carried with 340 votes in favour in a final ballot on the issue.
But the Free Church of Scotland branded the outcome of the debate “totally confusing”. A spokesman said: “The whole thing is totally confusing. We don’t understand what’s going on in the Church of Scotland, and suspect the vast majority of the Scottish public don’t either.”
Church of Scotland votes to allow gay ministers
The Guardian – The Rt Rev Roy Patton, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, warned the delegates there would be serious tensions within the global presbyterian church if the general assembly voted to admit gay ministers. That would be “hard to comprehend”, he said.
“It would lead a church away from the tradition of the church,” he said. “We do believe this is contrary to the message of god and will make it difficult for the church as a whole to reach out to the wider world.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/20/church-of-scotland-gay-ministers