Scots on the way to Hell

But try saying that to the legions that mourn. Do not underestimate the impact of Old Firm triumph - or defeat. It means ecstasy, or despair; self-

validation or flagellation. It means, for far too many, brooding anger; gnawing grief; gross drunkenness. It meant, the other night, vandalised cars and howling children and smacked wives and street scuffles and pub brawls. A matter of life and death, football? Och, no, said the late Bill Shankly. It's far more important than that.

Jock Wallace, perhaps, hit the truth when he filed his forms for National Service, decades back. On the box to indicate religion - so legend goes - he wrote, simply: ''Football.''

It is easy to laugh. But the claim has a terrible ring of truth. We are not, of course, talking of football as she is played: the cheerful kick about the park, or the amateur leagues that run the land from Stornoway to Stranraer. We are talking big-league football as serious religion for thousands.

There is the fierce denominational loyalty, oft inherited through generations. There are the gatherings for public worship. There are the hymns and anthems. There is the fierce theological dispute. (Well, if you ask me, keeping Laudrup on was serious heresy.) There are even shrines. A youth of my own acquaintance, of normal intelligence, cherished his guided video tour of Ibrox. As perky Andy Cameron talked you through aisle and chancel, nave and trophy room, said lad would sit before him for hours, quite enthralled.

As the assorted assemblies and synods of our Presbyterian churches meet this week, in Glasgow or Edinburgh, it is in the grim knowledge that the mass of Scots have forsaken them. Nor have the Roman Catholics, or the Episcopalians, or other established creeds much room to mock.

Football is a large part of the superstitious, fatalistic world-view that, for most Scots, has taken the place of anything approaching vital religion. There are, of course, other components. Tens of thousands daily check their horoscopes. Probably the great majority weekly file entries in the National Lottery, and rub hopefully at scratch-cards: redemption pecuniary, total, and undeserved.

Many pursue materialism. Life is reduced to the acquisition of nice things: there are store cards, credit cards, January sales, and unbelievable bargains. Others worship their bodies. There are the foodies, who avidly watch the cookery programmes, practice Elizabeth David's recipe for aioli, and scour the little specialist shops of Morningside for some exclusive brand of balsamic vinegar. There are the fitness junkies, daily battering bodies into submission.

There is, generally, a cult of self. People talk of self-fulfilment, self-

realisation. Be all you can be, for I gotta be me. Perhaps the deification of sexual love is the most striking instance in modern Scotland. He falls in love with her. Can't help it. They must be meant for each other. All else goes by the board: her kids, or his marriage, or the esteem of his parents, or the norms of their community. So homes are rent, commitments dumped, partners hurt and humiliated, children bewildered, and sound friends repudiated.

Sometimes there are survivors. Generally it all ends in tears. He emerges from the wreckage, having made a comprehensive fool of himself - and plugs on - until the next time.

Much suffering, in this area of life at least, would be prevented if men and women could only grasp that to fall in love is a conscious moral choice - after all, we demand that teachers, doctors, and clergymen resist entanglement with those they meet professionally - and that you really can say, firmly to yourself: ''Cute as you are, honeybunch, it would be wrong to fall for you.''

Amid this neo-pagan Scotland meet our Churches. The Kirk assembles in Edinburgh, eager to retain its relevance as Scotland's Parliament approaches. The Free Church meets, in its latest bid to survive intact for another 12 months. The Free Presbyterians gather in Glasgow to debate, among much else, the future of the Kenyan mission, recently terrorised by bandits. In the meantime, Scots hurtle towards Hell in a hand-cart.

There was a day when Scotland was eminent for the piety of its people, the vigour of its theol-ogy, the vision of its Christian leaders, and the prosperity of its society. It was probably, as late as 1914, the most wealthy realm of the empire. From its lively Presbyterian culture arose inventors and scientists that gave the world a host of blessings: advances in medicine, physics, engineering, and transport. From its Christian culture arose new social concern and reform. Keir Hardie and Jimmy Maxton both grew in a Free Church background. Laymen and clergy wrestled with issues of temperance, unemployment, welfare and pensions, crofting rights and the extension of the franchise.

Today we are a sad rabble. Most Scots lead lives of vapid emptiness. If they read at all, it is junk fiction. If they pursue higher education, it is that of banal vocational courses. Spiritual poverty abounds. Physical poverty is as gross as it ever was. One hears of children raised on a diet of Coke and crisps. Drugs of every variety waste the slums. Drink has never been so cheap and, probably, never so abused.

We are filthy. Cheap papers bristle with smut and tittle-tattle. Pornography abounds. Tiny children joke of unnatural acts. Yet, oddly, we are more intolerant. We are more litigious, more inclined to go to law in pursuit of our rights, more strident in the assignation of blame, more determined to avenge our- selves on perceived failures and wrongdoers. I am not a fan of Dr Oliver the big policeman: but the harrying of the man, the baiting of the mob, and the rousing of that mob by politicians local and national, has been a repulsive episode that does our land no credit.

The Churches have lost Scotland. For the past hundred years the cause of Christ has ebbed and ebbed. There are many factors one could identify. Irish immigration, last century, did much to erode the Presbyterian culture: it also provoked Presbyterian evils, bigotry, and discrimination. Denominationalism became, last century, for the first time a force. Presbyterian churches wasted far too much energy and emphasis on competing with each other.

But, worst: the Church has lost its numinous, supernatural authority. She has reduced the Gospel to soft sentiment and pleasant thoughts. Jesus said: ''I am the way, the truth, and the life'' - and, by inference, that there is no other way, no other truth, and no other life. But how, today, might our average Scots cleric preach on this text? He would spend some minutes, I suppose, explaining why he did not believe Jesus ever said this. And then, why he did not believe Jesus was the only way. And then, nevertheless, how we might still derive help from those comfortable words (I am indebted to my father for this ironic example).

And there are the others: the self-conscious sound men of impeccable orthodoxy, and great Calvinist rigour, who agitate and plot to tear others down, whose words are words of hate and venom, and whose ethics in ecclesiastical intrigue would disgrace a Glasgow pub. The ravens fed Elijah; but they were ravens still.

One could envy the football fans; one could covet their passion.