Church split not as easy as a division of traditionalist and liberal members

In my experience those of us who are theologically liberal in the Church of Scotland are often much more traditionalist than others in adhering to the Scottish Reformation including the provision, in the Scots Confession of 1560, that: “We dare not receive or admit any interpretation [of Scripture] which is contrary to any principal point of our faith, or to any other plain text of Scripture, or to the rule of love.”

Further, liberals are often very traditionalist in forms of (and dress for) worship and in the use of modern Bibles and hymn book, with significant Church of Scotland origins, input and endorsement, with such Bibles being “of a good and true translation” (Parliament of Scotland, March 1543) and which, for example, translate the Hebrew almah in Isaiah 7:14 correctly as “a young woman” rather than incorrectly as “virgin” and the Greek of 2 Timothy 3:16 correctly as: “All inspired scripture has its use ...” rather than incorrectly as: “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful ...”

Ministers and elders who have it in mind to leave the Church of Scotland in response to Monday’s General Assembly decision or a further decision in two year’s time should be reminded of their ordination commitment “to seek the unity and peace of this Church; to uphold its doctrine, worship, government and discipline” with ministers also promising to be subject to their Presbytery and the General Assembly.

Dr Alexander S Waugh,

1 Pantoch Gardens,

Banchory.

The decision of the Kirk to allow movement of ministers who have been in a same-sex relationship before 2009 is, in effect, saying that any future legislation will not be retrospective.

This is what happened in the Presbyterian church of Alotearoa New Zealand when they concluded after 20 years of deliberation: “The church may not accept for training, license, ordain or induct anyone involved in a sexual relationship outside of faithful marriage between a man and a woman. In relation to homosexuality, in the interests of natural justice, this ruling shall not prejudice anyone who, as at the date of this meeting, has been accepted for training, licensed, ordained or inducted.”

The Sermon on the Mount ( Matthew chapters five, six and seven) provides an abundantly clear answer to the question: “What would Jesus have thought?” (The Herald, May 24) .

“Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.” He went much further than affirming the seventh commandment: “You shall not commit adultery,” when he said: “Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery in his heart.”

It is clear that as an upright, practising Jew, he believed that God’s way was faithfulness within marriage between one man and one woman and chastity outwith that.

Rev Bill Wallace,

Station Road,

Banchory.

Jesus loves the sinner but hates the sin. Perhaps those who advocate the ordination of gay clergy would do well to accept this and stop twisting the words of the opposition. Those who oppose the ordination are not anti anyone but are against the sin.

Perhaps those like Rev Dr John Cameron who cannot accept what is written in the Bible should leave and form a sect based on their rewriting of Scripture (Letters, May 21).

Like many in the employment survey he quotes, I am against discrimination in the workplace but the Church is not an office or industrial unit.

Dr Cameron lists churches that have accepted gay clergy. He forgets to tell us these churches, like the Church of Scotland, have been split on the subject. For example, one church in Oslo ordained a gay minister in direct contravention of Lutheran guidelines, even then by only a four to three majority decision.

As for the churches he lists based in America, on May 11 one specific area the Twin Cities presbytery (Minneapolis and St Paul) voted on acceptance.

Other church areas in his list are still opposed to gay clergy. The supporters of gay ordination are good at making their argument sound good based on reworking, not only of the Bible but misuse of surveys that do not show the whole story.

John Montgomery,

24 March Crescent,

Anstruther.

The continuing spat over the ministry of the Rev Scott Rennie is a mere symptom of a much more serious and sinister malaise.

The interpretation of the word “love” is the real problem. What manner of love is it for the Church to be hell-bent on declassifying sins, thereby cutting sinners like myself off from the salvation source which God has provided in Jesus Christ?

Surely this is the antithesis of love.

George Murray,

113 Dundonald Road,

Troon.

I write as a member of an independent, evangelical church in Glasgow. Homosexuality is condemned in the Old Testament Levitical law.

In the New Testament, pronouncements on the subject (unlike paedophilia) come not from Jesus, but from St Paul, whose principal attack appears in the opening chapter of his great Epistle to the Romans. There he explicitly states that homosexuality originated in a divine response to human idolatry. God, says Paul, ultimately “gave up” (abandoned) unspecified, God-spurning peoples to sexual aberration. He allowed their perversion to spread as a punishment.

However, if we ask whether God’s ancient punishments stay in force without limit of time, unmitigated and untempered by grace and the power of his spirit, we must answer no, on the basis of the Bible itself.

Take the Genesis tale of the Tower of Babel, a structure designed to assert human greatness on the grandest scale. The text says that God intervened and prevented the tower’s completion by “confusing the builders’ speech”. Thus, symbolically, came about humanity’s multilingualism.

Yet that original curse was transmuted into the most marvellous blessing across later centuries of human development, as languages and literatures became media of boundless human ingenuity, creativity and artistry in words, for the enrichment and enchantment of all later eras.

Homer, Isaiah, Virgil, Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare and Burns were all sown at Babel. Jesus embraced multiligualism by mastering Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and in his valediction sanctioned the spread of his gospel to all nations and language groups.

Human sexuality is a most complex phenomenon, utterly vulnerable and, as we know to our cost in the age of the internet, appallingly exploitable and potentially destructive.

Yet same-sex orientation, though not a Biblical ideal, should be no bar to dedicated service in the Kingdom of God. Inspired scripture not only strongly suggests this but even points to the possibility of special enrichment for the Church from their acceptance.

Stuart J Mitchell,

29 Windyedge Crescent,

Glasgow.

You refer to ministers “putting themselves forward to take over congregations” (“Kirk ends gay ban,” The Herald, May 24).

Ministers, as the name implies, are the servants of their congregations, not their bosses.

Douglas Miller,

7 Newark Drive,

Pollokshields,

Glasgow.