ARMAGAYDON

All you have to do is express an opinion. Unless you speak in platitudes, somebody, somewhere will take offence. I hadn’t been long in post as editor of Life & Work, the Church of Scotland’s in-house magazine, when I realised this. One morning I received a short letter in a fat envelope. The covering note denounced an editorial I had written expressing bafflement as to why homosexuality was viewed with such loathing in the Christian church. It was an innocuous piece, hardly the stuff of headlines, but for some churchgoers in Lanarkshire it was heresy and in their dozens they put their names to a petition to demand my resignation.

This was my first hint that trouble was brewing in the Kirk over the matter of homosexuality. That was 10 years ago, and the Lanarkshire tirade was nothing compared to the furore over gays the church has witnessed during the past two years. Next week, at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, that debate will overshadow everything as a vote is taken on whether to allow the ordination of practising gay clergy. Across the world, all eyes will be on the Kirk. Will it take a brave leap into the modern age, or will it cling stubbornly to its grey past?

Sex has always been a problem for the Church. For centuries it was the female sex it couldn’t abide, unless it remained silent in the pews, as the Bible ordered. Fornication, however, was its greatest fear, and for centuries parishioners spied on each other for signs of illicit activity. Even in the 1970s, in the quiet church-going community I grew up in, pre-marital sex was a cause for shame. In some quarters it still is.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that three decades after its decriminalisation in Scotland, homosexuality is regarded as wicked by diehard traditionalists in the Kirk. While liberals support the ordination of gay ministers, and some evangelicals accept gays so long as they don’t aspire to preach, the ultra-orthodox believe homosexuality is sinful, and want even celibate gays to try to “cure” themselves of their urges.

Although there are also those in the wider world who will not accept gay people, it is illegal to discriminate against anyone on the basis of their sexuality. In the church the law is less clear-cut, and remains to be challenged. That would take courage.

This issue has hovered in the wings for years, and as so often, the Kirk has done all it could to avoid direct confrontation. But there is no longer any hiding place. On May 23, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Kirk’s highest court, will be obliged to pick up this grenade and examine it before taking out the pin or returning it to its box.

It will be make or break for the Kirk’s public image -- and, more importantly, for its ministers and members. According to figures in a report commissioned for this Assembly, one in five members of Kirk sessions will leave if it is agreed gay ministers can be ordained. One in 10 will leave if they are not. It’s estimated 100,000 members could depart if the vote goes against the traditionalists. Some liken the potential schism to the Great Disruption of 1843, when a third of the Kirk walked out to form the Free Church. That degree of splintering is unlikely, but a split of some sort is possible, and even probable. What no-one doubts is that this Assembly’s debate promises to be passionate, painful and dangerously damaging.

The current dilemma began at the General Assembly of 2009, when a legal action was raised against the Presbytery of Aberdeen by a group of evangelicals led by Rev Ian Aitken. They challenged the Presbytery’s decision to call Scott Rennie -- formerly married, but who now lives openly with his partner, David Smith -- as their minister. Rennie’s appointment, they insisted, was unlawful and set a precedent on a subject that needed first to be debated by the whole Church.

After an emotionally charged vote, Rennie’s position was upheld. Immediately thereafter, however, it was agreed that a two-year moratorium would be imposed on ordaining gay clergy, while a “Special Commission on Same-Sex Relationships” was undertaken. In the meantime, no minister or church office-holder was allowed to speak to anyone outside its own walls on the subject.

Rennie stuck out like a single thorn in the side of a deeply divided church. What other gay ministers felt while he took the brunt of the media storm can only be imagined. Using the Kirk’s own estimation of how many in society are gay, of its 1000-odd ministers around 40 will be homosexual. And that is before one includes office-bearers and members.

The Church’s ban on openness over this subject is deeply resented. One minister compared it to Stasi tactics. A reminder was sent out recently reinforcing this injunction, and stressing that no-one must talk to journalists. All the ministers I spoke to for this article did so under conditions of strictest anonymity. Forget the Mafia -- when it comes to an omerta no-one imposes it more rigidly than the Kirk.

A mood of grim apprehension hangs over this year’s Assembly. Liberals fear that the issue will either be fudged -- what one calls “the Kirk’s coping mechanism for the unpalatable” -- or that they will have to live with an endorsement of traditionalist views. If that happens, one cleric told me: “I might have to do what politicians do and say, in this case, I don’t agree with the Party. But it won’t be a deal-breaker.” For evangelicals, if the vote is pro-gay, it may be.

The heart of this issue is not homosexuality itself, but the authority of Scripture. Evangelicals cite irrefutable biblical denunciations of homosexual activity, such as Leviticus 20:13: “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death.” Even liberals appreciate that there are texts backing the fundamentalist position. They believe, however, that the Bible must be read in context, as a historical as well as a divinely inspired document. After all, back in the 1960s when women were campaigning for the right to be ordained, the same cries of “abomination” could be heard as you walked down the Mound in Edinburgh outside the General Assembly.

Liberals point to the Church’s change of heart on women and, earlier, on slaves, who in many Bible passages were told to know their place and honour their masters, even those who were hard on them. Homosexuality is just another issue on which Bible teaching can be revised in more sophisticated times. The Special Commission, however, puts them right: “One can detect in Scripture a dynamic towards the liberation of slaves and equality of participation in relation to women. By contrast, Scripture reveals no dynamic towards the acceptance of homosexual activity.”

The way one interprets the Bible is an unsolvable problem, because a liberal reading will never be acceptable to an evangelical, and vice versa. The Kirk has a distinguished history of embracing those from all poles of theological thought under its roof. It is one of its greatest strengths. Yet although many think the Church’s panjandrums will privately be doing everything possible to head it off, a decisive and potentially divisive vote at the Assembly seems inevitable.

As one evangelical told me, whatever way the vote goes it will have consequences. He, however, refuses to be defined by his attitude to homosexuality, and will not leave the Kirk over this. The Church, he says, faces far more pressing problems -- and most ministers would agree. Because if the Kirk’s finances are not sorted out, there soon may not be a Church of Scotland left to dance upon these theological pinheads.

Distressing as it is to watch the Kirk eating itself alive, it is also dreadful to see it wasting so much energy. While sex is preoccupying the clergy, the crucial issues for their congregations and communities are being sidelined: unemployment, social breakdown, poverty, drugs and global disasters, to name but a few. Surely a Church that had its heart in the right place would put these issues first, and settle its theological differences quickly and quietly?

No chance. For all its many fine works, the Church of Scotland can be vicious. That was evident at the 2009 General Assembly. Not one minister admitted to being gay, like Scott Rennie. You can call this cowardice, but those who know the Kirk say it takes a Joan of Arc or a martyr like George Wishart, who was burned alive, to fly in the face of its opprobrium. For a body whose central message is compassion, support and love for the oppressed and the outcast, this is shameful.

Until this question has been resolved, the Kirk’s gay clergy must live in trepidation and secrecy. This, by the way, is a church whose ministers are allowed to bless a Trident submarine, but not a civil partnership. One Kirk insider likens the stand-off to that sparked by the Pharisees, Jewish fanatics who kept the law of the Torah to the letter and despised Jesus for befriending the dregs of society: “What is it that matters: policy, practices or people? The Pharisees got that wrong, which is why they didn’t like Jesus. That’s what the struggle for the Church is on this. Bottom line, it’s all about people.”

Added to which, there’s another factor at work in the Kirk these days. The most popular churches, with the youngest members, are evangelical. In these uneasy times, the certainty the fundamentalist message offers can be inspiring, as can its preachers. Since these congregations ask for the kind of commitment that makes ministers, like is breeding like. The widening divide has been described as “the Mason-Dixon line”, a border drawn north of Perth. Whatever the geography, there is a growing sense of separatism and resentment on all sides. If mishandled, the gay issue could turn into the Kirk’s Alamo. One does not envy the Moderator Elect, David Arnott, who will preside over the debate.

The idea of schism alarms everyone. One Kirk member confided: “The thought of schism is absolutely horrible -- it’s been the besetting sin of the Church for 2000 years and it’s never done it any good.”

Yet only a handful of congregations are in a financial position to up sticks with their minister, even if they would want to. Leaving the Church of Scotland would be a massive step for any minister, abandoning as he or she probably would have to, most of his or her flock.

In the long-term, the ordination of gay clergy seems inevitable. So too does the walkout of a number of ministers and church-goers, although after years of arguing and soul-searching, the Kirk may well feel it can live with this. Twenty years from now, gay ministers will probably not raise an eyebrow in any but the most fanatical quarters.

Only last week, the Presbyterian Church in the US removed the rule of celibacy on unmarried clergy, a major step towards acceptance of gay and lesbian preachers. It seems likely that one day the Kirk will follow its example.

For now, though, it may well stall again. Not everybody sees this as a bad thing. One minister told me: “The Church of Scotland shouldn’t get too wound up about taking time; there’s some integrity in saying there’s real division here. If it makes us look like dinosaurs, so be it.”

Crucial to any further deliberations, he adds, is that gay couples are openly involved in the debate, so that the Church faces up to the fact that, for a considerable number, this is not a theoretical discussion.

Frustrating as the prospect of further dilly-dallying may be, there is definitely change afoot in the Kirk. An outsider might not notice, but to the trained eye the Special Commission is a revolutionary document, in that it accepts that homosexual orientation is a given for some people. A decade back, few evangelicals would have agreed with that.

Just five years ago, two-thirds of presbyteries rejected the question of whether ministers should perform civil partnerships. Today, only one-fifth cannot accept the idea of a gay minister. Slowly and inexorably the figures are stacking up in favour of accepting everyone’s sexuality.

Even so, the General Assembly will be tense this year. There will be a lot of public wrangling and behind-the-scenes manoeuvring. Regardless of the outcome, it will be many years, or generations, before the Kirk is entirely gay-friendly. As it is, 40 years after women’s ordination there are parishes which have never chosen a woman minister.

Yet whichever way the vote goes next week, far more people will stay in the Kirk than will desert it. As Scott Rennie has so stoically shown, it is not a place for quitters.

In the end, though, I did quit. During the two years I edited Life & Work I saw, heard, and was the butt of astonishing venom. Once, a senior official told me that if I wasn’t careful, the General Assembly would tie me to a stake at low tide.

Despite the many good people in the Kirk doing good things, it was an unforgiving place to work. Drop in at the General Assembly, and you might see what I mean.