Gay minister furore mustn’t distract from bigger issues

May 27 2009 by Alan Rennie, Stirling Observer Wednesday

MONDAY’S decisions effectively gagged further debate on the topic of openly gay church ministers for the next two years.

However, one local minister made her views crystal clear from the pulpit on Sunday – and she received applause at the end of her sermon.

It was a heartfelt and very moving address by the Rev Gillian Weighton to Bridge of Allan Parish Church, whose congregation one would expect to be more conservative than liberal minded.

The generous ovation, and the tears that were welling in many an eye, showed that she got her message across.

Mrs Weighton had attended Saturday’s General Assembly as a commissioner and she said she had voted in favour of the Rev Scott Rennie’s congregation and Aberdeen Presbytery, who wanted him to be minister of Queen’s Cross Church.

She reminded her Bridge of Allan flock that, 40 years ago, the Church of Scotland was just as divided, with opponents quoting from Scripture, some claiming that women ministers would bring about the end of the church.

“I would say we would see the end of the church if we DIDN’T now have women ministers the length and breadth of this land,” she added.

“I look around and see the women in the church this morning, and the female elders without whom our church and the Church of Scotland could not exist. Society moves on, life moves on.”

Mrs Weighton said that some may be saying that Jesus wouldn’t be happy that an openly gay man could be a minister.

“I’ll tell you what I think Jesus wouldn’t be happy about – the fact that last night’s court attracted so much media attention compared with some of the other topics debated at the Assembly.

“For example, the fact that in Scotland 800,000 people live below the poverty line. Where are the headlines in the papers about that?

“One in four girls in Scotland and one in six boys will endure sexual abuse, probably from someone they know. What is the church doing about that?

“One hundred thousand children live in Scotland with domestic violence. Why are we silent?

“Why is there not a queue going down The Mound of people queuing up to demand their say on these issues?”

Mrs Weighton said she had attended a meeting at Stirling University, of which she is a chaplain, earlier in the week.

She said she was “horrified and appalled” to find that Stirling University had refused to print an announcement in the university diary about a carol concert in December because “it might be offensive to some people.”

Mrs Weighton declared: “Excuse my French, but why are we not getting our knickers in a twist about that? We should be - it’s happening on our doorstep.”

She went on to speak about the alarming rise in suicides among teenagers and young men. And the real pain and despair of people whose businesses had been lost due to the credit crunch.

“We have bigger fish to fry than whether Scott Rennie is minister of Queen’s Cross Church,” she said. “We should be more concerned about all these other issues.”

Her whole sermon was delivered without a note, making me wonder why this feisty lady hadn’t gone into politics herself. Then the answer came to me – she’s far too good for politics.

By Alan Rennie, Editor