THE CHURCH of Scotland is braced for mass resignations over moves to allow the ordination of gay ministers, with up to 150 conservative ministers threatening to quit.
The rebellion began after the Church of Scotland became the first major Presbyterian church in the world to allow openly gay and lesbian ministers to take up parishes at its general assembly in May, despite evidence that 20 per cent of its elders and office-bearers could leave in protest.
The assembly also opened the way for the full ordination of gay ministers in the 450-year-old church within two years.
But senior sources estimate as many as 150 serving ministers are considering resignation, in the largest schism in the church since 474 ministers quit in 1843 to form the Free Church of Scotland.
However, a spokesman for the Church of Scotland denied that so many ministers were threatening to leave and urged critics of gay ordination to wait until a theological commission reported in 2013.
At least six ministers have left since the assembly in May, with one and his entire congregation at Gilcomston South in Aberdeen poised to leave as a group.
Mike Strudwick, session clerk at Gilcomston South, said he expected the minister, the Rev Dominic Smart, and his congregation to resign en masse very soon.
He predicted other churches opposed to gay ordination could follow, and perhaps form a new breakaway church. “Maybe five or six years down the line there will be a grouping of like-minded evangelical Presbyterian churches,” he said. The split is the most significant fallout since the ordination of Scott Rennie, an openly gay minister in a long-term relationship, to Queen’s Cross church in Aberdeen in 2009.
His appointment provoked a major dispute within the church, mirrored in the Church of England, about the status of gay clergy and same-sex marriages.
The Church of Scotland’s ruling body voted in May to endorse Rennie’s appointment by allowing any gay minister who had declared their sexuality before 2009 to take up new posts in the church.
While effectively authorising gay clergy, the assembly voted to postpone a formal decision on allowing gay people until its special theological commission reported in 2013. The Rev Peter Johnston, of the liberal One Kirk group, said he believed some rebels were threatening to leave simply to put pressure on the church.