Within the last week a controversy has developed in the Church of Scotland over a minister who has received a call, with the presbytery concurrence, to an open pulpit in Aberdeen.

At its meeting on January 6 the Presbytery of Aberdeen, by a vote of 60-24, sustained the call of the Rev. Scott Rennie to the Queen’s Cross Church.  The controversy is that Rev. Rennie is an openly practicing homosexual in a public enough way that his call may be the first to be challenged because of his lifestyle.  (The Rev. Ian Watson, in his blog Kirkmuirhillrev states that Rev. Rennie is the first gay man to be called, while a news article from the Evening Telegraph quotes an unnamed CofS spokesperson that Rev. Rennie is not the first.)  It is expected, according to these sources, that some in the minority will challenge the appointment to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, possibly putting the call on hold for five months.  Two years ago the presbyteries of the Church of Scotland rejected the blessing of same-sex civil partnerships.  In his blog Coins for Change, Boris Delahoya describes a bit more about the process ahead.

[Correction:  I missed the fact that Ian Watson’s and Boris Delahoya’s blog entries are essentially identical (I did see that they were very similar).  In the comment below Rev. Watson clarifies that he is the original author of the material.]

There are a couple of interesting nuances to this story which I am not seeing dealt with in the press reports. The Press and Journal, states that the Rev. Rennie is/was married and has a daughter with his wife.  The first is the probable fact that his sexual practice was heterosexual at the time of his ordination.  Therefore, the ordination is not an issue but rather the call based upon his present lifestyle.  The second nuance is that the news story lists his marital status as “separated” not divorced.  Scottish terminology or law may be different than here in the states (please let me know if it is) but being engaged in a sexual relationship with someone other than your spouse before a divorce is finalized is generally not considered an appropriate lifestyle for an ordained officer of the church regardless of the orientation of the relationships.  (Although it seems to be sometimes overlooked if you are discreet about it.)  If the protest is filed it will be interesting to see if and how these details play into it.  Very little of the presbytery discussion has been reported so far.

In a related development, Adam Walker Cleaveland, on his blog pomomusings, recently posted on “The Bible & Homosexuality: Enough with the Bible Already,” which you can probably imagine from the title got a lot of comments, both on the blog and elsewhere.  Now there is a well written counter argument, whether or not it was intended as a direct response, by Dr. Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary.