The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland convened yesterday with all the flair and formality the meeting brings.  The meeting began with a ceremonial start including the election of the new moderator (a formality as this point since the tradition is to have a committee select a designate in the fall), and the letter from the Queen and the address by the Lord High Commissioner.  After a brief adjournment the Assembly continued with business, much of it related to the administration of the Kirk.

One of the major reports of the morning was a Joint Report of the Legal Questions Committee and Ministries Council dealing with workplace standards in the church and the “equivalence of protection offered by the Church to its ministers and others, in comparison with the rights of employees and others in civil law.”  The full report is available from the reports page.  Here is a link to the MS Word version.  One of the concerns of the report is Ministers in the church being bullied by “office-bearers” in a congregation, particularly session members.  The measure adopted would provide that the civil law would apply to church workplace situations including bullying, harassment, and victimization.  (As a note, the primary responsibility of the Legal Questions Committee is how the church’s rules and laws interface with the civil laws.  This is were last year’s debate on blessing same-sex partnerships came out of.)  The Assembly amended the adopted document by a vote of 214 to 138 to include in the “protected grounds” sexual orientation.  The assembly debate did not follow the report numbering exactly but I believe that this would be a change to the report Appendix B, Section 1a.  Beyond this, the report is extensive on expected behaviour and the procedures if a claim is filed.

In the collection of administrative reports there were also reports on budgets and communications which led to discussion but were approved.  One Presbyterian polity issue in the communication report was a discussion on why there was no designated “spokes person” and how no one person can speak for the church or a body of the church.

One of the external controversies to come out of the GA so far is the choice of HRH Prince Andrew as Lord High Commissioner.  For an Assembly which will be calling on the world to take action on global warming, including the number of airplane flights, people are saying it is hypocritical to have a representative of the Queen who is known for his jet-setting habits.  In addition, Andrew will be traveling by helicopter the next three days to church projects around Scotland.  Several news outlets have picked up this story but here is one from Scotsman.com.

Today is a quieter day with a business session this evening that will involve no council reports or votes.  It will mainly be speeches including that of the outgoing moderator.