Councillors in Edinburgh have voted unanimously against a bid to convert a Leith Walk launderette, located yards from a primary school, into a sex shop. The plan was opposed by the nearby World Conquerors Christian Centre.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 7:56 PM

Obituary of Rev Patrick John Rogers Hamilton; born July 6, 1916, died August 7, 2005. Patrick Hamilton spent the whole of his Church of Scotland ministry in East Kilbride.
Source: The Herald. posted at 1:05 PM

Before Ian Miller visited Bonhill, he had made up his mind it wasn't the place for him. The newly qualified minister wanted a church in Kilbirnie and came to the Vale to be interviewed simply out of politeness. It was a trip which was to change his life - and on Friday, Ian celebrated 30 years as minister of Bonhill Church.
Source: Lennox Herald. posted at 6:49 PM

A sheriff yesterday took the highly unusual step of barring the press from reporting evidence from witnesses at the trial of a monk, Mark Paterson, 46, who is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the Aberdeen University Chaplaincy over a period of almost two years. Sheriff Kenneth Stewart ordered that members of the media should be excluded from Aberdeen Sheriff Court while he heard evidence from the alleged victim via a close circuit television system.
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 1:50 PM

Moves to ensure Christians are guaranteed a sacred place for worship and reflection at both Perth Royal Infirmary and Ninewells in Dundee have been branded a "backward step" by humanists. They yesterday insisted Christian symbols could be offensive to some and claimed hospitals were an inappropriate location for such items of faith.
Source: Dundee Courier. posted at 1:31 PM

Robin Cook would have appreciated the irony of his own funeral service. Yesterday, in St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh - the High Kirk of Scotland - he was given a Christian send-off, with the congregation joining in the 23rd Psalm and the anthem pleading for God's mercy. Yet Mr Cook had been an avowed atheist, who would, in the normal course of events, have steered well clear of organised religion. The explanation was simple, Richard Holloway, the former Bishop of Edinburgh, said in his introduction to the service. Mr Cook was indeed "a devout atheist" but he was also "a Presbyterian atheist".
Source: The Times. posted at 1:23 PM

A 400-year-old Bible which is one of the rarest of its kind in Scotland has been put up for sale on an internet auction site. The Geneva Bible, printed in Edinburgh in 1610, has been listed on auction site eBay with a starting bid of £500 and has already attracted 16 bids. It was the last edition to be printed before King James made the printing of the Bible illegal in Britain. King James disapproved of the Geneva Bible because of its Calvinistic leanings. Douglas Campbell, chief executive of the Scottish Bible Society, said: "The current price of the Geneva Bible on eBay is a bargain. Men and women were quite literally dying to get the Bible to ordinary people at the time when this particular book was published."
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 11:49 PM

Pupils at a Roman Catholic primary are facing sectarian abuse because of moves by the local council to close their school. The youngsters, who attend Greyfriars Primary School in St Andrews, have been targeted by pupils from non-denominational schools in the town.
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 11:45 PM

The UK's fertility watchdog, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, is considering whether embryo screening technology should be used to stop babies being born with genes that carry a higher risk of cancer. But campaigners claim the move is a "slippery slope towards full-blown eugenics". Peter Kearney, spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland, said it would oppose moves to expand genetic screening. He said: "PGD is about ruthlessly culling from the human gene pool people with the misfortune of having particular diseases. It is an attack on human life. Are we really saying the only way forward is to eradicate anyone not deemed perfect?"
Source: The Herald. posted at 11:33 PM

The Catholic Media Office is looking for a dynamic and skilled communicator able to fill the role of Press & Research Officer in its Glasgow office.
Source: Scottish Catholic Media Office news release. posted at 11:18 PM

Muslim and Christian leaders are uniting in their call for support for the Disaster's Emergency Committee (DEC) Niger Crisis Appeal. The Rt Rev Idris Jones, Episcopalian Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway, and Imaam Habib Rauf from Glasgow Central Mosque have made a joint donation to the DEC appeal.
Source: Scottish Episcopal Church news release. posted at 9:31 PM

Sir Tom Farmer, the Edinburgh-based multi-millionaire, is to be honoured with the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy 2005. The devout Roman Catholic is known to have donated millions to charities, emergency relief funds, and good causes both at home and abroad. Cardinal Keith O'Brien said: "Tom truly represents the best Scottish traditions of philanthropy and constantly uses his private wealth for the benefit of many far less fortunate than himself."
Sources: The Herald, Scottish Catholic Media Office news release. posted at 9:30 PM

First Minister Jack McConnell will join Cardinal Keith O'Brien at a send-off ceremony in Edinburgh tomorrow for around 40 young people travelling to Cologne for World Youth Day.
Source: Scottish Catholic Media Office news release. posted at 9:26 PM

Feature on East Kilbride mother-of-seven Jayne Richardson, who teaches her children at home following the accelerated Christian education programme.
Source: Daily Record. posted at 8:10 PM

The Rector of St John's Episcopal Church in Forres, the Rev Canon Cliff Piper, will preach at a service of thanksgiving in Minster Church, Boscastle, Cornwall, this Sunday as part of a programme of events to mark the first anniversary of the flooding of Boscastle on 16 August 2004. The Boscastle distress call last year was first picked up by RAF Kinloss in Moray, which is in Canon Cliff's parish. Coincidentally, Canon Cliff's grandparents and father were born and bred in Boscastle, and Cliff grew up in the neighbouring village of Tintagel.
Source: Scottish Episcopal Church news release. posted at 7:29 PM

Campaigners including members of Royston's Pentecostal Church of Redemption were today due to stage a protest after a family seeking refuge in Glasgow were threatened with deportation. Lucio Raposo, his wife Sandra, and their three children fled Angola more than two years ago. Last Thursday the family were taken from their Red Road Court home to Yarlswood Detention Centre in Bedford, near London.
Source: Evening Times, Glasgow. posted at 7:22 PM

The first evidence of a vellum and leather "factory" for holy books in the 8th century has been unearthed during an archaeological dig on the site of St Colman's Church, Portmahomack. The University of York archaeology department team also found six stone chest burials dating from the late 6th century to the 9th century. "It is very exciting that they start in the 6th century as that was when St Columba came from Iona into pagan Pictland. These are the oldest Christian burials to be found in northern Pictland," said Professor Martin Carver.
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal. posted at 7:14 PM

Church of Scotland minister Rev Patrick Hamilton, who once attracted 1,500 children to Sunday school each week at his church in East Kilbride, has died at the age of 89. Prior to his days as a minister, Mr Hamilton's military service saw him rise to the rank of brigade major when he served with the Royal Garwhal Rifles in India and Burma in World War II. A keen mountaineer in his younger days, he successfully climbed many peaks in the Himalayas and Alps. After his retirement to Tighnabruaich he enjoyed gardening and received accolades from the Scottish Horticultural Society for his renowned rhododendron garden.
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal. posted at 7:11 PM

Obituary of Lord Grieve (William Robertson Grieve); born October 21, 1917, died July 10, 2005. "The Christian faith was deeply ingrained in him. His religious beliefs shaped and molded both his perspective on life and his day-to-day living. Ordained to the eldership 55 years ago, he was a leading light in the life and times of St Cuthbert's, Edinburgh."
Source: The Herald. posted at 6:11 PM

Pittenweem arts festival organisers have asked artist Kirsty Whiten to withdraw her work Feral Lingerie Model - featuring a lingerie model cavorting with wolves - from the festival after complaints from members of the local Episcopalian (sic) Church. (An uncharacteristically inadequate story which fails to name the church or quote objectors.)
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 5:59 PM

A sex shop is set to be given the go-ahead to open near to a city primary school in Edinburgh's Leith Walk despite the nearby World Conquerors Christian Centre mounting a campaign to stop it.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 7:36 PM

A church service is an appropriate way to celebrate the life of Robin Cook despite him being a confirmed atheist, his first wife said today. Mr Cook, who died on Saturday at the age of 59, admitted in a recent book that he did not believe in God. But Margaret Cook, who was married to the former foreign secretary for 28 years, has agreed with the planned service in Edinburgh's St Giles' Cathedral.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 7:21 PM

The film version of The Da Vinci Code is attempting to reduce the offence that the best-selling book caused to Roman Catholics. Sony Pictures, the studio behind the film starring Tom Hanks and Sir Ian McKellen, is reported to have been so concerned that it has consulted Catholic and other Christian specialists on how it might alter the plot of the novel to avoid offending the devout. The Da Vinci Code, which is being filmed this summer with locations including Winchester Cathedral and Rosslyn Chapel, near Edinburgh, is based on a novel that has sold 25 million copies worldwide. Among its more controversial claims is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, a former prostitute, and that she bore him a child.
Source: The Times. posted at 7:18 PM

Obituary of Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary who died on Saturday. "Mr Cook's boyhood ambition had been to become a Church of Scotland minister, but his outlook changed by the time he reached university in 1963, where he chose to study English. He once said: "In the course of my first year, I came to the view that there was no God and since then have been a signed-up and confirmed atheist. My commitment to the Church of Scotland as a minister of religion transferred itself into the Labour Party and socialism.""
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 6:50 PM

Record crowds of tourists being drawn to Rosslyn chapel by the incredible success of the bestseller The Da Vinci Code could "spell the end" of the historic building, a former curator has warned. Judith Fisken, curator of the 15th century chapel from 1981 to 1996, said predicted estimates of 120,000 visitors next year touring a building measuring just 69ft by 35ft would create a situation "nothing short of madness".
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 12:40 PM

A Requiem mass is to be held for 93-year-old Benedictine monk Father Maurus Deegan, who went missing from Pluscarden Abbey near Elgin three months ago.
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal. posted at 12:23 PM

Profile of former foreign secretary Robin Cook, who died on Saturday. "Originally he had intended to be a Church of Scotland minister and there are those who detected a certain evangelical impulse in his defence of Old Labour's social conscience. He would never be drawn on his change of career path but to the suggestion that he simmered with controlled Presbyterian anger, he would reply: "Oh, I object to the word anger. I had a secure and happy childhood and that gives you the confidence to take on all adversaries.""
Source: The Herald. posted at 12:12 PM

"In the weeks since suicide bombers brought carnage to London's Underground and buses, Scottish Muslims have suffered physical and verbal attacks and been the subject of graffiti, even in normally quiet suburbs and in public places where ordinary Scots might be," writes Jennifer Cunningham. "It is not just Muslims who are under attack. An Asian community worker, a Christian, was waiting at a bus stop with his wife on Sunday to go to church. "A couple came to the bus stop and the man said, 'they could be terrorists'," the man, who is too afraid to be named, explains. "I felt very embarrassed and very fearful and thought about going home. Now I worry about getting the bus to work and I don't like my wife to go out on her own because she wears shalwar kameez, but not a headscarf, because we are not Muslim. I am a British citizen, but sometimes I feel there is nowhere that Pakistani Christians can feel truly at home.""
Source: The Herald. posted at 12:09 PM

Only the brave parachute into enemy territory during wartime - and only those blessed with very strong faith would do so as an unarmed non-combatant. SAS chaplain Fraser McLuskey, who died last month at the age of 90, was such a man.
Source: Scotland on Sunday. posted at 8:09 PM

Feature by Magnus Linklater on Columba 1400, "one of the boldest and most ambitious experiments in rehabilitation I have ever encountered". Founded just five years ago in the tiny village of Staffin, at the north end of Skye, by Norman Drummond, an army chaplain who went on to become headmaster of Loretto and a national governor of the BBC, it calls itself a centre for teaching leadership skills. That is a wholly inadequate description. It is, in fact, a place that changes people's lives, and not only those of the children who go there.
Source: Scotland on Sunday. posted at 8:05 PM

Profile of Respect Party MP George Galloway. "I am a believer," he says. "I don't worship anywhere but I believe in God. I believe in a Judgment Day ... He believes George W Bush is faking his faith for political advantage: "Everything that Bush does seems to me to blaspheme the very idea of God." ... Raised as a Roman Catholic, Galloway did turn away from the church for a time as a young man, but returned in his mid-20s. During an abortion debate within the Labour Party in Dundee, he came out as pro-life. "I broke with the vast majority of my left-wing friends over that issue at that time, which would have been 1980. I think that brought me back to a more clearly defined religious position."
Source: Sunday Herald. posted at 7:58 PM

London Road Church of Scotland has officially objected to The Edinburgh Dungeon visitor attraction having its entertainment licence renewed on the grounds that many of its displays are offensive to Christians.
Source: Scotland on Sunday. posted at 7:54 PM

The UK's first legal gay marriages will take place in Scotland on December 20 - a day earlier than provided for in the legislation - thanks to an administrative blunder by the Registrar General's office. Gordon Macdonald, parliamentary officer for the Christian Action, Research and Education (CARE) for Scotland, said: "MSPs didn't properly debate this issue in the first instance, it was pushed down to Westminster because the parliament didn't want something controversial being discussed here. People haven't been able to express their views about this. Our concern is that civil partnerships were setting up a system that was essentially mirroring marriage. We disagree with this in principle."
Source: Sunday Herald. posted at 7:51 PM

The Catholic Church in Scotland says BBC Radio Scotland's morning religious slot is suffering from "I. M. Jolly syndrome" and that it has been marginalised because it is "dull and boring". Peter Kearney, spokesman for the Scottish Bishops' Conference, said the decision to move Thought for the Day back from its 7:25am slot to 6:50am was taken because the presenters generally resembled the late comedian Rikki Fulton's morose ministerial character, the Reverend I. M. Jolly.
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 9:01 PM

A proposal to charge community and voluntary organisations for holding functions was under fire this week. South Lanarkshire Council's SNP leader Archie Buchanan was responding to a review of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act which proposes that charitable, religious, youth, recreational, community and political organisations are all licensed by local authorities. "Small events like church sales of work will all be included in this legislation," he said. "They will have to prepare paperwork to apply for these licences and pay fees that they probably cannot afford."
Source: Hamilton Advertiser. posted at 7:11 PM

Clergy are failing to train their congregations in discipleship, leaving them lacking the training and confidence necessary to make a difference in society, according to Christian commentator Mark Greene. The director of the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity said that churches are adopting a 'convert and retain' policy rather than encouraging people to share the Gospel.
Source: Church of England Newspaper. posted at 6:58 PM

One hundred and fifty years of restoration work has finally been completed at Augustine United Church on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh. Shoring had to start even before building work was completed in 1861. The Victorian builders discovered the walls buckled as soon as they put the roof on and immediately had to start strengthening the walls.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 6:51 PM

The Methodist Church has launched a monthly podcast - a short radio programme available on the internet.
Source: Methodist Church news release. posted at 6:47 PM

The Evangelical Alliance has called on Christians to make positive steps to reach out to Muslim and other faith communities in the wake of figures that show a six-fold increase in religious hate crimes in London since the bombings. But the Alliance remains concerned that the Government may use the current climate as an excuse for rushing through the racial and religious hatred legislation. It remains firm in its conviction that such legislation could exacerbate religious tension and increase community division.
Source: Evangelical Alliance news release. posted at 6:34 PM

As part of his diary for August, the Moderator of the General Assembly, the Right Reverend David Lacy, is set to visit the mercy aid vessel Amazon Hope II.
Source: Church of Scotland news release. posted at 6:32 PM

Obituary of Rev James Robert Nelson; born February 27, 1945, died August 1, 2005. "At the time of the controversy, there were those with knowledge of James Nelson who believed that instead of arguing that a murderer should not be allowed to be a minister, those who opposed Nelson should have asked whether this particular murderer should have been the test case. If, as subsequently seemed clear, he showed neither remorse nor contrition, that would have been a stronger argument against his ministry than the crime which preceded it."
Source: The Herald. posted at 9:22 AM

A bitter row which has split the inhabitants of one of Scotland's smallest islands, Papa Stour, was played out in Lerwick Sheriff Court again yesterday when one of the inhabitants was fined £600 for throwing a bucket of excrement over the Rev Adrian Glover, a pastor with the Church of the Apostolic Faith, based in Bournemouth.
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 9:18 AM

The most common religious affiliation remains with the Church of Scotland, according to the the Scottish Household Survey, with 44% of adults claiming adherence. However, 31% of the population have no religious faith.
Source: Evening Times, Glasgow. posted at 11:43 PM

All religious faiths are to have spiritual areas at two Tayside hospitals after a recent row over a communion table. Christian groups reacted angrily in March when it emerged the table from the chapel at Perth Royal Infirmary was to be removed in the interest of promoting a multi-faith society. Hospital chiefs later did a U-turn and replaced the table, but this led to complaints from other religious faiths and secular groups. NHS Tayside's director of operations, Frank Brown, now says additional space will be allocated at both Perth Royal Infirmary and Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal. posted at 11:38 PM

Fresh concerns have been expressed over BBC Radio Scotland's decision to bring forward Thought for the Day from 7.25am to 6.50am. The Rev Douglas Aitken, a former senior producer for religious broadcasting with BBC Radio Scotland, accused the station of "sidelining God" by bringing the religious slot to a time when few people are awake to hear it. The slot, part of the Good Morning Scotland programme, has been on-air for almost 30 years.
Source: The Herald. posted at 11:27 PM

Obituary of the Rev Donald Angus MacRae, who died in the Western Isles Hospital on 12 July. Born in Uig in Lewis in April 1918, his entire ministry was spent in the islands. Licensed by the Presbytery of Lewis in 1942, and ordained and inducted by the Presbytery of Skye to the congregation and parish of Sleat in the same year; translated to the parish of Benbecula within the Presbytery of Uist in 1949 and from there to the congregation of Tarbert in Harris in 1956. Over a thousand members and adherents signed his call, indicating the population at that time. He "retired" from Tarbert in 1988.
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 11:23 PM

New Monklands Parish Church hall in Glenmavis has been defaced on three successive nights by spraypainted slogans hailing the IRA and denouncing protestants, followed by "retaliatory" vandalism in the form of UVF messages.
Source: Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser. posted at 8:05 PM

Renfrewshire Council bosses have admitted hundreds of bodies could still be buried at the historic Gaelic Church graveyard in Paisley. Last month when the Paisley Daily Express revealed plans to sell off the ground the Council insisted that remains at the graveyard at Stoney Brae were exhumed and reburied at the town's Hawkhead Cemetery 40 years ago. The claim was fiercely disputed by historians who were adamant that although some tombstones were removed to Hawkhead virtually all the graves were still intact and only one body was reburied elsewhere. Now, the council has conceded that the overgrown cemetery could be the last resting place of hundreds of men, women and children who had come from the Scottish Highlands and islands to find work from the late 18th century. Despite the turnaround, Renfrewshire Council and the Church of Scotland - which owns part of the 2.7 acre site - will go ahead with the controversial move to sell off the land for a luxury housing development.
Source: Paisley Daily Express. posted at 8:02 PM

Church of Scotland congregations from both sides of the Firth of Forth are to converge on Edinburgh's Usher Hall on Saturday 10 September for an 'Evening of Praise and Worship' as part of the Church without Walls initiative.
Source: Church of Scotland news release. posted at 7:49 PM

Rev James Nelson, who murdered his mother but went on to make history by becoming a Church of Scotland minister, has died in hospital, aged 60. At the time of his ordination he said: "To suggest I am not a fit and proper person to be a minister is to imply that God's forgiveness is limited." Rev Stewart Lamont, a fellow divinity student and part-time journalist, said that, in retrospect, he believed the General Assembly had made a mistake in accepting Mr Nelson on a theoretical matter of principle rather on his fitness as a person. "If his opponents had done more research, they might have been more successful in stopping him," he said.
Sources: Daily Record, The Scotsman. posted at 7:34 PM

The Disasters Emergency Committee, which includes seven of Scotland's leading charities, have launched an appeal to relieve famine in drought-hit Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso. The Committee's chairwoman for Scotland, Mhairi Owens, said: "Almost eight million people are at risk of hunger. We have to respond."
Source: Evening Times, Glasgow. posted at 7:26 PM

The Rev Professor William F. Storrar has been named the new director of the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton. Professor Storrar, a native of Scotland, took over the directorship on July 1. A Church of Scotland minister, he came to Princeton from the University of Edinburgh, where he was professor of Christian ethics and practical theology and director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at Edinburgh's divinity school.
Source: Princeton Packet. posted at 1:50 PM

Scottish Churches Housing Action is recruiting a project manager for its Church Property & Housing Programme, which encourages the churches in Scotland to use redundant or under-used property for affordable housing.
Source: Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS) news.
posted at 1:27 PM