Reverend Andrew Monaghan, who is parish priest at St Mary's Church in Pathhead near Dalkeith and has presented religious-based programmes on Radio Forth since it began 30 years ago, has received four nominations in the Jerusalem Radio Awards.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 8:21 PM

One of Glasgow's best-known churches will celebrate 150 years this weekend with a toast in Polish. St Simon's RC Church at Partick Cross was founded in 1855 but has been best-known as the home of the Polish community in the west of Scotland.
Source: Evening Times, Glasgow. posted at 9:47 AM

A carer was yesterday cleared of abusing disabled children at a Church of Scotland care home, Keith Lodge in Stonehaven. The man was found not guilty of two assaults and one charge of lewd, libidinous and indecent practices at Stonehaven Sheriff Court. A jury found a further assault charge against the 25-year-old not proven. Internal investigations into the situation will now be resumed, a Church of Scotland spokesman said.
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal. posted at 5:16 PM

Archbishop Mario Conti yesterday joined political leaders in condemning an article in the Times newspaper denouncing Scotland as a country with "a propensity for murder" which should be contained by rebuilding Hadrian's Wall. He said violence in Glasgow was the product of "social deprivation over generations".
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 4:43 PM

Leading academics at a Scottish university have been commissioned to carry out a study on the role of religion in the road to peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. The £124,000 research project at Aberdeen University is being funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Professor John Brewer, who is heading the study, said the research would focus on the role of religion and the churches in the peace process and explore ways of using religion as a means of gaining harmony in the divided community.
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 4:39 PM

The Church of Scotland has launched a new World Without Walls initiative, run by St Andrew's Multimedia Youth Project, to partner 15 churches in Scotland with 15 churches overseas. Each pair of linked congregations will create a five minute video every month highlighting some aspect of their organisation's life. The 24 episodes built up during the two-year project will be placed on a website.
Source: Church of Scotland news release. posted at 5:04 PM

Scotland's only Moslem school has avoided the axe after making enough improvements in the last three months to satisfy inspectors. But the Imam Muhammad Zakariya independent secondary in Dundee will come under the microscope again in December.
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal. posted at 4:51 PM

Profile of Glasgow-born minister the Rev George Docherty, now aged 95, who with one sermon changed the course of American history. In 1954, during his tenure at the 'Church of the Presidents' near the White House, Docherty preached before Dwight Eisenhower, then the US president, a sermon that would result in the insertion of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance - a vow to America and its flag which has since been recited daily in school classrooms across the country, though not without controversy.
Source: The Scotsman. posted at 4:16 PM

Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown's upbringing in the Church of Scotland was much in evidence during his keynote speech to delegates at the Labour conference in Brighton, in which he appeared to give Tony Blair 12 months' notice to move aside to make way for his succession. Invoking the Good Samaritan, Mr Brown described a society in which he hoped there would be "a responsibility on each and every one of us not to pass by on the other side".
Source: The Herald. posted at 4:06 PM

A Free Church of Scotland minister preached to the Queen on Royal Deeside for the first time. The Rev Iver Martin arrived at Crathie Kirk, close to the Queen's Balmoral Estate, as guest minister. The former Aberdeen Bon Accord preacher left his charge at the Free Church in Stornoway on the invitation of the Rev Iain Brown. Mr Martin also sent good wishes to Crathie Kirk's new minister, the Rev Kenneth MacKenzie, who arrives to take up leadership of the congregation in late October.
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal. posted at 6:26 PM

Officials have closed Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian for a week to allow filming of the bestselling Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
Source: BBC Scotland News. posted at 1:37 PM

A village church used in the filming of a Hollywood film saw a record 1000 visitors when it opened its doors for a special event. Bangour Village Church, used in the filming of The Jacket starring Keira Knightley and produced by George Clooney, was open last Sunday as part of the Scotland-wide Doors Open Day event, which allows people to visit many of the country's inaccessible buildings. The church was built as an ecumenical place of worship in commemoration of the role Bangour hospital and its staff played during the First World War.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 1:30 PM

Obituary of James Philip Cranston, born March 16, 1922, died August 22, 2005. Former senior depute director of education at Strathclyde, Jim Cranston was for 55 years a member of Merrylea Parish Church, serving as Sunday School leader, clerk to the Congregational Board and then session clerk for many years. In retirement he became a member of Glasgow City Council's Education Committee as the nominee of the Church of Scotland.
Source: The Herald. posted at 1:11 PM

As filming begins on the Da Vinci Code movie tomorrow, Rosslyn Chapel finds itself accused of selling out and promoting lies about the Bible.
Source: Sunday Herald. posted at 7:19 PM

Scotland on Sunday revisits Prof Willie Ruff's theory that the line-singing of psalms that survives in the Western Isles is the forebear of American spirituals. "More than 16 million Americans heard the Back Free Church singers on national public radio. Within days, the professor had been contacted by a congregation of Native Americans who line-out."
Source: Scotland on Sunday. posted at 7:15 PM

The closure-threatened heart of Scotland's ecumenical movement has won a reprieve. A successful public appeal for £120,000 has given Scottish Churches House in Dunblane some breathing space.
Source: The Herald. posted at 9:34 AM

Two Scottish churches - one the birthplace of Celtic Football Club, the other long associated with Robert Burns's Tam o' Shanter - are to be rescued from ruin with £256,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund. St Mary's Calton in the east end of Glasgow is the second oldest Catholic church in the city while Alloway Auld Kirk, in whose kirkyard the "fou and unco happy" Tam came across the witches' party, can be dated to 1516 and lies on what is believed to be one of the earliest Christian sites in south-west Scotland.
Source: The Herald. posted at 9:32 AM

A '100-Minute Bible' has been published, condensing the Old and New Testaments into 60 pages for easy consumption. It was given a cautious welcome by a Church of Scotland spokeswoman, who said: "We hope that people do not fall into the trap of reading the easy bits of the Bible and ignoring the difficult bits, because the difficult bits are often the most challenging." Richard Holloway, former primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, said he was "underwhelmed" by the prospect. "It's a bit like having a 100-minute Shakespeare," he said.
Source: The Herald. posted at 7:35 PM

Rev Dr John Mantle, who will be consecrated as Episcopalian Bishop of Brechin on October 8, has said his final Mass in Peterborough, where he has served the villages of Castor, Ailsworth, Marholm and Upton.
Source: Peterborough Evening Telegraph. posted at 7:26 PM

Church of Scotland minister and former Moderator the Rev John Miller is to receive a Unitas Award from Union Seminary in New York for his contribution to the church.
Source: Church of Scotland news release. posted at 2:11 PM

Archaeologists excavating the site of a Pictish monastery in Easter Ross have unearthed an extremely well preserved cist burial, thought to be the grave of a 6th or 7th-century monk. The skeleton found at Tarbat, Portmahomack, has been taken to the University of York archaeology department for further analysis.
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal. posted at 2:06 PM

Anne Hosie was installed as the new president of the Girls' Brigade in Scotland when more than 200 company leaders gathered for the Brigade's yearly national meeting at St Andrew's Church in Port Glasgow on Saturday.
Source: Greenock Telegraph. posted at 1:17 PM

Evangelicals are key to the future of the Church in the United Kingdom according to the latest findings by Christian Research, a member organisation of the Evangelical Alliance. The latest issue of their UK-based journal Religious Trends 5 indicates that by 2020 evangelicals will be the dominant force in all denominations.
Source: Evangelical Alliance news release. posted at 8:51 PM

The Church of Scotland has launched a new initiative which will offer support to families of long-term prisoners in Dundee, Perthshire and Angus.
Source: Church of Scotland news release. posted at 8:48 PM

Profile of Rev Charles Robertson, who retires next month after 27 years as minister of the Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 8:01 PM

Trish Heywood, world wide president of the Mothers Union and the organisation's first Scottish provincial president, arrived in the Solomon Islands today at the start of a three week visit.
Source: Solomon Star. posted at 7:55 PM

The Dean of the Chapel Royal in Scotland was the guest preacher at Crathie Kirk as the Queen attended for worship yesterday. The Rev James Harkness, who was appointed to the post by the Queen, preached before both her and Prince Philip at the Deeside church. Before his current post, Mr Harkness was a Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. He was also the first Church of Scotland minister to hold the Army rank of chaplain general. He used his sermon to challenge the conclusions reached in a recent report by Christian Research that suggests Christian practice could dwindle beyond recognition within the space of a few decades. He cited in particular the work of Christian charities as indicative of the ongoing potency of the faith's values and teachings.
Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal. posted at 8:02 PM

A study commissioned by the Duchess of Hamilton proves that the Stone of Destiny, which takes pride of place in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle after spending centuries resting at Westminster Abbey, was quarried near Scone in Perthshire. Legend had it that the stone was used as a pillow by Jacob as he dreamt of angels ascending to heaven on a ladder and was later taken from Palestine to the north, where it became the ancient symbol of Scottish kingship.
Source: Sunday Times. posted at 12:23 PM

The Scottish Executive could be forced to pay £10million compensation to hundreds of children who were abused in Scottish care homes. Lady Paton ruled last week that there is sufficient evidence to show the Government failed to protect victims of the De La Salle List D schools. The Court of Session will now decide whether the Scottish Executive, who took over schools responsibility after devolution, will be held jointly liable along with the De La Salle monks, school managers and governors. Legal teams argued monks and teachers admitted to brutal punishments and up to 20 boys at a time absconded to escape the nightmare regime. Instances of abuse were recorded at St Ninian's De La Salle List D school at Gartmore as long ago as 1963.
Source: Sunday Mail. posted at 12:16 PM

Pensioners are claiming that the latest Church of Scotland hymnary, CH4, which contains 130 more items than the previous version, is too heavy to hold for an hour-long Sunday morning service. They say many churches are now beaming hymns on to overhead projectors to save money and to spare their members the pain of having to hold heavy books.
Source: Edinburgh Evening News. posted at 11:57 AM

Obituary of Rabbi Cyril Harris; born September 19, 1935, died September 13, 2005. Cyril Harris was born in Glasgow in 1935. After a conventional Scottish-Jewish upbringing (his family were friends of the Rifkinds, Kaplans and other leading Scottish Jewish families), he moved to South Africa in 1987, where he gained a reputation as a human rights activist. As chief rabbi of South Africa he was known throughout the continent - and praised by Nelson Mandela - as the conscience of the country's Jewish community.
Source: The Herald. posted at 11:54 AM