Ministers in Church of Scotland resign over gay clergy

(Photo: Church of Scotland)The Moderator of the General Assembly, Rev. John Chalmers, has thanked the congregations of the Church of Scotland for their response to his Doves of Peace campaign.

A new crisis is buffeting the Church of Scotland with two more ministers leaving the church due to issues such as the support for gay clergy and acceptance of assisted suicide.

Rev. David Macleod and Rev. Roddy MacRae have both resigned from the Kirk as the Church of Scotland is known locally and have applied to join the Free Church of Scotland, The Scotsman newspaper reported Tuesday.

The two ministers will formally leave at the end of the month, leaving Portree minister Rev Sandor Fazakas as the only serving full-time Kirk minister in the Presbytery of Lochcarron and Skye.

STV News said that the church now has no full-time ministers in many areas of Scotland and is now advertising 16 vacant posts to fill the vacant positions.

A number of ministers decided to quit because of the church's unbiblical teachings and actions.

The church recently allowed its congregations to appoint gay ministers and established a partnership with the Humanist Society of Scotland.

The partnership lobbied for religious observance in schools to be replaced with a "time of reflection."

It has also expressed support for assisted suicide in the church.

Rev. Macleod said that he has found himself to be "theologically less and less aligned with the Church of Scotland."

"I have been wrestling with this in prayer for quite some time now," Rev. MacRae said. "The Church of Scotland often says it is a broad church, but it has become clear to me that it is not broad enough for Bible-believing Christians," he added.

In 2009, openly "practicing" homosexual minister Scott Rennie was appointed by The Church of Scotland to Queen's Cross Church in Aberdeen.

The appointment led to divisions leaving a minister saying that God "would not be happy" with gay ministers.

The Church of Scotland is a Presbyterian church and is one of the largest religious organizations in Scotland. It has 1,400 congregations in the country with more than 400,000 church members.

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