The Rt Rev Susan Brown questions claims that humanist ceremonies are ‘more personal’.

MODERATOR

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IT made most of the major news outlets.

Newspapers, radio and television carried the story.

The figures show that for the first time in Scotland, in 2017, humanists conducted more wedding ceremonies than the Church of Scotland. The claim is that this means there are less and less in our land who believe in the Christian faith.

I am not so sure that the figures can be interpreted quite so simply and it is tempting to go down the road of justifying the fall in numbers by pointing out that in the past there were very limited alternatives to a church wedding, while now there are registrars and celebrants as well as humanists for people to turn to.

It is also tempting to talk about the demands humanists make on couples to sign up to humanism before they conduct the ceremony when many couples are not necessarily in agreement with all humanists stand for, they are simply not sure what they do believe and wrongly assume humanism to be a non-committal option, which it is not. That certainly happens in the Highlands.

It is also true that if you put all the religious ceremonies together, they still outnumber those by humanists.

But the debate over the figures and their interpretation pales into insignificance over the claim humanists make that couples are choosing their help because their ceremonies are more personal.

I have no idea how many Christian ceremonies these people have been to, but if they were to come along to Dornoch Cathedral for example, they would find every wedding ceremony is conducted with the particular couple who are being married in mind. Conversations are held with each couple, not only about how the ceremony itself might be conducted but about what marriage means. It is of course always a Christian ceremony, but the variety of possibilities within that framework is still enormous and I object to all the time and effort I put in, being dismissed as ‘rote’. It is far from it.

The same is true when it comes to funerals. Visits with families to listen to their stories. Calls to friends of the deceased too, to get different perspectives – are normal practice for ministers in preparation for a funeral. What the figures being banded about don’t take into account, is the follow ups ministers do. The continued relationships with families beyond the day of the wedding or the funeral.

On top of that, such ceremonies are only scratching the surface of what faith communities are about. We don’t fly in to someone’s life for a particular purpose and then disappear, we are there to walk with people of all faiths and none as they face whatever difficulty, despair, tragedy or joy life brings. Our churches, across Scotland, make a very real difference to the lives of whole communities the length and breadth of the land and indeed the social structure of Scotland would disintegrate if churches stopped serving the needs of their communities.

Our churches, across Scotland, make a very real difference to the lives of whole communities the length and breadth of the land.

All of that is not to deny that we face many challenges in helping people to meet the God in Christ whose love motivates us to do all we do.

But it is to say, we meet people where they are, whatever they are going through, whoever they are. There is nothing more personal than that.

The Rt Rev Susan Brown is Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2018/19.