A “Kennedy moment” in Scotland

I was on a train from Glasgow to Edinburgh last Wednesday, and had just logged on to the in-train Wi-Fi, when the news broke. Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister in the Scottish parliament, and leader of the Scottish National Party, had resigned. For one reason and another there will be few Scots for whom this did not constitute a “Kennedy moment”. An older generation will find it hard to understand that I now have to explain for the younger generation what this is. John F. Kennedy was both the US president and a towering and era-defining political figure. He was assassinated on 22^nd November, 1963. This event was so shocking that it became a memory anchor for a whole generation (or two). People would discus where they were and what they were doing when they heard that Kennedy had been shot. Now, it is true that, to slightly misquote a famous vice-presidential debate, Nicola Sturgeon “is no Jack Kennedy”. But in the relatively small world of Scottish politics, and more widely in the UK, she has been a major presence for more than twenty years.

It isn't hard to find reviews of her political career from friends and foes alike. Love her or loath her, all are agreed that she was (is?) a formidable political operator. Most are also agreed that she was head and shoulders above most of her Scottish opponents and more than a few of her UK ones (she has seen off Conservative UK Prime Ministers almost beyond counting). She has been a dominant figure in Scotland, particularity since she took over from Alex Salmond, her former mentor, after the independence/separation referendum was lost (from her point of view) in 2014. Her whole purpose in politics was to break up the political union that is the United Kingdom, and see Scotland take its place as an independent and sovereign state, one of the family of European nations. Unfortunately a solid majority of her fellow Scots did not agree, and voted 55% to 45% in favour of the status quo. But this of course was merely a temporary setback. Salmond resigned, Sturgeon took over, and began agitating. With Brexit, she saw an opportunity. This she claimed was a material change in circumstances and fundamental alteration in what the opponents of independence had been offering the Scottish people back in 2014. Indeed, when the Brexit vote was broken down by UK nation, Scotland had “voted” against leaving the European Union. This quietly ignores the issue that Scotland, as Scotland, wasn't being asked; it was a UK-wide vote. Just as both Glasgow and Edinburgh were both bound by the outcome of IndyRef1 although they voted differently, so Scotland was bound by the outcome of the Brexit referendum.

In truth it made little difference. Some pretext would have been found, some excuse advanced, as to why the agreed position in 2014, that IndyRef1 was a once-in-a-generation opportunity, wasn't. What few in England seem to have ever grasped is that this single aim was Sturgeon's (and is the SNP's) over-riding aim. Given the name and aim of her political party this is an elementary error. Over-riding means exactly that. To the SNP Independence is more important than educational performance, NHS budgets, drug deaths and tax policy, all of which are highly contentious in Scotland. And this is not only the case because independence is seen as a means to an end i.e. that all of these other problems will be more fixable in an independent Scotland. Even if Scotland were to be demonstrably poorer on its own, this would not matter to a true tartan nationalist. Theirs is a principled position, not a means to and end. Independence is what truly matters and everything else is secondary. Post-Brexit, this should not be that hard to understand in the rest of the UK. A lot of folk voted to leave the EU in the full knowledge that they would be worse off. They were told often enough that this would be one of the outcomes. And so it has transpired.

At the centre of all of this was wee Nicola. But no more. Out of a bright, blueish, Edinburgh sky, came the announcement on Wednesday that she was resigning. And so I shall ever remember that I was pulling out of Easterhouse station on my way to Edinburgh Waverley. But as with trains, life moves on. US politics motored along after JFK's assassination, and political life in Scotland and the UK will do too. And Nicola Sturgeon's true significance will be assessed and reassessed as time, like a train, rolls along. Inevitably, attention has now turned to who will replace her, and what this mean for both Scottish and constitutional politics.

So far, one name seems to be at, or near, the top of the pundits' lists: that of Kate Forbes. Ms Forbes is the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy in the SNP government, and is currently on maternity leave. Kate Forbes is a Christian, and this is clearly seen as a problem by at least some of the commentariat. Some, probably out of ignorance, reach for stereotypes. My suspicion is that few of the political team on the Times know the difference between, say, the Free Church of Scotland and the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, they are both “free” and “presbyterian” after all. But differences there are. For the record Forbes is a member of the Free Church. This, in the view of one of the scribblers at the Times is sufficient to qualify her as a “strict Christian” who belongs to “an austere Christian denomination” (the Times, 18/2/23, p9!). Others see trouble ahead particularly given that currently the SNP in Edinburgh are in cahoots with the Scottish Greens.

Forbes was spared any involvement in the Gender Recognition Reform Bill debates at Holyrood by virtue of her maternity leave. But differences with her party activists over this, abortion and homosexuality (if they exist) have all been highlighted as potential flashpoints. While at Westminster such issues are treated as matters of conscience and are rarely (if ever) whipped, the same is not true in Edinburgh. Only the Conservatives allowed their members a free vote on GRR. There are echoes here of the difficulties Tim Farron got into in the 2017 general election campaign (which I discussed at the time here). He found that he could not both lead a UK political party, and live as a faithful Christian because of the tensions between his Christian beliefs and some of his party's policies which he had to represent. He has also been admirably candid that this was largely because in publicly answering a number of key questions, he had been unwise in his approach. There are undoubtedly some in the media who are already dusting down some of the very same questions to put to Kate Forbes should she stand to be leader of her party and First Minister of Scotland. Such interactions, if and when they come, will tell us more about media, culture and society, than they will reveal anything about Kate Forbes and Christianity. 

Interesting times ahead then. But some of us will always remember where we were on the afternoon of Wednesday 15th February, 2023.

Keswick 22.3: Beyond the big tent…..

The Keswick Convention for us is over, and we have moved on. Indeed, we have moved north on our summer road trip. We spent a good part of today wandering around Edinburgh, our former home. When we first married, we settled here. In driving in to the city we made a short detour to drive past our first flat. Two of our children were born in Edinburgh (one studied here and hasn’t yet left). Even when stuffed with summer tourists it is a beautiful place. And, as we are obviously north of the (currently fictional) border, it was the Scottish edition of the Times that we bought today. Scotland these days is said by some to be a fairly Godless place. The national church, as opposed to the Church, is in rapid, if not yet quite terminal decline. Government here, particularly its Green Party element, is relentlessly secular. And yet today I found two church stories in the Scottish edition of the Times (unfortunately behind a paywall, otherwise I’d provide links to the stories). For different reasons, neither of them is particularly encouraging, at least when taken at face value.

On page 5 is a story about Destiny Church, described as “an American evangelical church”. Destiny Church and Ministries was founded in Glasgow around 1990. Its belief statement on its website certainly declares that it teaches everything you would expect in an evangelical church, with a few additions. It falls into the charismatic camp, with the expected prominence given to teaching about the Holy Spirit, and an attachment to claimed miracles such as healings. In the past it has had associations with “prosperity gospel” teachers such as the appropriately named Creflo Dollar. It has now suffered some splits and defections, with complaints about financial irregularities and exploitation of members being made to the charity authorities in Scotland. Hence the story in today’s paper. I have no notion whether there is any truth in these accusations, and I have no particular criticism to make here of Destiny. I happily confess I know little of them. However, even taking a sceptical view of some of their own claims, they provide evidence that parts of the Church are apparently far from in decline. Exactly how authentic the churches in Destiny’s network are, time (and for that matter eternity) will tell.

Then a little further on (page 23) I encountered the headline “Secular Scotland feels little need for God, warns Kirk moderator”. This is a story about the Church of Scotland’s continuing decline and indeed its own narrative of that decline. It has recognized this formally in as much as it is in the process of rationalizing (i.e. reducing) its number of parishes and posts. The incoming moderator, writing for next months “Church and Life”, is to claim “Christendom has gone” and that Scots live in a culture “that feels little need for God”. The quotations are those that the Times’ journalist has seen fit to include in the story of course. Presumably the Times has seen a copy of the Church and Life article, rather than itself claiming any prophetic insight.

I suppose that the Moderator might claim he has been misquoted. We’ll see. But it is true that there is an ongoing debate within the C of S about its decline and what it is to do. A blog post which is also quoted in the article, authored by one of the Church’s academics, gives a flavour of aspects of the ongoing discussion. The blog post focusses on how the human institution that is the C of S should organize to survive. But nowhere does it engage with the C of S’s central problem. It ceased believe and preach what was supposed to be, and historically was, at its core – the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To conclude that the C of S’s decline means that there is no appetite for the Gospel it has refused to preach is bizarre. Destiny’s story, at least in part, provides evidence to that end.

It was not really the detail of either story that caught my interest. It was that firstly both appeared at all. Again, this rather counts against the idea that there is no interest in such things here in Scotland. I assume that the newspapers, here as elsewhere, only devote column inches to what they think their readers, or at least reasonable proportion of their readers, will find interesting. The Times apparently thinks that news about Christian churches falls into that category. Admittedly you could see both as fairly depressing, and a sign of a secular media taking the opportunity to paint Christians in a poor light. But secondly, beyond the immediate contrast between the two stories themselves there are a number of other contrast that should be pointed up. And this is where Keswick is relevant.

All last week we had the confident presentation of a Gospel and its impacts based on the authoritative Word of God. The confidence was not based in the talents of speakers like Alistair Begg (a Scot as it happens) or the other main speakers, one of whom, David Gibson, is based in a growing church in Aberdeen which, while presbyterian, is not part of the Church of Scotland. These men, and others, were both confident and competent. Not in their own talents, but in the Word that they preached. Now of course the audience they were preaching to was self-selected (although in Week 1 it has a distinctly Scottish feel). Many of us were there precisely because we shared the basic presuppositions of those who were speaking. No surprises there. But we have all now dispersed, some us to that part of the UK which it is claimed “feels little need for God”. As for ourselves, we’re only visiting. But many others love and live here in Scotland. And they are no doubt back with a spring in their step, and I hope a renewed ambition to share the Gospel that the Church of Scotland is so singularly refusing to share.

In the big tent as Keswick, over three summer weeks, there will be full hearts and occasionally damp cheeks. It will be warm in more ways than one. It’s an atmosphere where it’s easy to be a Christian and committed to the Gospel. It may be harder beyond the tent, but this is where the Gospel is in desperately short supply, and therefore where it’s desperately needed.