Plenary, 01 Nov 2006

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 1, 2006

Official Report 379KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. Our time for reflection leader this afternoon is Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

In the pressurised world of politics, it is difficult sometimes to find time to pause, to reflect and to remember that outwith these walls lies the society that we serve—a society in which, according to the previous census, 67 per cent of the population describe themselves as Christians.

Scottish society may no longer be as homogeneous as it once was—and our new diversity and multi-ethnic character is something to be celebrated—but a bedrock of belief still underpins our society. Those beliefs are Christian beliefs.

In recent decades, affiliation to and participation in the lives of our various Christian churches have fallen. Attendance rates were down by 18 per cent between 1980 and 1990 and by 19 per cent between 1990 and 2001. The fall in the number of people who actively worship is a matter of some sadness to me and to many of my fellow Christians. However, in an age when social mores have changed so radically, it is perhaps not surprising. Our 24/7 economy leaves people with many Sunday alternatives to church.

However, a reduction in active observance should not be confused with a rejection of Christian beliefs and values. It should also be noted that in the same period—from 1979 to 2003—turnout at general elections in Scotland fell by almost 40 per cent. At local government elections there has been a devastating loss of interest in the electoral process. Sadly, at the previous Scottish Parliament election less than half of our fellow citizens bothered to vote.

We should not conclude from those depressing statistics that Scots have stopped believing in democracy, any more than we would presume from the statistics that they have rejected Christianity. Although a new generation may not esteem the prize of universal suffrage in the same way as their parents or grandparents did, they know deep down that representative democracy is a very good thing, which they would rush to defend if threatened.

Recently I have had cause to question the conventional wisdom that suggests that the Christian churches are increasingly marginal in society. In recent weeks, an interview that I gave to a respected Scottish philosopher, which was printed in a Catholic newspaper, led to a front-page story in a national Sunday newspaper. In turn, that led to several days of intense media coverage, surprising many at how much interest there was in the views of a Christian church leader and cementing my view that the Christian voice in Scotland carries further than many realise.

So too with the Christian faith that helped to forge our national identity, from the arrival of Ninian at Whithorn 1600 years ago and Columba and Mungo some 1400 years ago, to the bringing ashore of the relics of Andrew in medieval Fife. Now we have the symbolism of this great Scottish Parliament building. I suggest that Scotland is Christian to its very bones.

A new well-fed and comfortable generation who are able to live daily lives largely free of fear or threat may feel less inclined to rush to the polls or to the pews than their forebears did. As in so many other walks of life, they may feel content to be armchair participants, but the beliefs that allowed our polling stations and our places of worship to be built and valued in the first place are still with them. Long may that continue.