Kirk numbers to be reduced
The number of Church of Scotland buildings will be cut by two thirds, following a meeting of the Shetland Presbytery on Saturday.
Around 20 churches will be closed as the Kirk faces up to a stark picture of falling attendance, reduced income and an acute shortage of ordained ministers.
At Saturday’s meeting the Kirk’s Presbytery plan was amended to permit 11 churches to remain open – a significant reduction on the 31 which are currently open.
• For full story, see Friday’s Shetland Times.
David Spence
It is a sad reflection of where religion is taking second place to ‘ more economic interests ‘ and the advancement of technology is questioning the validity of religion itself.
As science and technology has greatly advanced over the past 100 years or so, this has put into questioned the value of religion, and many are questioning whether or where it fits in modern times?
The attendance of people going to the church is falling significantly, and one should ask why this is so? Is it science and technology to blame, is it social ideology to blame or are we in society based on ourselves than the collective?
To contradict this, there are area’s of the world dominated by religion seem to reflect the more negative aspects of where this religion promotes their dominance violently and force their out-dated values onto the people.
This fly’s in face of what values we have in the west or more advanced societies, and to a large degree those societies dominated by religion being rather hypocritical in terms of modern living, invention and economic interests taking greater priority, but their social values still based on a book written, allegedly, 1,400 years ago?????