Independent Scotland will have Christian values 28/7/14
Sir,
Rev. Blunt is quite wrong to suggest that there is no Christian slant to Scottish independence, in fact there is the very opposite.
While Scotland's Future does indeed proposes "no change to the legal status of any religion or of Scotland’s churches,” Scotland will go one step further than the current set up and make religious liberty and freedom of worship enshrined in a written constitution.
In actual reality, the establishment principle or the Act of Settlement (1701) might have had some relevance or tangible benefits 300 years ago, but nowadays the establishment principle does little for the person being crushed by the bedroom tax, the act of settlement does nothing to help the 1 in 5 children living in poverty in Scotland, or the person having to queue for the foodbank.
As a church, and as a people, we need to be always on the side of the victims of
injustice, the rights of widows, orphans, the unemployed, the disabled, the homeless,
the sick and the marginalised, we must be the voice of the powerless and the speechless,
this will never be done by wrangling about things that happened many centuries ago.
With a Yes vote, within a very short time we can eradicate the bedroom tax; banish
weapons that would cause the indiscriminate slaughter of millions of innocents from
our land; create a fairer and more just society, so that instead of squandering money
on war and the equipment of war, we would feed our hungry, house our homeless and
give care to those who need it.
For there will never cease to be poor in the land.
Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy
and to the poor, in your land,’ Deuteronomy 15.
John MacDonald
27 Upper Bayble
Point
Lewis