Drug Deaths - The Darkness in Progressive Liberal Scotland

Today’s widely reported news that Scotland has the highest rate of drugs-deaths in Europe is a glimpse beneath the veneer so often painted over our society.

The latest figures represent hundreds of ruined lives, broken families and the heart-breaking loss of human souls made to be great and glorious. The statistics are all the more jarring when so many in Scottish public life seem to be obsessed with virtue-signalling policies, lecturing the rest of the world about (and indeed imposing on it) its liberal values, and congratulating themselves as the champions of progressive enlightenment.

A deep malaise

Now of course there are many good things to celebrate in Scotland and it would be churlish to pretend otherwise – but running through Scotland is a deep malaise. It’s at heart a spiritual problem, and thus not unique to Scotland, but it often seems to manifest itself here in particularly chronic ways. Its symptoms are seen in….

Abortion[i] – rates at a 10-year high. That’s 255 unborn children killed every week.

STIs[ii] –Gonorrhea up by 24% in a year. Chlamydia up by 4% in a year. Syphilis rates at 15-year high.

Marriage Rates[iii] – the bedrock of a stable society and the provider of the best life outcomes for children – now at an historic low.

Anti-depressants[iv] – 900,000 Scots prescribed at least one during 2017/18. A rise of 3m (+73%) such items prescribed in a decade.

Mental Health[v] – a 68% increase in the number of students seeking help with MH issues in 10-years. The number in Edinburgh alone doubling in 5 years.

Alcohol deaths [vi] – 54% higher than in England & Wales (2015 fig).

Drug Deaths[vii] – a 27% increase in one year. The highest rate in Europe (and exceeding even that of the USA)

Now of course individual statistics can be misleading and fraught with pitfalls – also not every social trend is negative (e.g. suicide rates have decreased, as have unwanted teenage pregnancies and the overall crime trend[viii] - there are also some government initiatives that may yet push against some of these statistics, e.g. minimum alcohol pricing).

No solutions

Taken together, however, it’s evident that Scotland is a country full of deeply wounded men and women. Behind every one of these measurements are lives lost, confused, and seeking fulfilment in dead-end promises – and then off-setting the emptiness of it all in ‘medications’ of all kinds.  

Our society offers no lasting solutions – just a few slogans about ‘believing in yourself’, ‘following your dreams’ and ‘not letting anyone hold you back’. In a world where the pursuit of self-fulfilment is paramount no wonder record numbers of the unborn are disposed of and partners left behind as personal tastes change.  

The broken image of God

But of course, it doesn’t deliver – it never can. We weren’t made for gratuitous self-seeking. We were made in the image of God – who is supremely self-giving. It may be an image we reject and thus have broken – but try as we might to seek an alternative the fracture will never stop aching.

As the Augustine famously said – ‘Our hearts are restless until they can find rest in You’. It is the truth expressed by Jesus – only ‘if you lose your life for my sake, you will find it’. Only by being what we were created to be can we find the peace and satisfaction we crave. 

Anything else and Scotland’s people will continue to stumble from one false promise to another.   

There is an alternative

Good government programmes can help but the great solution Scotland needs is the Gospel – the good news of Jesus Christ – a Saviour who alone can meet the deepest needs of the human heart - a way back to God, forgiveness, healing and life-giving purpose.

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[i] https://www.scotsman.com/health/scotland-s-abortion-rate-highest-in-decade-amid-surge-in-older-women-1-4936670

[ii] https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/publications/hps-weekly-report/volume-53/issue-21/diagnoses-of-stis-continue-to-rise-in-scotland/

[iii] https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/births-marriages-deaths-preliminary/2016/prelim-16-tab-P1b.pdf

[iv] https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/news-and-analysis/news/antidepressant-prescribing-in-scotland-rises-by-almost-3-million-items-per-year-over-a-decade/20205582.article?firstPass=false[iv]

[v] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-45990384

[vi] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40347942

[vii] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-48938509

[viii] https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2017-18/pages/2/

https://www.samaritans.org/scotland/about-samaritans/research-policy/suicide-facts-and-figures/

Independent Church Ministry Course

Article written for FIEC Website. 

FIEC’s Certificate in Independent Church Ministry course will run for its fourth year this September. Now available online, course coordinator Andy Hunter explains why signing-up would be time well spent for anyone seeking to serve their local Independent church better.

If you Google ‘Independent Churches UK’ – more than half of the top 10 results are typically linked to FIEC. With more than 600 churches, we are the largest network of independent churches in Great Britain. Our size and history means that when it comes to understanding ‘Independent churches’ we can draw on a huge reservoir of experience and wisdom.

This understanding is something we are keen to share not just across FIEC churches but also with the many other non-denominational churches across the country. Indeed, recent years have seen a proliferation of such churches – new church plants, congregations leaving denominations, and the rapid growth of fellowships in areas with lots of ethnic minorities.

Independent church challenges

Independent churches come in all shapes and sizes, with a variety of formats and traditions but equally they share many similarities. They also face many of the same challenges and questions…

• What kind of self-governing leadership structures will best serve the gospel?
• Where will the next generation of pastors and other gospel workers come from and who will train them?
• What’s the best way to organise services without a common ‘rule-book’?
• How can mission be advanced beyond particular localities?
• How can Independent churches best relate to each other?
• How can a struggling Independent church be revitalised?

Helping leaders

Our Certificate in Independent Church Ministry is a course specifically designed to help leaders in such churches to think through these issues. Run in conjunction with Edinburgh Theological Seminary (ETS) this 12-part course looks at the history, theology and practicalities of being an Independent Church in Britain today.

Each session will be led by an experienced church leader including FIEC Directors and other experienced pastors. Set in a seminar format each session will include time for questions and discussion. Participants who complete the optional assignment (2000-word essay) will receive the Certificate, endorsed by ETS.

Now online

The Tuesday afternoon classes (2-4pm) will be streamed online - thus allowing participation from anywhere across the country. It means that you can watch, ask questions and take part interactively from the comfort of your home or office.

Additionally, there are discounted fees for those from FIEC churches or Pastors’ Network Members.

Working on the church

Many church leaders spend all their energies working ‘in the church’ – this course is designed to help them step back and spend some time ‘working on the church’. To think through some of the bigger structural issues that in the long run can yield great spiritual dividends.

So sign-up for some ministry time well spent.

For details of the programme, fees and to register, visit ets.ac.uk

or for the Course Handbook email admin@fiec.org.uk

2019: Seeds of Hope for the British Church

2018 marked among other things the centenary of the end of the First World War. It was a conflict whose most famous quote came right at the start of it. On the evening of 3rd August 1914 the Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey looked out of his office window overlooking St James Park, and noticing the lamplighters starting their work, remarked: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime’.

It was, of course, a reference to the coming conflict about to engulf the continent. Along with the following physical, psychological and social trauma that followed – many have also seen that war as a great moment of spiritual upheaval. For many it was a tipping point leading to the subsequent great decline in Christian belief in the nation. Its horrors causing a crisis of faith that the British have never recovered from.

The Great Decline

The reality is more complicated and the decline of Christianity in Britain can be traced as far back as the 19th Century. However, whatever part the War may have played in exacerbating

or indeed accelerating that decline, there is no doubt that we stand in 2019 at the end of a 100 years when the ‘spiritual lamps’ (as Revelation describes local churches) in our nation have, year by year and decade by decade, steadily gone out.

In the early part of that process the decline was less noticeable, at times seemingly offset by local Revivals and special events (e.g. the temporary spike in church attendances after the Billy Graham campaigns in the 1950s). However, in the later twentieth century the underlying attrition gave way to cliff edge falls. In Scotland church attendance more than halved in the 30 years prior to 2016 – the drop between 2002 and 2016 equivalent to ten congregations closing every month[1]. The result is a decimated Scottish church - that today is more than twice as elderly as the nation as a whole[2].

As the ‘lamps’ went out, in buildings that are now nightclubs, artisan flats and carpet warehouses, the darkness has increased. The two things go hand in hand.

Flickers of Hope

But thank God, who is always much more merciful than we deserve, it has not been a complete blackout. Indeed in an increasing number of places the ‘lamps’ are being switched back-on again. On the last Sunday of 2018, I attended one such ‘lamp’ – a busy, all-age, joyful congregation, a church where the Bible was opened and preached faithfully. It was a ‘lamp’ that wasn’t there 12 months earlier but is now burning brightly in the heart of gospel-needy community.

It’s one of 5 FIEC Recognised Church Plants in Scotland that began public services in 2018; the Free Church of Scotland are currently supporting 9 Plants and have a vision to see 21 more established in the next decade[3]. On average a FIEC connected Church Plant is being launched every 3 weeks somewhere in the UK. These are just two of a range of Gospel networks supporting such work – not least the growing proliferation of ethnic minority congregations who are starting to ask: ‘How can we reach our white British neighbours?’

Additionally the 2018 study ‘The Desecularisation of the City[4]’ challenges the received wisdom that secularisim is an unstoppable tide – pointing out that between 1979 and the present the number of congregations in London has increased by 50%.

A brighter future

Now only a prophet can predict the future and I’m not a prophet – but it may be that just as the first half of the C20 contained the seeds of decline (e.g. liberal churches squandering their evangelical inheritance) – it may be that the first half of the C21 has within it the seeds of growth.

Like the initial period of decline after the First World War, the coming of growth is not likely to be immediately apparent. Indeed it will be offset, in the foreseeable future, by the continued decline of compromised and aging churches. So we shouldn’t expect any sudden return to ‘Christian Britain’ – if anything the next few decades are likely to be spiritually harder and darker yet.

We can, however, take hope and pray that the decades of spiritual pruning might lead in the future to decades of renewed spiritual flourishing in the nation. Our grandparents witnessed the ‘lamps’ beginning to go out – but we can be part of a work in 2019 that, by God’s grace, may allow our children and grandchildren to see them lit again across the nation.

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[1] Brierley, Growth Amidst Decline – Future First (April 2017, Issue 50)

[2] Brierley, Growth Amidst Decline – Future First (April 2017, Issue 50) & www.gov.scot/Topics/People/Equality/Equalities/PopulationMigration

[3] https://freechurch.org/news/church-plants

[4] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Desecularisation-City-Churches-Routledge-Religion/dp/0815348177