U
Username3000
Guest
Very interesting, thank you.One of them was English, so that's far from anything Scottish!
As far as the relationship between the community and the church goes, the majority of people would have been brought up in church, although many have stopped attending and a new generation of children are being brought up not attending church. That said there are still a lot of families in the church.
Due to the fact that many of the non-church goers have family members in church, the community still has a reasonable respect for the church, although this has been damaged by recent church controversies. There is also a small but very vocal Secular Society, who are agitating against the Lord's Day and anything church related. However, in a recent election to the Stornoway Trust, which is a large community owned estate, none of the secular candidates, who stood on a secular card, were elected . Those elected were all church goers and it was reported in the media as "five traditionalists."
Where I live in western Canada, I think there may be more churches per capita of any place I know (churches seemingly on every corner, and even across the street from each other), and yet the culture is extremely secular. Granted, a huge percentage of those churches aren't gospel-preaching.
The thought of a place where people still have some respect for the church, and the church is still a part of the cultural fabric is foreign to me.
The only "Christian" culture I see here is gospel-lite, seeker sensitive, doctrine-less "Christianity," with some woman preachers, sinner's prayers, and numerous programs to get "connected" thrown in. But that doesn't leave those churches. The city is still secular to the nth degree. Rainbow crosswalks for crying out loud!