By Michael Nazir-Ali, The Telegraph.
For a nation built on its Christian heritage and values, we can’t allow churches and cathedrals to be completely secularised
The Church of Scotland has announced that the 800-year-old Brechin Cathedral has been handed over to a local civic trust which will now organise events and programmes in it that the people of Brechin need and “for their enjoyment”.
There is no mention of the provision of any continuing worship at the cathedral. Is this a harbinger of the fate of all our cathedrals and churches? The signs certainly seem to be pointing that way.
Our historic churches have often been built on sacred sites, which may even predate the arrival of Christianity in these parts. Pope Gregory’s instruction to St Augustine of Canterbury was not to destroy pagan places of worship but to adapt them for Christian use and, it seems, this was what happened in many cases.
The attachment, therefore, of many non-church-going folk to their parish churches can, at least partly, be accounted for by this lingering folk memory.