A Dunfermline man has been selected to take on the role of the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
The Rev John Chalmers has been named as Moderator Designate to take office at this year’s General Assembly. He will take the place of Rev Dr Angus Morrison, who has had to stand down due to ill health.
Mr Chalmers, who is the General Assembly’s long-standing principal clerk, said: “It is an unexpected privilege and a real honour to be entrusted with this role at this time. If the Assembly supports my nomination, I will seek above all else to hold the people of the Church of Scotland together in peace and unity.”
Addressing the urgent challenges that face the church, he added: “My focus will be on those things that unite us. Within the church we have to learn to live with our differences.
“We have an urgent need to recruit women and men to train to be ministers and it’s time to let society know that there is something very meaningful about living the life of faith.
“Women and men of Christian faith have motives, values and a sense of meaning that should be among the life choices which are seriously discussed in the public square.”
He said the church had to be an instrument of healing and reconciliation in post-referendum Scotland and promised to “champion the right of the most disadvantaged both at home and abroad”.
“I will want to tell the story of a Church which cares about the values by which Scotland lives, which cares about the conditions in which people live and which puts its money where its faith is, in the work it does amongst the most vulnerable and marginalised.”
The 61-year-old, whose older sister June had Down’s Syndrome, has supported the work of Enable for many years and was a member of the board of Donaldson’s, the National School for the Deaf, for 20 years.
In his Moderatorial year he hopes to visit many special needs facilities where, he says, some of the greatest works of service are done by people who do not get enough recognition.
Born in Bothwell, he attended Marr College in Troon and lives with his wife Liz in Dunfermline. He studied chemical engineering at Strathclyde Universitybefore moving to Glasgow University to study for a degree in divinity. He has been minister at Renton Trinity Parish in West Dunbartonshire and Palmerston Place Church in Edinburgh.
In 2011, his youngest son John-James, known as JJ, was injured in Afghanistan while serving with the Royal Marines.