Pictures by Derek Fett

Unity, Mission and Cancer

Thursday April 23 2015

Lynne McNeil meets the Rev Dr Angus Morrison, Moderator-Designate to the 2015 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

‘I HAD prostate cancer. I am full of gratitude to the team at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee who carried out my surgery. The doctors involved in my treatment are confident it has been successful.”

Sitting in his manse in the Kinross-shire village of Milnathort, the Rev Dr Angus Morrison explains the background to his unprecedented decision to withdraw as Moderator-Designate to the 2014 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

“I am a man who is very slow to go to the doctor with anything and I would just encourage anyone with worries about the same sort of thing to go as soon as possible and have it checked out. It can be easily treated. The important thing is to have it treated in good time.”

Angus says he has made a full recovery from the major surgery which followed his diagnosis and believes the power of prayer played a key role.

His experience of healthcare in the National Health Service as a result of his illness and a desire to champion the cause of hospices will play a key role during his Moderatorial year.

Unity and mission will also be among his main themes after he takes up the role of Moderator to the 2015 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland later this month (May).

“I want to encourage the Church, in difficult times, in a growing secularist society, to continue to value the message that we have inherited – the Good News of Jesus Christ – and to be confident in its mission in sharing this by word and appropriate action with the people in the communities in which we have been placed.”

Born in Glencoe in 1953, Angus was one of three children born to his father Norman, who was in the Northern Lighthouse Service and his mother Mary Ann. The family settled in Oban when Angus turned 12.  

It was within the Free Presbyterian Church that Angus received his early spiritual nurture.

After completing a classics degree, he began training for the ministry within the Free Presbyterian Church, enjoying placements in Glasgow, Dingwall and Inverness.

Sadly the Rev Malcolm MacSween, minister at Oban Free Presbyterian Church, died suddenly the summer before Angus started the final part of his ministry studies and Angus received a call to minister in his home town. 

It was during his seven-year ministry in Oban that he met and married Marion, in 1983 in her native Fort William.

The couple have four children, David (29), Judith (27) Robert (22) and James (17).

After seven years in Oban, there was a call to the Free Presbyterian Church in Edinburgh.

“We enjoyed Edinburgh and the opportunities provided by it but then as we know 1989 happened (when Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the Lord Chancellor and an elder of the Edinburgh FP congregation was ex-communicated by the church for attending the funeral mass of a Roman Catholic colleague).

The Free Presbyterian Church split, with a quarter to a third forming the Associated Presbyterian Church, including Angus.

“In 2000 I happened to be preaching in the APC Church in Stornoway and some people from St Columba’s Old came along to hear me preach and the outcome was that a call came to me from them.”

He explained: “We paused, we thought and prayed and came to the view that it was right and we should accept the call. We moved to Stornoway in 2000 and it was a very happy time....It was a time of fruitfulness and much blessing and we greatly enjoyed it.”

As the older children started to move to the mainland to study and work, Angus felt attracted to the parish of Orwell and Portmoak, near Kinross, where he now serves.

Angus will be the first Moderator from the Presbytery of Perth since the Very Rev David Smith in 1985. He will also be the first Gaelic speaker since the Very Rev Dr Tom Murchison served as Moderator in 1969.

Angus has been involved in the central structures of the Church since becoming minister at St Columba’s and in 2009 he found himself appointed as a member of the Special Commission examining Same Sex Relationships and the Ministry, which reported in 2011.

The issue has not gone away: the 2014 General Assembly submitted proposals to presbyteries under the Barrier Act to allow congregations to call ministers in same sex civil partnerships. Presbyteries have voted in favour and the decision will return to the General Assembly later this month.

Angus is keen to focus on a message of unity within the Church of Scotland against a backdrop of difficult discussion.

“Whatever the outcome, I would hope that we would remain together and that there would be no further fragmentation in the Church and that we recognise the importance of ongoing discussion of difficult issues in the context of our unity as a Church.”

Equally important, he adds, is the need to end loneliness in communities.

“We need to do more to encourage the Church to reach out in our communities to those who are lonely. It is not only the elderly, but particularly the elderly. With an increasing population we need to use the resources we have to build bridges of friendship to people who are otherwise alone.”

This is an edited version of an interview from May's Life and Work. Subscribe here.