The Church of Scotland is set to lose more of its ministers following its decision to permit openly homosexual clergy.
Last week it emerged that two ministers from the Presbytery of Aberdeen were set to quit the Kirk.
They will be joined by three ministers from the Lochcarron and Skye Presbytery who are also poised to leave the denomination.
Untenable
Revd Peter Dickson, minister at High Church, Hilton, Aberdeen, has resigned from the Kirk, saying that his position has become “untenable”.
Revd Dickson said: “I feel this is the only path left open for me which will enable me to continue to teach the scriptures with integrity.
“The Church of Scotland wants, sadly, to move on from the Bible and it has walked away from the teaching of Christ.”
Leave
He will step down on 30 November, and his assistant Revd David Gibson will also resign.
The Church is also set to lose three of the nine ministers in the Lochcarron and Skye Presbytery over the next few months.
Revds Ivor MacDonald, John Murdo Macdonald and Roddy MacRae have all announced their intention to leave the Kirk.
Sadness
Revd MacDonald, who will leave his charge after nearly 12 years, said: “It is with sadness but with a sense of obligation that I leave the Church of Scotland.”
Revd MacRae had been intending to quit after last May’s General Assembly but said he was still in charge because the Kirk Session had asked him to sort out some items of business.
He said: “I will be leaving. It’s only a matter of exactly when.”
Homosexual
Following the vote by the Kirk’s General Assembly in May homosexual ministers in same-sex relationships can freely preach in the Church of Scotland if they were ordained before 2009.
The future ordination and training of gay and lesbian clergy will be decided in 2013 when a theological commission publishes a report on the matter.