Between April and June there were 8288 weddings in Scotland compared to 7872 in the same period last year – a rise of 5%.

Marriage guidance experts and spiritual leaders said the increase, the first in the April-to-June period for several years, may be down to people seeking to cement their relationships and strengthen their support systems as other aspects of their lives face a time of turmoil.

Glasgow had the largest increase of any Scottish city with a 16% rise – from 575 for the same three months last year to 689.

Marion Laird, of Scottish Marriage Care in Glasgow, said the recession had led to many couples coming forward for guidance, while others were seeking greater commitment to help keep their relationships going during tough times.

While a religious breakdown of the figures was not available yesterday, both the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church said there was anecdotal evidence of a rise in marriages.

Rev Ian Galloway of the Kirk’s Church and Society Council said: “Marriages are the strongest form of relationship and statistics show they last longer than co-habitation. A good marriage can help people to stand in difficult times and it may be that more people are seeing that, in what are harder times for people economically.”

Ronnie Convery, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church’s Glasgow Archdiocese, said: “The figures are encouraging. We are seeing a trend of couples marrying later in life but who are preparing well for marriage.”

• Full story at The Herald.

• Photo: Salvatore Vuono.

Louis Muvunyi

In 2006 Louis graduated from the MTh in Biblical Interpretation programme, and since then has been working at the Anglican Cathedral in Kigali as well as teaching at Kigali Anglican Theological College. He will take up the post on 20 June 2010.

The post of Bishop of Kigali is an important one in a country like Rwanda which has suffered so much, but is rapidly reviving and developing spiritually, economically and politically.

Louis sees his role as shepherding the people whom God has called him to serve. His work will involve preaching, teaching and healing – serving the spirit, the soul and the body of God’s people.

He said: “I am looking forward to see the Church in Rwanda fulfilling her mission and contributing to the healing and the reviving of our nation. In the family of God there are no super stars, champions or celebrities. It is team work, each using his or her unique gifts for the glory of God.”

• Full story at the International Christian College.

He and his wife, Major Margaret Huyton, will move from Rutherglen to be officers and ministers to the Salvation Army in Maldon, Essex.

Steve will also serve as County Ecumenical Officer for the Salvation Army in Churches Together in Essex and East London (CTEEL).

Major Bruce Smith, currently serving in Airdrie, has been named Divisional Ecumenical Officer for Glasgow and so will join the Glasgow Churches Together committee.

Rev Francis Babatunde

A Glasgow-based pastor from Nigeria has been appointed as the new racial justice officer for the Scottish churches.

Rev  Francis Babatunde Alao working until recently with Heart for the City, an outreach arm of the Scottish Episcopal Church based at Maryhill.

He is senior pastor of Glasgow International Christian Church, the worshipping community of Heart for the City, which meets at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Ordained in Nigeria in 1996, Francis has degrees in religious studies and social ethics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and in marketing and management from Glasgow Caledonian.

Since coming to Scotland, Mr Alao has been passionate about networking churches and Christian organisations, and is particularly keen on bridging the gap between the established and emerging churches in order to find new opportunities for engaging in God’s mission.

Francis is married to Becky, a gospel singer who recorded her first gospel album in 2009. They have three children.

• Full story plus contact details at Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS).

It could also be Knox’s 500th birthday, but the exact date is unknown thanks to the 16th century’s lax record-keeping, but experts believe he was born between 1510 and 1514.

The Scottish Government, so keen to celebrate Burns last year, has said it plans no official events. The Church of Scotland, for which Knox and the Reformation acted as midwives, has been cagey. The official line is that individual congregations can decide whether they want to hold an event. The Kirk’s central office is planning no major event to mark the Reformation. Ironically, of all the denominations the Catholic Church has been the most vocal in welcoming an event.

“It would be interesting to know more about Knox himself and his motivation,” said Ronnie Convery, director of communications from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Glasgow. “We would not want to shy away from it and are happy to participate in anything that would help Scotland come to better understand its religious roots and culture.”

All in all, there is an official sense that Knox remains a particularly jagged thistle for the nation to grasp. Besides, who wants to raise a glass to a killjoy? This attitude, argues Harry Reid, a former Herald editor and author of a new book on the Scottish Reformation, is pervasive but completely misguided.

“He is not at all hard to celebrate,” he said. “This is what confuses me. He was not a killjoy. There is this image of him as some demented fanatical wild man who hated the notion of people enjoying themselves. But this was absolute nonsense. He was a fierce man and a fiery preacher. Religion was central to everything. But he was a very gregarious man. He liked the ladies and they liked him. And maybe the most telling story of all, when he lay dying he had a big hog’s head of wine and asked it to be opened for his friends to enjoy.”

Central to Reid’s book, Reformation: The Dangerous Birth Of The Modern World, is that Knox used the Reformation to usher in a “blueprint for a new Scotland”.

In 1960 the Church of Scotland held an ecumenical commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the Reformation, something Reid would like to see repeated. Richard Holloway, then a young Episcopalian curate, attended. Now the retired bishop of Edinburgh and respected author and broadcaster, Holloway is also puzzled by the lack of events around both Knox and the Reformation.

“I don’t know why the Church of Scotland aren’t doing more,” he said. “Maybe because in these ecumenical times we don’t want to be celebrating something that split them from the Roman Catholic church and started a whole trend in dividing Christianity. But it is intriguing. It is one of the pivotal events in Scottish history, made modern Scotland.”

However, Holloway said Knox should not be celebrated. “We should mark him,” he said. “The word celebrate is too unsubtle.”

• Full story at the Sunday Herald.

Bishop Idris

In a farewell letter, Bishop Idris told GCT members: “It has always been a real pleasure to come together with friends and colleagues in the Glasgow Churches on any occasion when this has been possible. There is no doubt that the present climate of acceptance and respect is better than it ever has been, and I shall miss the opportunity for the wide fellowship that this gives.”

The Bishop expressed his regret at the slow progress towards unity. “For many of us who have been praying and working for deeper community there is a sense of some disappointment that things have not moved on more than they have,” he said.

“In some respects we are no further forward structurally than the churches were in 1948,” he added, referring to the year in which the World Council of Churches was established.

But Dr Jones was heartened by grassroots activity. “There have been significant points of contact, and if we are not as ‘churches’ getting closer then our congregations are doing so, and it is this local partnership in the gospel that is giving cause for hope in the ecumenical world.

“It must still be the prayer of the church for real and physical unity, since it is this that Our Lord prayed for.”