Thursday, August 02, 2018

Secularism Grows

Weddings staged by Scotland’s leading humanist body have overtaken Church of Scotland ceremonies. 

There were 3,283 ceremonies staged across the country by the Humanist Society Scotland in 2017 compared with 3,166 couples who get married in the Kirk. It marks an ongoing shift away from religion. Roman Catholic weddings in Scotland sunk to 1,182 last year, a new low for the modern era.

The Humanist Society Scotland is now the biggest provider of marriage ceremonies of any belief or religious group, while the Caledonian Humanist Association held 325 last year, in its first year of recorded marriages.

Lynsey Kidd, Director of Services at Humanist Society Scotland said: “These numbers also reflect a wider trend of a decline in religious identity within the Scottish population. While it is important to recognise that faith plays an important part in a significant number of people’s lives, Scotland has become a nation where it is now the norm, not the exception, to have a non-religious Humanist approach to life.”

Lenny Love is a celebrant in Edinburgh with the Caledonian Humanist Association  says “We find that more and more people these days are not so keen on a religious ceremony because it’s actually quite impersonal and humanist wedding ceremony is very personal."

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/humanist-weddings-overtake-church-of-scotland-ceremonies-1-4777088


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