Former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

Born: March 29, 1931;

Died: May 20, 2017

THE Very Rev Dr James L Weatherhead, who has died aged 86, was a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and a significant figure at the General Assembly for many years.

Those who knew Dr Weatherhead from the early days of his ministry in Rothesay were in no doubt that at some stage in his career he would be moderator of the General Assembly. We were proved right in 1993.

During his ministry up until then, he had always been a significant figure in each year’s General Assembly. In 1972 the General Assembly appointed him convener of a committee set up to examine the meaning and implications of church membership and to report to a future General Assembly on any changes which the Church required to take with regard to membership. This committee took the (then) radical view that children should be admitted to communion on the basis of their baptism, claiming that there was a considerable weight of evidence against the view that maturity is necessary before admission to communion.

The report, which was written by James Weatherhead himself, was sent to presbyteries for consideration, but a large number of them held to the view that some form of profession of faith should be required. It was to be several years however before, on the proposal of another committee, that it was considered right to admit children to communion.

Interestingly, for someone who was trained as a lawyer, Dr Weatherhead argued very strongly that opposition to the proposal on the grounds that children did not understand communion mistakenly assumed that such an understanding came with maturity. In his view this ignored the element of mystery at the heart of the sacrament.

He wrote: “Faith does not exclude intellectual understanding, but can be distinguished from it, and certainly transcends it, It is therefore not difficult to envisage children at communion, supported by the faith of their parents and other members of the congregation, and bringing their own contribution of child-like faith to enrich the fellowship of the Church at the Lord’s table.”

Although the Church had to wait some years for that view to gain support, the admission of children to communion owed an enormous amount to both the legal skill and theological insights which Dr Weatherhead brought to the earlier proposal.

Commenting on Dr Weatherhead’s training as a lawyer, the former moderator Very Rev Professor Iain Torrance said that he was “not in the least legalistic. He understood that traditions must be living arguments and thereby he helped the orderly evolution of the church, not its ossification”.

James Weatherhead was born in Dundee, and educated at the High School there, and in Alyth. He graduated in arts and law at the University of Edinburgh, though his progress was interrupted by national service in the Royal Navy; he was involved particularly in the Suez Campaign of 1956.

He trained for the ministry at New College in Edinburgh. Contemporaries who also went on to make an impact on the Church included Duncan Forrester, who returned to New College as professor of practical theology, Bill Johnston and James Harkness, later to be ,oderators, Ian Mackenzie who became head of religious programmes for BBC Scotland, and Bill Shaw, professor of theology at St Andrews.

In 1962 Dr Weatherhead became minister of Trinity Church in Rothesay, then a union of three churches, though since a fourth has been added.

Seven years later he moved to Montrose Old Parish, where he was to remain until he became principal clerk of the General Assembly in 1985.

He was a thoughtful preacher, whose sermons were usually produced very late on a Saturday night. In 1991 he joined the Royal Household as one of the Queen’s Chaplains in Scotland.

The University of Edinburgh awarded him a doctorate in divinity in 1993. This writer was in his company on the day the letter of invitation arrived from the principal of the university, and to describe the future Dr Weatherhead’s joy as unconfined would be a considerable understatement.

James Weatherhead was moderator of the General Assembly of 1993, and caused some controversy when he expressed the rather conventional view that the Virgin Conception of Christ was a symbolic rather than a literal expression of the Christian view.

He served for some time as a member of the BBC’s Broadcasting Council for Scotland where his lawyer’s ability to get quickly to the heart of an issue was greatly valued.

For all his great ability in debate, and his capacity to think clearly on his feet, as well as his considerable sense of humour, once describing a rather controversial report he had written as “printed closely in single spacing to discourage reading between the lines” there was a shy side to James Weatherhead.

He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Anne, and their two sons.

JOHNSTON MCKAY