The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland Rt Rev Rosie Frew on why the four words of the parliamentary mace - wisdom, justice, compassion, integrity - are not the possession of any party.

Today the home of Scottish politics is quiet. The campaign for the Holyrood elections has emptied the Scottish Parliament. Its MSPs are once again candidates. Instead of debates in the chamber, they now can be found chapping on our doors, speaking at hustings in church halls, or dropping leaflets through our letterboxes.

But what about the chamber they’ve left behind? At its heart lies the Scottish Parliament’s ceremonial mace, representing the authority of our democratic institutions.

Four words are engraved upon it: wisdom, justice, compassion, integrity.

As we approach another election, it is worth asking: how faithfully are we upholding these values in public life?

The Church of Scotland does not endorse parties or constitutional positions. Our calling is older and more fundamental. Just as Jesus did 2000 years ago, we seek to speak truth to power, to hold our nation accountable to its professed values, and to ask whether our common life reflects the image of God in which every person is made.

How should we, as citizens, discern what these values mean for our politics in this election?

When wisdom gives way to certainty

Wisdom, in the biblical tradition, is not the same as cleverness or knowledge. It is the hard-won fruit of humility, the recognition that truth is often complex and that our understanding is always partial. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," says the book of Proverbs.

Today our politics rewards those who speak with certainty, who reduce intricate questions to slogans, who treat nuance as weakness. We have elevated confidence over contemplation. True wisdom requires us to listen before we speak, to seek understanding before we seek to be understood. It asks us to consider that our opponents might grasp part of the truth we have missed. This is not weakness. It is the courage to remain teachable.

Justice beyond our own tribe

Justice demands that we consider the welfare of all, not merely those like us. As Christians, it requires us to see the face of Christ in the stranger, the person we disagree with, the person who votes for a different party, even to the extent of loving our enemy.

The biblical prophets reserved their harshest words not for foreign nations but for their own people when they perverted justice - when they prioritised the powerful over the vulnerable, when they made the law serve their factional interests, and when they treated opponents as less than human. Tribalism dressed in democratic clothing is not justice.

The compassion we witnessed

The root of the word ‘compassion’ means to "suffer with", to enter imaginatively and empathetically into another's experience. We witnessed this empathy in the assisted dying debate. MSPs held positions rooted in fundamentally different worldviews. The disagreement was real, the stakes were high, and the emotions ran deep. Yet what emerged was something increasingly rare in our public discourse: the ability to hold strong convictions while extending profound respect to those who reached different conclusions.

It was a debate that challenges our political leaders – to summon this compassionate spirit for every other issue they tackle.

The integrity to match words with deeds

Integrity means wholeness – connecting what we profess with how we actually live. Does our private character match our public performance? Do we tell the truth even when lies would be more convenient?

The Church of Scotland has always been aware of the gap between the faith we claim and the lives we lead. "By their fruits you shall know them," Jesus taught. Not by their manifestos or their rhetoric - but by what they actually do.

Rev Rosie Frew photographed at Bowden Kirk, Scottish Borders (Image: Andrew O'Brien)

This election campaign, every candidate will speak about their commitment to Scotland's wellbeing. Integrity demands not just words but a track record of choosing the difficult right over the easy wrong, of admitting mistakes, of keeping promises even when circumstances change.

The Kirk does not claim to have the answers to Scotland's political questions. We are not called to prescribe specific policies or constitutional arrangements. People of deep faith and goodwill stand on different sides of many issues.

But we are called to remind our country and our politicians of the covenant, the commitment to keep the promise, represented by the mace.

These four words - wisdom, justice, compassion, integrity - are not the possession of any party.

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They belong to all of us. They represent not what we are, but what we aspire to become.

The mace sits before our Parliament as both gift and challenge. It reminds us that democracy is more than the counting of votes. It is a moral enterprise, a shared commitment to seek the common good, a covenant to treat each other with the dignity that belongs to those made in the image of God.

The covenant is before us. The question for this election and beyond is whether we will keep it.

© Herald Scotland