On Tuesday, I found myself in a bar in Edinburgh’s New Town filled with military chaplains. Some were in dog collars, most were in mufti, and all were relaxing, glass in hand, after that day’s proceedings at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Later, I got talking to a church stalwart who had attended events on the Mound while his wife had watched online. How had it gone? I asked. Exceedingly boring was the verdict.

Only afterwards did I learn that history had been made that afternoon – but not in a good way – when it was agreed that Life & Work, the Church of Scotland’s 146-year-old magazine, would cease publication later this year. Members of the assessment committee which recommended its closure talked of “heavy hearts” but also of the need to “face difficult reality”.

The magazine’s editor, Lynne McNeil – formerly of the Herald – has been in post for 23 years. Facing the Assembly’s great debating chamber, she delivered a statement in which she spoke regretfully of “living in a market of diminishing returns”, and of the fact that with every church closure and union the magazine lost readers. With church membership now around 68,000 – a staggeringly low figure given its once central position in Scottish life – she said that even if Life & Work were to be reprieved, “the reality is we would be facing the same situation in six to twelve months”.

Read more by Rosemary Goring

Although the magazine’s circulation has been declining for the past two decades, until as recently as 2020 it was still boosting the Kirk’s coffers. That’s an achievement of which Lynne McNeil should be proud. Oddly, however, even as its........

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