|TOP|The Free Church of Scotland has taken a stand against what it calls the “sustained attack” on Scotland’s Christian heritage by appealing for Presbyterian schools to be established across the country.

Ministers within the church want the schools to be set up amid growing fear that children are being brought up within an entirely secular school culture.

The church is now looking into whether the schools would be able to be established with state funding or whether they would have to be set up privately, reports The Scotsman.

|QUOTE|A resolution adopted by the Free Kirk’s General Assembly ordered the review. It read: “The General Assembly express their concern at the sustained attack upon and continual erosion of the Christian ethos and foundation of Scotland's nondenominational schools.

"They note with particular concern that the Scottish Executive now deems it appropriate to use schools to further a secular social and cultural agenda."

The resolution was put forward by the Rev David Robertson, the Free Kirk minister in Dundee, who said: “We're concerned that the schools are being used, in some parts of Scotland at least, to advance a secular agenda and so we need to look at the possibility of having to set up Christian-based schools.|AD|

"Ideally we would want Scotland's school system to return to its Christian foundations. Both the Free Church and the Church of Scotland established complete systems of schools in the 19th century which they later handed over to the state."

Rev Robertson conceded that it was unlikely the 12,000-strong Free Church would be able to set up such schools with just its own resources. He said the church would have to collaborate with church members in other denominations like the Scottish Baptists or the Church of Scotland.

"The schools could be set up privately, which would be costly, or there is a case for state funding. We see the current emphasis on faith-based schools, and if we have state-funded Muslim schools, Church of England schools, and Catholic schools, then it's hard to resist the argument for Presbyterian schools, or whatever you would call them."

The Free Church’s latest consideration echoes similar calls from the Church of Scotland to set up Kirk schools as part of an effort to maintain the presence of churches in Scottish society.