David Levison
Leon David Levison
Leon David Levison (1919-2012) was a Church of Scotland minister. Following education at the University of Edinburgh and New College Edinburgh, his first parish was Gorebridge, a mining community in East Lothian, following which he was appointed to the central parish in the new town of Glenrothes, in Fife. During the early 1970s he was Convener of the Church of Scotland’s Moral and Social Welfare Board.
Family Background and Early Life
David Levison was born in Edinburgh in 1919, the third son of Sir Leon and Lady Kate Levison. Sir Leon Levison (1881-1936) was a wealthy convert from Judaism much involved with the Church of Scotland’s missionary activities, as well as a humanitarian, diplomat, author and publisher. [1]. In 1908, Leon Levison had married Kate Barnes, daughter of a Dumfriesshire landowner, with whom he was to have three sons and a daughter. Leon Levison was the ancestor of a remarkable clerical dynasty. Several of his relatives and descendants were subsequently to become Church of Scotland ministers, notably including his daughter-in-law, Mary Levison, who in 1973 became the first female minister ordained by the Church of Scotland. David Levison attended school at George Watson’s College, Edinburgh. He began his ministry as assistant at St Cuthbert’s Church, Edinburgh, where 1942, he married Cecilia, an English honours graduate.[2] He was subsequently dispatched to St John’s Kirk of Perth, where he was ordained in 1943. He refurbished part of the city’s old prison to make it into a youth centre.[3]
Early Career
In 1946, Levison moved to his first parish at Gorebridge. Here he was equipped with helmet, elbow and knee pads, boots and overalls so he could visit miners working underground. In 1954 he was plucked from his parish to join the secretariat of the Foreign Mission Committee, based in the Kirk’s Edinburgh headquarters. Wishing to return to parish work, in 1959 he was appointed to the central parish of the new town of Glenrothes, choosing the name ‘St Columba’s for its new church building.[4]
Moral Welfare Board
In 1970, David Levison was appointed Convener of the Church’s Moral and Social Welfare Committee. A year later, he became minister at Pentcaitland, a rural parish in East Lothian. His arrival at the Moral Welfare Board followed a period of turbulence during which the committee had adopted relatively liberal positions on matters of sex and morality which sometimes placed it at odds with those of its parent body.[5] David Levison’s arrival in post coincided with a turn towards greater caution and renewed conservatism. The Committee’s activities largely focused upon two issues: defending marriage against its supposed decline and a prolonged campaign against ‘obscenity’, during which they launched the Scottish Petition for Public Decency in 1972.[6] In 1975, David Levison published ‘Today’s Questions about Marriage’, a summary of his thought about sexualities which told of his belief that marriage was being dangerously undermined by the spread of secularisation and social liberalism.[7] While these efforts had little effect in the face of changing popular attitudes, they did result in David and Cecilia being invited to represent the British Council of Churches at a conference in Tanzania, where he spoke on world population before making a presentation to Julius Nyrere, the first President of Tanzania.[8]
Retirement
David Levison retired in 1982, and he and Cecilia moved to London to help their eldest son bring up four grandchildren following the sudden death of their mother.[9] Three years later, they returned to East Lothian, where David was chair of the East Lothian Council of Social Service, from which developed the East Lothian branch of Cruse Bereavement Care.[10] In 1994, his eldest son, also named David Levison, was appointed Professor of Pathology at the University of Dundee. David and Cecilia moved to Dundee, where they celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in 2012.[11] David Levison died a month later, in April 2012, aged ninety-five.[12]
Bibliography
L. David Levison and Ian Simpson, Today’s Questions about Marriage (Edinburgh: St Andrew Press, 1975)
References
- ^ The Scotsman, Thursday 26th November 1936, 7
- ^ https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-reverend-l-david-levison-95-1630659
- ^ https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-courier-advertiser-fife-edition/20120425/282660389423013
- ^ https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-courier-advertiser-fife-edition/20120425/282660389423013
- ^ See for example: Jeff Meek, “Scottish Churches, Morality and Homosexual Law Reform, 1957-1980” in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 66, No. 3, July 2015, 608.
- ^ Roger Davidson and Gayle Davis, The Sexual State: Sexuality and Scottish Governance 1950-1980 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012) 262.
- ^ L. David Levison, Today’s Questions about Marriage (Edinburgh: St Andrew Press, 1975)
- ^ https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-reverend-l-david-levison-95-1630659
- ^ https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-reverend-l-david-levison-95-1630659
- ^ https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-reverend-l-david-levison-95-1630659
- ^ https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-courier-advertiser-fife-edition/20120425/282660389423013
- ^ https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-courier-advertiser-fife-edition/20120425/282660389423013