Fudge. Only an institution as innocent and unworldly as the Church of Scotland could end 17 years of debate on homosexuality with a victory acclaimed by the winners as “fudge”.

In the corridors of New College, Edinburgh, as midnight loomed, smiling liberals grinned at the very notion of it; ministers in earrings slapped each other's backs and lauded its very creation. And on the floor of the Assembly Hall, where the appointment of Scott Rennie was approved, the Rev George Whyte wallowed in the sticky sweetness of it all.

“Moderator,” concluded Mr Whyte, after more than four hours of debate, “it's been said I'm proposing ‘a fudge'. I don't regard that as a great insult...” and on he rattled to glory.

From the rousing chords of Spirit of Truth and Grace Come to us in this Place, which opened proceedings, it was plain that this would be a passionate encounter. It was by turns eloquent and polite, revelatory and emotional. And always, appearances were deceptive. A muscular pastor, unwittingly sporting a pink tie, spoke out against Mr Rennie's appointment. From the other side, a white-haired gentlemen in a tweed suit, every inch, it seemed, a social conservative, spoke up for the gay minister. The Rev Derek Browning - a card-carrying tree-hugger on any other night - seemed ready to start a fight. Mr Browning growled: “God is calling us to break new ground,” and a few evangelical foreheads, he almost added.

In truth, the vote had been tipped against the evangelicals by a procedural manoeuvre when the Assembly voted to hear Mr Rennie's case before an overture proposed by Lochcarron and Skye Presbytery, which would have banned two men in a manse.

Thus the evangelicals were forced to deal first with the whys and wherefores of the decision of Aberdeen Presbytery to appoint their new minister. Here, they were on difficult legal ground, attempting to persuade commissioners that the Rev George Cowie, the apparently saintly presbytery clerk, was in fact Beelzebub in disguise.

The structure of the debate also required Ian Aitken, an Aberdonian, to lead for the evangelicals. He is a good preacher, but not brilliant; a master of the pernickety legal details of the case, but apt to slip when he stumbled into areas where bodily fluids flow.

A question from the gods floored him. The Rev James L. Wilson leant over the balcony to inquire: “There's a whole gamut in marriage beyond sex - what do you mean by homosexual practice?” The moderator smiled. Homosexual practice? Mr Aitken stood up, burbled, grunted and sat down again. It didn't sound good.

In theological debate, as in the rest of life, practice makes perfect.

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