To Scotland’s snowflakes: it’s a big, bad world | Kevin McKenna

In the west of Scotland over the next few years, mainstream Christian churches may soon be required to invest in counselling programmes for their fledgling priests and ministers. For these diffident young reverends may have been among those currently on Glasgow University’s theology course, which has been offering the future padres a safe zone if they become squeamish about the scenes of evisceration and disembowelling that regularly feature in the Good Book.

Perhaps, as children, their Sunday school teachers had glossed over the details of the single most significant event in the Christian narrative. This is when the son of God becomes a man and is then executed in his prime in the cruellest and most savage manner imaginable.

His skin was flayed by metal-hooked whips and a crown woven with thorns sunk into his scalp. The Glaswegian theologian and part-time comedian Billy Connolly described this as a “jaggy bunnet”.

Jesus was then attached to a wooden cross by virtue of 6in nails being driven into his hands and feet. A spear pierced his side just in case his miraculous powers had somehow caused him to survive such extreme physical prejudice.

There isn’t really a way of sheltering young Christian enthusiasts from the reality of the event. No matter how much you try to sugar-coat it, one or two wretched details are bound to escape.

Some of the answers by Glasgow University’s theology class of 2016 to questions on their examination papers could make for interesting reading. Describe in your own words the events leading up to the resurrection of Jesus. “Well, Jesus rose from the dead after three days in a tomb. He had got there after a little local difficulty with the Roman magistrates when his heart stopped beating with the stress of it all. Nutritionists have since pointed out that a perpetual diet of bread and wine might have caused the Saviour’s arteries to thicken.”

The next generation of cats and dogs might also be facing an uncertain future after it was revealed that some veterinary schools are offering students an opt-out from the more graphic elements of their coursework.

So, if you’re a stricken hound 10 years hence, and experiencing some discomfort with worms in your gut, then you might have to settle for a couple of Diocalms and a lie-down. And who knows where it will all end if this snowflake avoidance of blood and guts gains traction in the nation’s medical schools? We’d better hope that they find a cure for blood loss pretty damn quick and, as a nation, we’d better not be planning on engaging in any armed physical combat in the near future.

Perhaps fragile and emotionally vulnerable students could be given an introductory series of lectures on how life can be utterly shite at times and a bit rough, too. In a pre-course such as this, the academic authorities could borrow one of the central themes from A Clockwork Orange. I’m thinking mainly about the bit where wee Alex is subjected to a form of aversion therapy, in which he is given a solution of nausea-inducing chemicals while he watches graphic images of extreme violence.

The technique in A Clockwork Orange could be reversed for our latterday snowflakes. Thus, they would get a prolonged dose of noisome substances while watching fey and gentle films like the first half of The Sound of Music or the whole of Love Actually. In this way, their senses would be toughened up and they’d be raring to get right into the blood and guts and unpleasantness demanded by their chosen profession. Future generations might then rest easy in the secure knowledge that their gall bladder operations won’t be postponed indefinitely while the hospital roots around for a surgeon who won’t faint at the sight of an scalpel spearing a chap’s flesh.

The Snowflake Tendency has even begun to infect political discourse in Scotland. The renewed debate on the nation’s constitutional future has led to some laughable abjurations from both sides.

This time, some prominent pro-UK campaigners have accused the SNP of playing the sectarian card simply because a small majority of Scots Catholics voted Yes last time around and will probably do so again.

The Labour party in Scotland has been campaigning, armed with the single word “divisive”. Thus, the SNP is “divisive”; the referendum is “divisive”; families are “divided”; communities are “rent asunder” by “divisiveness”.

Any day now, I expect the party to produce a short propaganda film inspired by Dante called The Divisive Comedy, in which those accused of sowing “division” are condemned to their own circle of Hell. Yet, a mission to be “divisive” ought to be at the heart of the Labour party’s mission on Earth; to inflame opposition and sow discontent with a status quo that embeds unearned privilege and inequality.

On social media each day, a squadron of unionist sentinels scans Twitter and Facebook for evidence of “divisiveness” before squawking and shaking their virtual heads in despair at how political discourse has become infected by the poison of “divisiveness”. According to the scarecrow faction on the pro-UK side, even the word “unionist” is now deemed to be a pejorative term because it might somehow lead to the “Ulsterisation” of the debate.

Similarly, there are some nationalists who begin to experience fits whenever they see a social media user with a union jack in his header. To express admiration for the Queen and pride in our military is to be labelled a racist and a supporter of the BNP.

To witness the leaders of Scotland’s main unionist, sorry, pro-UK parties, talking about the prospect of another independence referendum you might be forgiven for believing you’ve missed something. The nation isn’t being asked to go to war or to agree to martial law – it’s just being asked to take part in a one-day exercise in democracy. You won’t need an armed guard to cast your ballot.