Forbes says she does not regret expressing religious views during unsuccessful campaign to be SNP leader.
In a frank interview with the BBC, Ms Forbes, who had been a high-ranking minister for three years, said: "I'd always been open about my views so there was no surprise that they were a topic of discussion and - in some quarters - concern.There was no way back after her campaign's dramatic downturn and in March she lost the election, coming second to Humza Yousaf, although by a narrower margin than many had predicted.
She says with a smile that her faith tells her to forgive the colleagues she still works alongside who abandoned her campaign to be leader. At the heart of Ms Forbes' identity is her membership of the socially conservative Free Church of Scotland, whose evangelical Christian ministers broke away from the Church of Scotland in the 19th Century.
Ms Forbes insists she holds to her faith "in its entirety" while others are making their religion more palatable in order to make themselves electable. "Yes, I talked at the time about fairly orthodox mainstream Christian teaching but my following the teachings of Jesus - which is based on a belief in the Bible - means that I don't feel I'm in a position to just pick and choose what I believe is truth or not," she says.
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