Church of Scotland

The Church of Scotland is the established national Church of Scotland. It is Calvinistic in doctrine and Presbyterian in government and discipline.

Origins

It was formed in the mid-16th century by John Knox (1514-1572) and the Protestant Lords of the Congregation. When Mary I became Queen in 1553 Knox fled to Switzerland, where he was strongly influenced by the Calvinist theology of John Calvin of Geneva; he sent many letters and pamphlets back to Scotland and returned in 1559.

The Presbyterianism which replaced the Latin Roman Catholic services and episcopal system of government was then regularized by the adoption of the Scots Confession, Knox's Liturgy, and the First Book of Discipline (replaced by the Second Book of Discipline in 1581). These innovations were at once opposed by the Erastian Stuart monarchy, and this opposition was not resolved until the signing of the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, by the latter of which the Scottish Church adopted the Westminster symbols as permanent standards of doctrine, worship, and government. These symbols were the Westminster Confession, the "Larger" and "Shorter Catechisms," the "Directory for the Public Worship of God," the "Form of Presbyterian Church Government," and the new version of the Metrical Psalms. Following the return of Charles II to the throne in Restoration of 1660 and the "killing time" of the Covenanters, Presbyterianism was guaranteed as the national form of religion by the Revolution Settlement of 1690 and the Act of Union that merged Scotland and England in 1707.

17th century

Recent historiography has argued that the British ecclesiastical policies of James I, (king of England (1603–25) and, as James VI, of Scotland (1567–1625)), sought "congruity" between the different churches in Scotland, England, and Ireland rather than British ecclesiastical union or the Anglicanization of all the churches. The asymmetry of the changes he sought in Scotland and England has been underplayed and has masked his choice of a fundamentally Anglican model for the British churches. By allowing the archbishop of Canterbury to interfere in Scottish ecclesiastical affairs, undermining the Presbyterian system, and promoting episcopal power and liturgical reform, James pursued the Anglicanization of the Church of Scotland. The motivation for James's persistence is to be found in his rapid assimilation to the Church of England after 1603 and, moreover, in his goal of the reunification of Christendom as a whole on the Anglican model.

1707 to 2007

Education

The Reformation leaders required that every parish operate a school. Supposedly many oatmeal-eating poor boys went on to university and became intellectul leaders. A myth grew up in the 19th century to the effect that Scotland thereby became the best educated nation in Europe and this democratic system helped cause its leading role in the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Historians exploded the myth. West showed in 1972 that the Scots were not significantly better educated than the English. Anderson in 1995 demonstrated that the schools existed (as they did in other Protestant countries) but they were not free and the generally imparted only basic literacy--the ability to read the Bible, which was the original goal. The schools did not have much role in the Highlands or the islands, or in the fast-growing industrial cities. A few talented poor boys did go to university, but usually with aristocratic sponsors. Most of them became poorly paid techers or ministers, and none became important figures in the Scotish Enlightenment or the Industrial Revolution. The Disruption of 1843 proved fatal to the system, and in 1872 Scotland moved to a system like England's state-sponsored free schools, dedicated to efficiency and high performance.

Management

The Church pioneered some modern managerial systems in the 18th century. The church's organizational structure, centered on the kirk sessions and lay elders, established systems of accountability that involved extensive and detailed record-keeping, practices that could also be applied within a commercial setting. Comparison with English church governance reveals that the Scottish system promoted more extensive lay involvement, as well as engendering a systematic, less personal approach to management.

Enlightenment

During the Scottish Enlightenment The Moderate party within the Church of Scotland was led by William Robertson (1721-93) from 1750 to 1775. Opponents of the Moderates accused them of hypocrisy and Arminianism for their failure either to reject the Westminster Confession or to truly accept it. Moderates focused their scholarship on history, not theology. They practiced conjectural history and “stadialism”, which projected current trends back into the past and divided history into developmental stages of human progress. This view of history allowed the Moderates to assume superiority over the founders of the Scottish Reformation and the Convenanters while continuing to respect their achievements and recognize their accompanying flaws. Generally the Moderates sought to defend the Church of Scotland and the stadialist approach allowed them to assume a progressive evolution of doctrine. It also redirected theological study from dogmatics to historical theology.

20th century

The terrible death toll of World War I led to divergent interpretations as theology confronted popular culture. In 1914, Scotsmen enthusiastically enlisted, but by 1915 the toll of enormous numbers of men killed in battle ended old romantic views of war and death. Sermons and graves featured John 15:13, "Greater love hath no man . . ." It became a popular belief that young soldiers found salvation in dying in battle, and some clergymen compared such a death to Christ's sacrifice. The Church of Scotland and the United Free Church had clergymen who took this view, but the conservative Free Presbyterians argued that this belief contradicted Scripture; that is, unless someone was saved, a battle death could not prevent eternity in hell. Although this position was unpopular, Free Presbyterians held to it, refusing to compromise their beliefs for the sake of comforting people in the loss of their loved ones.

Schisms and Union

Through the next two centuries major schisms occurred within the Church over the questions of patronage and state control. The principal separation Churches were the First Secession Church of 1733, the Relief Church of 1761, and the Free Church of 1843, all Presbyterian.

The 'Disruption of 1843 came on 18 May 1843 when 470 ministers (out of 1,200) seceded from the Church of Scotland, protesting lay patronage over parish ministers and the state's refusal to recognize the church's spiritual independence The complaint was that local notables had traditionally chosen the local ministers as a matter of patronage. In London, English politicians' reacted angrily. The conflict with the government began with the Veto Act passed by the General Assembly of the church in 1834. This act declared that the dissent of the congregation ought to be conclusive in setting aside appointments of parish ministers. Whig and Tory politicians alike opposed the Veto Act, both because it valorized the decisions of "ignorant" people and because the Veto Act would destroy the patronage system that was an integral element of party politics. After the Disruption, the new Free Church of Scotland was created by seceders; they voted strongly for the Liberal party.

The last 150 years, however, have witnessed the vital reunion of several bodies

culminating in 1929 in the joining of the United Free Church and the State Church as the Church of Scotland.  For the last half of the century talks were underway aiming at a grand merger of the main Presbyterian, Episcopal and Methodist bodies in Scotland. In 2003, however, the rank and file of the Church of Scotland revolted against any recognition of bishops, and negotiations were broken off.

The Church of Scotland had about 960,000 adult members in 1980 and over 600,000 in 2006.

Bibliography

• Brown, Callum G. Religion and Society in Scotland since 1707. Edinburgh U. Press, 1997. 219 pp.
• Buchan, John. The Kirk in Scotland, 1560-1929 (1985)
• Burleigh, J.H.S. A Church History of Scotland (1962), short and impartial
• Marshall, Rosalind K. John Knox. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2000. 244 pp.
• Todd, Margo. The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland. Yale U. Press, 2002. 450 pp.
• Wormald, Jenny. Court, Kirk and Community, Scotland 1470-1625 (1981), in The New History of Scotland excerpt and text search

---