The Church of Scotland and the ‘increase of popery’, c.1690–1714

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-190
Author(s):  
Clare Loughlin
Keyword(s):  
Central Government ◽  
The State ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
Church Courts ◽  
Political Disaffection ◽  
The Church

This article explores representations of ‘popery’ compiled by the Presbyterian Church of Scotland between 1690 and 1714. The ‘increase of popery’ was a ubiquitous phrase in this period. Synods and presbyteries regularly complained of Catholic encroachments in their parishes, and sent extensive reports of the activities of ‘papists’ to the general assembly and its commission. In turn, these national church courts collated these local petitions into longer representations of the ‘state of popery’ in Scotland. Representations have not been examined systematically by scholars. Indeed, representations have often been dismissed as cynical ploys rather than sincere expressions of anxiety at Catholic survival. Yet the very significance of these documents lies in their polemical nature. This article argues that the emphasis on political disaffection in national representations was informed by the Church's fraught relationship with central government, and with rival Protestant groups. Desperate efforts to showcase the necessity of Presbyterian government underpinned national representations of ‘popery’; as such, anti-Catholic sentiments were informed increasingly by the weaknesses of Scottish Presbyterianism as much as by actual Catholic activity. By contextualising representations of ‘popery’ and approaching them as part of a genre, the clerical petition, this article provides new perspectives on the nature of Scottish anti-Catholic polemic.

scholarly journals The Language of the Church: Westminster in Review

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-87
Author(s):  
W. John Carswell
Keyword(s):  
General Assembly ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This paper reflects on the debate at the 2018 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on reviewing the status of the Westminster Confession of Faith as its principal subordinate standard of faith. It considers the role of doctrine in the church; whether it is appropriate to devote time and resources to consideration of doctrinal statements at this juncture when the church may be seen to be seen to be facing more pressing issues; and whether a framework such as the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Book of Confessions might serve as a useful model for the way ahead – or whether such an approach would in fact only hamper lasting renewal in the church.

Martyrdom in Early Victorian Scotland: Disruption Fathers and the Making of the Free Church

1993 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 319-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stewart J. Brown
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Free Church ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church

‘Where is the Church of Scotland to be found?’ asked the leading Evangelical R. S. Candlish on 20 May 1843 at the first General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. ‘She will not be found basking under the smiles of the great, but she is to be recognised once more, as in days of old, by her sufferings and her tears.’ In 1843 the Disruption of the Church of Scotland brought the birth of a new church, the Free Church of Scotland, as nearly a third of the ministers and nearly half the lay membership left the national Church of Scotland. They went out in part over a long-standing dispute concerning church patronage, but, more fundamentally, they left in protest against what they perceived as the refusal of the State to recognize the Church’s independence in spiritual matters. The new Free Church claimed to be not merely a secession or schism, but rather the true national Church of Scotland, a claim its adherents based on their willingness to suffer for the principle of the headship of Christ in the Church. They were the Church of the martyrs of the Scottish Reformation and of the Covenants, willing to lay down their fortunes, even their lives, for ‘the Crown rights of the Redeemer’. The true Church of Scotland, asserted the Free Church minister James Mackenzie, in 1859, ‘began in 1843, when die old Church, the Church of Knox, of Melville, of Henderson, and of the martyrs, left its connexion with the State, and stood out before the world free, bearing the banner which our brave fathers bore.’

scholarly journals The Bantu Presbyterian Church of South Africa and Ecumenism: 1923–1939

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Duncan
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
The South ◽  
Main Thrust ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Presbyterian Churches

The Bantu Presbyterian Church of South Africa (BPCSA) was birthed out of a quest for union amongst Presbyterians, which began in the 1890s more than 30 years before it was actually established as the fruit of the mission of the United Free Church of Scotland in 1923. From that date onwards church union hardly ever disappeared from the agenda of the highest court of the denomination, the General Assembly. During the twentieth century such discussions involved two of the three other Presbyterian churches and the Congregational Union of South Africa. In addition, the BPCSA has maintained a high ecumenical profile in both the South African and global contexts. The main thrust of this article describes and analyses the vicissitudes of Presbyterian conversations during the period 1923–39

The Theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith in its Context

2019 ◽  
pp. 265-278
Author(s):  
Whitney G. Gamble
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
The Church

In 1643, England’s Long Parliament called theologians from every county of England and Wales to Westminster Abbey to revise the Thirty-Nine Articles, the foundational documents of the Church of England. As the divines commenced their revisions, they encountered a theological movement which they believed represented the greatest threat to the cause of Reformation. Somewhat surprisingly, it was not Roman Catholicism or even Arminianism; it was antinomianism, a new and powerfully growing sect. Concern to combat antinomian tenets drove the assembly into complex theological debates for the first six weeks of its meetings. Parliament’s signing of the Solemn League and Covenant, however, brought an end to the assembly’s revisions. The Covenant instigated the writing of a statement of faith that would function as the confession for a theologically united Church of England, Scotland, and Wales. To supervise the execution of this plan, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland sent commissioners to the assembly to serve as consultative members. Although written in London primarily by English theologians, the Westminster Confession of Faith would be repudiated by Restoration officials. Its true impact came through its acceptance and implementation by the Church of Scotland.

Scottish Presbyterianism and the National Education Debates, 1850–62

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 363-380
Author(s):  
Ryan Mallon
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
National Education ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Parish Schools ◽  
Religious Establishment ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church

This article examines the mid-nineteenth-century Scottish education debates in the context of intra-Presbyterian relations in the aftermath of the 1843 ‘Disruption’ of the Church of Scotland. The debates of this period have been characterized as an attempt to wrest control of Scottish education from the Church of Scotland, with most opponents of the existing scheme critical of the established kirk's monopoly over the supervision of parish schools. However, the debate was not simply between those within and outside the religious establishment. Those advocating change, particularly within non-established Presbyterian denominations, were not unified in their proposals for a solution to Scotland's education problem. Disputes between Scotland's largest non-established churches, the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church, and within the Free Church itself over the type of national education scheme that should replace the parish schools severely hampered their ability to express common opposition to the existing system. These divisions also placed increasing strain on the developing cooperation in Scottish Dissent on ecclesiastical, political and social matters after the Disruption. This article places the issue of education in this period within this distinctly Dissenting context of cooperation, and examines the extent of the impact these debates had on Dissenting Presbyterian relations.

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-83
Author(s):  
Jason Lingiah
Keyword(s):  
General Assembly ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The Church

The General Assembly met in Edinburgh from 19 to 25 May, with the Rt Revd Colin Sinclair BA BD, minister of Palmerston Place in the Presbytery of Edinburgh, installed as Moderator. Last year's Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly, Richard Scott, the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, was reappointed by HM The Queen.

A tradition in crisis: understanding and repairing division over homosexuality in the Church of Scotland

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-170
Author(s):  
Liam J. Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Diagnostic Analysis ◽  
Committed Relationships ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
The Status ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
Protestant Denominations ◽  
The Church

AbstractLike many Western churches, the Church of Scotland has been divided in recent years over the ordination of gay clergy in committed relationships, and, more generally, over the status of homosexuality for Christian ethics. Yet there has been no academic research undertaken which situates the debate within the wider context of Scottish theology. This failure has resulted in theological and ecclesial impasse, which this paper seeks to remedy through a diagnostic analysis of division over homosexuality, drawing upon the analytic tools developed by R. G. Collingwood. While this article has as its focus the Church of Scotland, its method and conclusions will be relevant to other Protestant denominations, especially Reformed churches such as the Presbyterian Church (USA).

scholarly journals John Glas and the Development of Religious Pluralism in Eighteenth-Century Scotland

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALASDAIR RAFFE
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Church Courts ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Government

This article discusses John Glas, a minister deposed by the Church of Scotland in 1728, in order to examine the growth of religious pluralism in Scotland. The article begins by considering why Glas abandoned Presbyterian principles of Church government, adopting Congregationalist views instead. Glas's case helped to change the Scottish church courts’ conception of deposed ministers, reflecting a reappraisal of Nonconformity. Moreover, Glas's experiences allow us to distinguish between church parties formed to conduct business, and those representing theological attitudes. Finally, Glas's case calls into question the broadest definitions of the ‘Scottish Enlightenment’, drawing attention to the emergence of pluralism.

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