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.

Christian Doctrine and Judicial Review: The Free Church Case Revisited

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (31) ◽  
pp. 318-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Cranmer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
Free Church ◽  
The Church

In the latter part of the nineteenth century there were attempts to unite the various bodies which had split off from the Church of Scotland in the previous hundred years. In particular, there were great hopes for a union between the United Presbyterian Church [UPC] and the Free Church of Scotland [FC].

Liberal, Broad Church, and Reforming Influences in the Late Nineteenth Century

2019 ◽  
pp. 419-432
Author(s):  
Finlay A. J. Macdonald
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Discovery ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
Free Church ◽  
The Public ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Church

The second half of the nineteenth century saw something of a watershed as the post-Disruption Presbyterian Churches moved beyond the theology of the Westminster Confession. At the same time the Church of Scotland was forced to defend its role as an ‘established Church’, finding a ready champion in John Tulloch of St Andrews who stressed the role of religion in the public as well as the private sphere. Through the liberal and reforming influences of men such as Tulloch, John Caird, Norman Macleod, Robert Flint, and Archibald Charteris in the Church of Scotland, John Cairns in the United Presbyterian Church, and Robert Rainy in the Free Church the late century years witnessed a new theological engagement with the challenges of scientific discovery and social need. By such means Christianity was commended to mind as well as spirit, to reason as well as faith.

Scottish Missionaries, ‘Protestant Hinduism’ and the Scottish Sense of Empire in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-century India

2007 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Constable
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western India ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Intellectual Engagement ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Church

This article examines the Scottish missionary contribution to a Scottish sense of empire in India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Initially, the article reviews general historiographical interpretations which have in recent years been developed to explain the Scottish relationship with British imperial development in India. Subsequently the article analyses in detail the religious contributions of Scottish Presbyterian missionaries of the Church of Scotland and the Free Church Missions to a Scottish sense of empire with a focus on their interaction with Hindu socioreligious thought in nineteenth-century western India. Previous missionary historiography has tended to focus substantially on the emergence of Scottish evangelical missionary activity in India in the early nineteenth century and most notably on Alexander Duff (1806–78). Relatively little has been written on Scottish Presbyterian missions in India in the later nineteenth century, and even less on the significance of their missionary thought to a Scottish sense of Indian empire. Through an analysis of Scottish Presbyterian missionary critiques in both vernacular Marathi and English, this article outlines the orientalist engagement of Scottish Presbyterian missionary thought with late nineteenth-century popular Hinduism. In conclusion this article demonstrates how this intellectual engagement contributed to and helped define a Scottish missionary sense of empire in India.

Free Church Theology 1843–1900

2019 ◽  
pp. 242-264
Author(s):  
Michael Bräutigam
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
William Robertson ◽  
The Church

This chapter explores the theology of key scholars of the Free Church of Scotland from 1843 until 1900, when only a small remnant continued as the Free Church after its union with the United Presbyterian Church. Divided into two parts, the first section looks at the theology of the Disruption fathers, Thomas Chalmers, Robert S. Candlish, William Cunningham, and George Smeaton. The second part deals with the subsequent generation of Free Church theologians, in particular with a group known as the ‘believing critics’. Influenced by new developments on the continent, scholars, such as William Robertson Smith and Marcus Dods, challenged the church with their focus on historical criticism in biblical studies. Delineating the distinctive features of individual theologians as well as taking into account the broader landscape of nineteenth-century Scotland, the chapter attempts a fresh perspective on theological debates within the Victorian Free Church.

Bridging the Divide: The Legacies of Mary Slessor, ‘Queen’ of Calabar, Nigeria

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elijah Obinna
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Missionary Work

The missionary upsurge of the mid-nineteenth century resulted in the establishment of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria (PCN) in 1846. The mission was undertaken through the sponsorship of the United Secession Church and later the United Presbyterian Church (UPC), which subsequently became part of the United Free Church of Scotland. In 1876, the ‘white African mother’ and ‘Queen’ of Calabar, Mary Slessor, arrived in Calabar as a missionary of the UPC. She served for thirty-nine years, died and was buried in Calabar. This paper presents a contextual background for understanding the missionary work of Miss Slessor. It critically surveys some of her legacies within Nigeria, and demonstrates how contemporary PCN and Nigerians are appropriating them. The paper further analyses the state of contemporary Nigerian-Scottish partnership and argues for new patterns of relationship between Nigeria and Scotland which draw on the model of Miss Slessor.

Between Nationhood and Nonconformity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Wallace ◽  
Colin Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Periodical Press ◽  
Scottish Literature ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Dominant Feature ◽  
Small Measure ◽  
The Church

It tends to be assumed that the Anglo-Scottish relationship has defined modern Scottish literature. This chapter contends that religion rather than nationhood has been the dominant feature of Scottish literature within the Union, and that for most Scots, certainly from the mid-eighteenth-century Secessions, by way of the Disruption (1843), to the reunion of the Church of Scotland with the United Free Church in 1929, denominational allegiances within Scottish Protestantism, often within Presbyterianism itself, were the principal vehicles of identity. Scotland had a rich periodical press during the nineteenth century, but one splintered along denominational lines. Every denomination had its magazine, and Scottish reviewing, and literature more generally, bore marked denominational inflections. Moreover, the vivid characterization, claustrophobic Calvinism, and ingenious plotting of the Whig-Presbyterian novel have continued in no small measure—in works by Robin Jenkins and, more recently, James Robertson—to provide a narrative template for secularized, postmodern Scottish literature.

scholarly journals Reform, Reconstruction, Reaction: The Social Vision of Scottish Presbyterianism c. 1830-c. 1930

1991 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. J. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Social Vision ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Free Church ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Leadership ◽  
Cooperative Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Established Church

In 1929, after many years of consultation and compromise, the two largest Presbyterian denominations in Scotland — the established Church of Scotland and the voluntary United Free Church — were united. The Union was an impressive achievement, marking the end of the bitter divisions of eighteenth and nineteenth century Scottish Presbyterianism. In particular, it represented the healing of the wounds of the Disruption of 1843, when the national Church of Scotland had been broken up as a result of conflicts between Church and State over patronage and the Church's spiritual independence. With the Union of 1929, the leaders of Scottish Presbyterianism, and especially John White of Glasgow's Barony Church, succeeded not only in uniting the major Presbyterian Churches, but also in establishing a cooperative relationship between Church and State. The Church of Scotland, itseemed, was again in a position to assert national leadership.

A Church for Scotland? The Free Church and Scottish Nationalism after the Disruption

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Mallon
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Religious Nationalism ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Victorian Britain ◽  
Nationalist Sentiment ◽  
The Church

The 1843 Disruption of the Church of Scotland, which split the national church in two, was one of the most important events in Victorian Britain. The evangelical ministers who seceded from the Kirk to form the Free Church of Scotland did so in protest against the British state's intrusion in the church's affairs. The anti-English and patriotic rhetoric of the Disruption has led historians such as David Bebbington to argue that it represented something close to a nationalist movement. This paper questions this claim by assessing the nationalist characteristics of the Disruption and their role in shaping the political ‘unionist-nationalism’ of the mid-nineteenth century. It examines the kind of nationalist sentiment, if any, evident at the Disruption, the role of Free Church members in the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights, the short-lived proto-nationalist pressure group, and the nationalism of the Free Church minister James Begg, who called for Home Rule for Scotland in 1850. By assessing the influence of the Disruption's constructionist critique of the union on political nationalism, the paper argues that the religious nationalism evident in 1843 failed to translate to a political context in the mid-nineteenth century. The new religiously pluralist environment of the post-Disruption period saw the Free Church turn inwards and begin to focus upon its own denominational fortunes as a single Scottish national identity was replaced by a variety of competing confessional identities, each with their own claim to nationhood.

Hymnody and Liturgy

2019 ◽  
pp. 491-506
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hehn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
North American ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Metrical Psalmody ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

This chapter outlines the history of Presbyterian worship practice from the sixteenth century to the present, with a focus on North American Presbyterians. Tracing both their hymnody and their liturgy ultimately to John Calvin, Presbyterian communions have a distinct heritage of worship inherited from the Church of Scotland via seventeenth-century Puritans. Long marked by metrical psalmody and guided by the Westminster Directory, Presbyterian worship underwent substantial changes in the nineteenth century. Evangelical and liturgical movements led Presbyterians away from a Puritan visual aesthetic, into the use of nonscriptural hymnody, and toward a recovery of liturgical books. Mainline North American and Scottish Presbyterians solidified these trends in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; however, conservative North American denominations and some other denominations globally continue to rely heavily on the use of a worship directory and metrical psalmody.

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

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