Writing the Nineteenth-Century Scottish Calvinist Self

2021 ◽  
pp. 490-507
Author(s):  
Bruce Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Attendance ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Self Examination

Nineteenth-century Scotland witnessed the proliferation of spiritual biographies and diaries that recounted the lives of Scottish Calvinist ministers as examples of piety and Christian living. These relatively inexpensive and popular works appeared in a culture of decreasing church attendance and growing secularism. One of the most notable authors of these texts was Andrew Bonar (1810–1892), minister, missionary, and leading figure of the Free Church. Bonar’s biographies and diary reflected both the depth of his Calvinist piety as well as the anxieties arising from rigorous self-examination and the attendant risk of spiritual depression. Bonar’s work reveals the centrality of commemoration and memory in constructing a life of faithful living in the wake of the seemingly irreversible decline of churches in the life of the nation.

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.

Redaction Criticism on Trial: The Cases of A. B. Bruce and Robert Gundry

2014 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-209
Author(s):  
Michael Strickland
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Redaction Criticism ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This article deals with the trials of two evangelical scholars, one from the late nineteenth century, Alexander B. Bruce, and the other from the late twentieth, Robert Gundry. Both faced accusation and judgment from their peers because of their redaction-critical remarks about the synoptic gospels. Bruce was tried by the Free Church of Scotland, while Gundry’s membership in the Evangelical Theological Society was challenged. After considering the cases of both, consideration is given to potential lessons that evangelical scholars who use redactioncritical methods may learn from the experiences of both men.

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.

Antislavery Orthodoxy: Isaac Nelson and the Free Church of Scotland, c. 1843–65

2015 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Ritchie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Irish Nationalism ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Chattel Slavery ◽  
Christian Fellowship ◽  
High Esteem

The ‘Send back the money’ controversy between the Free Church of Scotland and zealous abolitionists was one of the most important events in nineteenth century Scottish religious history. The Revd Isaac Nelson of Belfast is best remembered for his anti-revivalism and his advocacy of Irish nationalism. What has often been forgotten is the centrality of antislavery to the making of Nelson's controversial reputation, even though he was held in high esteem by abolitionists on both sides of the Atlantic. Accordingly, this article examines his opposition to the Free Church's receipt of monies from and extension of christian fellowship to the slaveholding churches in the United States. It highlights his critique of leading ecclesiastical statesmen, including Thomas Chalmers, William Cunningham and Robert S. Candlish. The essay also considers the sophisticated intellectual critique of chattel slavery that under-girded Nelson's opposition to the policy of the Free Kirk, as well as his evaluation of the nature of proslavery religion in America. By means of a biographical case study of an interesting outsider, this article seeks to provide a lens through which one of the most tragic incidents in Scotland's ecclesiastical past can be freshly examined.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Pastors’ College and the Downgrade Controversy

2007 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 366-376
Author(s):  
Ian Randall
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Pastoral Ministry ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Free Church ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–92) began his pastoral ministry in a village Baptist chapel in Cambridgeshire but became a national voice in Victorian England through his ministry in London. The huge crowds his preaching attracted necessitated the building of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, at the Elephant and Castle, which accommodated over 5,000 people. ‘By common consent’, says David Bebbington, Spurgeon was ‘the greatest English-speaking preacher of the century’. Spurgeon, like other nineteenth-century ecclesiastical figures, was involved in theological controversies, including the ‘Downgrade Controversy’, in which, in typically robust style, he attacked theological liberalism. In August 1887, he trumpeted: ‘The Atonement is scouted, the inspiration of Scripture derided, the Holy Spirit degraded into an influence, the punishment of sin turned into a fiction, and the resurrection into a myth …’ The Downgrade controversy has not attracted nearly as much attention as debates provoked in the nineteenth century by Essays and Reviews (1860) and Lux Mundi (1889), perhaps because the latter affected Anglicanism rather than the Free Churches. But since as many people were attending Free Churches as Anglican churches, the issues raised in the Downgrade, as the most serious nineteenth-century Free Church dispute, are of considerable significance.

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.

scholarly journals Puritanisme en Skotland

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-170
Author(s):  
J. W. Claasen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Lasting Effect ◽  
Self Examination ◽  
The Church

Puritanism and Scotland Puritanism influenced the church in England, but had a more profound and lasting effect on religion in Scotland. In the process the Scottish church made some gains - the stress of the centrality of Scripture and preaching, the emphasis on true piety and pure life, the quest for renewal and the constant awareness of God’s providence. The church also suffered losses - a preoccupation with subjective sanctification and self-examination, the emergence of a scholastic federal theology, the overstress of the imperative, a subtle kind of legalism and an impoverished view of the sacraments. Scottish clergymen who came to South Africa during the nineteenth century can be associated with the evangelical faction of Scottish puritanism.

The Industrial Gospel of Robert Laws and the Livingstonia Expedition

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-50
Author(s):  
Kenneth S. Jeffrey
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Practical Skills ◽  
Academic Education ◽  
Industrial Training ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Modern Era

It has been widely assumed that academic education lay at the heart of nineteenth century Scottish missions in Africa. This article will argue that a particular form of education that included artisan skills-based, commercial and industrial training was the basis of the Livingstonia expedition led by Robert Laws in Nyasaland from 1875. Inspired by Dr James Stewart of Lovedale, financed by Free Church businessmen from Glasgow and led by teams of tradesmen, the aim of this mission was to establish small settlements that would create a network of trading centres from which commerce, civilisation and Christianity would spread across Africa. The ambitions and character of these first missionaries, not least Laws, exercised a fundamental influence upon the nature and purpose of this enterprise. Livingstonia was the most industrial mission of the modern era in Africa. A practical skills-based education was central to the gospel according to Robert Laws.

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