Moderating Evangelicalism: Revd William Muir of St. Stephen's, Edinburgh

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Michael Jones
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Parish Ministry ◽  
Established Church

Of those ministers within the pale of pre-Disruption evangelicalism who remained in the Established Church of Scotland following the cataclysmic events of 18 May 1843, none is more paradigmatic than Revd William Muir. Deeply committed to evangelical preaching, rich parish ministry, philanthropic and evangelistic activism, and the idea of a National Kirk, Muir – along with Norman Macleod and others – played a critical role in piloting the ecclesiastical ship through the rough waters of the mid-to-late 1840s and into the era of recovery in which other establishment evangelicals began to exert influence.

Scotland

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alasdair Raffe
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
The Status ◽  
Steep Decline ◽  
The Church ◽  
Established Church ◽  
Episcopal Authority

This chapter examines the transformations in the status and character of Scottish Episcopalianism from 1662 to 1829. Despite being re-established in the Church of Scotland in 1661–2, episcopacy was abolished in 1689. Thereafter Episcopalians were a Nonconformist group, and only the minority of congregations whose clergy were loyal to Queen Anne and her Hanoverian successors enjoyed legal protection. But while the intermittent prosecution of the Jacobite clergy contributed to a steep decline in the number of Scottish Episcopalians, disestablishment allowed the clergy to reassess episcopal authority, and to experiment with liturgical reforms. After transferring their allegiance to the Hanoverians in 1788, the Episcopalians drew closer to the Church of England, formally adopting the Thirty-Nine Articles in 1804. By the end of the period, the Episcopalians saw themselves as an independent, non-established Church, one of the branches of international Anglicanism.

The Established Churches, Church Growth, and Secularization in Imperial Britain, c.1830–1930

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stewart J. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Church Growth ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Church Decline ◽  
New Churches ◽  
Established Church

This chapter considers the question of whether church establishments, representing the alliance of church and state, contributed to church decline. It does so through a study of the established Church of England and the established Church of Scotland during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The chapter argues that these churches experienced a remarkable resurgence in the decades after 1830—the period representing the height of British world influence—building thousands of new churches, conducting a vibrant home and overseas mission, educating much of the British youth, mobilizing lay support, and raising significant financial donations to supplement their historic tithes and endowments. The motivation behind this growth was largely a sense of Christian responsibility for the higher interests of the British peoples and Empire. Although this revival of the established churches waned after about 1900, there is no evidence that established religion was a cause of church decline in Britain.

John Charles Grant Ledingham, 1875-1944

1947 ◽  
Vol 5 (15) ◽  
pp. 325-340
Keyword(s):  
Medical Profession ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
The World ◽  
Paternal Grandfather ◽  
The Village ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
Established Church

Like so many Scots who have achieved distinction, Sir John Ledingham, whose death occurred on 4 October 1944, was of humble ancestry. His paternal grandfather, Alexander Ledingham, was the village blacksmith of Auchleven in Aberdeenshire, and it is from this district, apparently, that the ancestors of many of the Ledinghams found in different parts of the world have originated. His mother’s father, who hailed from Lochmaben, was of farming stock and his great grandfather, John Young, an Edinburgh surgeon, is the only representative of the medical profession to be found amongst Sir John’s ancestors. John Charles Grant Ledingham was born on 19 May 1875 at the Manse of Boyndie, Banffshire, where his father, the Rev. James Ledingham, was a minister of the Established Church of Scotland. His mother, Isabella Gardiner, was the daughter of the Rev. James Gardiner, minister of the parish of Rathven, and John was the sixth of a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters. His parents chose for him the names of the Earl of Seafield whose son the Rev. James Ledingham had coached.

scholarly journals Religion and the Rise of Liberalism: The First Disestablishment Campaign in Scotland, 1829–1843

1997 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 682-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stewart J. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
The Past ◽  
John Brown ◽  
The Church ◽  
Established Church

On 18 May 1843, the Established Church of Scotland was broken up by the Disruption, as most of the Evangelical party walked out of the annual meeting of the General Assembly. They left in protest over lay patronage in appointments to church livings and what they perceived as the State's refusal to recognise the Church's spiritual independence. In all over a third of the ministers and perhaps half the lay membership left the establishment. On the day of the Disruption, the prominent Edinburgh Dissenting minister, Dr John Brown of the United Secession Church, Broughton Place, felt called to play a part in the event. Early that afternoon, his biographer related, he was in a peculiarly solemn mood and ‘could not resist the impulse’ to enter the still empty Tanfield Hall where the outgoing ministers were to gather. He took a seat on the platform and waited. In time, the procession of outgoing ministers and elders arrived followed by the immense crowd. As they streamed into the hall, Brown stepped forward to greet them. He was, however, immediately enveloped in the crowd and his gesture passed unnoticed. It was a telling moment. During the past decade, Brown had been one of the most stern and unbending of the Scottish Voluntaries, those who believed that church membership must be entirely voluntary and who opposed in principle the connection of Church and State. A leading campaigner for the disestablishment of the Church of Scotland, Brown had refused to pay the Edinburgh church rate, or Annuity Tax, in highly publicised case of civil disobedience.

scholarly journals The Hanoverian Succession and the Fragmentation of Scottish Protestantism

2019 ◽  
pp. 147-167
Author(s):  
Alasdair Raffe
Keyword(s):  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
The Church ◽  
Established Church

This chapter examines the politics of Scottish Presbyterianism in the years surrounding George I’s accession. After assessing the fortunes of the Scottish Episcopalians, the chapter analyses the tensions among Presbyterians within, and on the fringes of, the established Church of Scotland. It first reconstructs the critique of the establishment articulated by the Hebronites and United Societies, Presbyterian groups that advocated partial or complete withdrawal from the Church. The chapter then shows how the controversy over the oath of abjuration, imposed on clergy in 1712, prompted the separation from the Church of two ministers in the Dumfries area. The ministers made a coherent case for separation and propagated a Presbyterian critique of the Hanoverian succession. Moreover, they set a precedent for future secessions from the Church of Scotland. The catastrophe of the Jacobite rising in 1715 weakened the Episcopalian cause, and thereafter Presbyterian Dissent became the main motor driving the further fragmentation of Scottish Protestantism.

scholarly journals After the Disruption: The Recovery of the National Church of Scotland, 1843–1874

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stewart J. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Parish Community ◽  
Remarkable Recovery ◽  
The Church ◽  
Established Church ◽  
Public Worship

In 1843, the established Church of Scotland was broken up by the Disruption, as nearly a third of the ministers and perhaps half the lay adherents left to form the new Free Church. Many predicted the ‘remnant’ established church would not long survive. This article explores the remarkable recovery of the Church of Scotland during the three decades after the Disruption, with emphasis on the church extension campaign and parish community ideal of James Robertson, the movement initiated by Robert Lee for the enrichment of public worship and ecclesiology, and the efforts, associated with Norman Macleod, John Tulloch, John Caird and Robert Flint, to provide greater theological freedom and openness to social and cultural progress, including a willingness to question the Reformed doctrinal standards of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

The Response of the Auld Kirk in Haddington to the Disruption

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-60
Author(s):  
David Dutton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Parish Church ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
The Town ◽  
The Church ◽  
Established Church

This article will provide a case study of how the Auld Kirk in Haddington responded to the Disruption of 1843. It will show that despite the diversification of the church in the burgh during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in 1843 the Church of Scotland was by far the largest denomination and that, despite two ministers and just under 500 members ‘coming out’, it retained its dominance during the remainder of the nineteenth century. This article will identify a number of factors which enabled the established church in Haddington to respond effectively to the Disruption, including the speed with which it reacted to the events of 1843; the reluctance of parishioners to leave the ancient parish church of St Mary's; the relative weakness of other denominations in the town; its ability to attract able and energetic ministers; and, its willingness to pursue a form of ‘territorial ministry’.

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.

Ministering to the Ministers: The Discipline of Recalcitrant Clergy in the Diocese of Lincoln 1830–1845

1989 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 357-366
Author(s):  
Frances Knight
Keyword(s):  
Church Discipline ◽  
Black Book ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
The Face ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church ◽  
Established Church

By 1830, the effectiveness of the Church of England’s ministry was believed to have become seriously compromised, because it still possessed no adequate means for disciplining its clergy. It had long been recognized that the Church’s structure, and in particular the strength of the parson’s freehold, made it impossible for it to exercise the same sort of authority over its ministers as the dissenting bodies, or even the Church of Scotland. The view that the inadequacy of disciplinary measures was detrimental to the standing of the Established Church was in fact shared both by those hostile to and those supportive of it. On the one hand, John Wade’s Extraordinary Black Book, published in 1831 and intended as an indictment of corruption, rapacity, and jobbery within the Establishment, made the exposure of abuses in Church discipline one of its principal objectives. Not unnaturally, loyal churchmen also expressed considerable anxiety at the spectacle of bishops almost powerless in the face of clerical malefactors within their dioceses. Throughout the 1830s, the correspondence of clergy and the speeches of senior Anglicans in Parliament reflect an urgent desire that appropriate measures be swiftly introduced in order to combat cases of clerical irregularity.

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