The thesis is the first full scale analysis of the hundreds of untapped parochial sources created by the Kirk of Scotland during the mid-seventeenth century. By taking a thirteen-year period of study, these documents allow a significant assessment of how parishes balanced the practice of Reformed religion on a day-to-day basis, with the emerging backdrop of war and invasion. This takes our historical appreciation of the Kirk away from high-level politics and into the heart of communities. The findings of this thesis illustrate the depth of activity and flexibility in Scottish parish life during the mid-seventeenth century, showing how the Presbyterian Kirk survived the internal wars and foreign invasions of the mid-seventeenth century. As Kirk leaders become increasingly concerned with the sins of political disaffection and with wars affecting parishes, ministers and sessions entered into an active dialogue with local communities seeking ecclesiastical services as normal. Such conclusions display the Kirk as a living and evolving entity, rather than a monolithic body. This negotiation ensured that Reformed services continued at the centre of communal life and that the Kirk emerged from the Civil Wars into a restored monarchy still holding its position as the national church in Scotland. The thesis also illustrates that mid-seventeenth-century Scotland did not experience a distinct ‘second reformation’, but that reforming processes were on going. This defines the mid-seventeenth century as less of a modernising moment, than a period that constantly looked into the past. The desires of Kirk leaders were couched in a much older terminology, sharing the concerns of their Reformed forebears. While the context of the National Covenant altered the Kirk’s national standing, it continued to operate in the same, negotiated, manner it had since the mid-sixteenth century.

This thesis focuses on the role of the Church of Scotland's Board of Social Responsibility in the development and implementation of social work policy in Scotland. The thesis deploys a case study methodology and interpretive research methods to generate understanding of the Board of Social Responsibility and its intended purpose as a service-providing voluntary organisation. Links between the Board of Social Responsibility and significant social work policy developments are identified to determine the changing influence of both local authorities and central government upon the scope of voluntary social work service provision. The thesis identifies a process of incremental social work policy development in Scotland that has operated to encourage the contribution of service-providing voluntary organisations. The Board of Social Responsibility is identified as having operated as Scotland's largest voluntary provider of social work services throughout the period under review and to have implemented a changing pattern of social work service provision: first shifting from an innovative to a traditional model of participation, returning to an innovative model, and then, finally, shifting towards a developmental model of participation. The source of this changing pattern of participation is identified as individual agency allied. to interpretations of the organisation's faith-based ethos. The significant role of the Board of Social Responsibility in the development and implementation of social work policy in Scotland is established as that of provider of a range of replicative, alternative social work services. This role is related to Scotland's wider voluntary sector to establish that views of social work policy development existing within the Board of Social Responsibility are not indicative of views existing within other voluntary organisations. The Board of Social Responsibility's particular pattern of participation is also recognised to be distinctive. Ultimately the thesis finds that the approving model of governance adopted by the Board of Social Responsibility's higher-order collectives means the Church of Scotland has not exerted a significant influence upon the policy environment that has grown to control and regulate the social work undertaken by service-providing voluntary organisations operating in Scotland between 1948 and 2000.