No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This research was stimulated by a concern for the losses in membership being experienced by the Church of Scotland and by the fact that only one research study had been carried out and that had concentrated upon the Church's recruitment of young persons. This was seen as too narrow an approach. The research concentrated on the urban city of Dundee and constructed a computer database of 20,297 membership records [1982] and 3,997 Questionnaire Survey records of actual attenders in the 32 participating congregations. From the straight-forward examination of the demographic and social indicators, eg. age, sex, class, etc., a model of attending frequency is built revealing that the Church's concern might be wisely directed towards better administrative and pastoral care of the existing members as its primary objective. A further research aim was to develop spatial and 'modeling' techniques in order that the existing patterns of allegiance and attendance might be analysed. By examining the differentiation between various sub-sets of members and attenders, the evidence demonstrated that the Scottish council housing policy with its attendant displacement of population in Dundee (outlined in chapter two), had exacerbated the phenomenon of 'membership-at-a-distance'. Distance, in itself produced lower rates of observance, and it is argued, in turn leads to a greater risk of lapsing. The total effect of distant membership also produces congregations no longer existing as coterminous with geographic parish areas. The Church has continued to unite and merge these spatially distributed congregations thus severing residual allegiance ties and adding to the losses experienced from other causes. The main conclusion of this research is that the Church has mistakenly attempted to respond to the situation with an institutional 'reaction', whereas the real need for the present is to acknowledge the primacy of the existence of these congregations and to restructure its ministry and resources to support the continuing existence of the congregations. It is argued that a pastoral response is what has been lacking, and in the absence of reliable, large scale studies, planning has proceeded on the false basis that the 'parish' concept was a suitable criteria in every circumstance. In the concluding chapter, several practical recommendations are made in respect of the churches own procedures, these being derived from close acquaintance with the evidence of the data.

The Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 was arguably the most important event in Nineteenth Century Scottish religious history. The prime factor in the dispute which precipitated this crisis was the question as to whether the Church should rule itself through its own courts or be controlled by the secular government. This tension had existed in Scotland since shortly after the Reformation, but by the nineteenth century new factors had become involved. These included the political clash between democratic rights and the privilege of the ancien regime, the economic ability of Scots to maintain a church without state aid, the proper interpretation of Scots law, personal prejudice and bias especially on the part of Judges and politicians and, not least important, the transfer of civil government to the parliament in London with the consequent loss of contact with Scottish sensibilities. This study is concerned less with the detail of national events than with the reactions of local churchmen, both clerical and lay, to the events which occurred between 1830 and 1850. It focuses on three adjacent but dissimilar presbytery areas: the industrial area of Dundee where the leaders of public opinion were the entrepreneurial and professional members of the rising middle classes; the largely rural area of St. Andrews where public attitudes were formed by landowners and university professors; and the Cupar Presbytery area where agriculture and industry co-existed and where landowners and the middle classes shared responsibility for the general climate of opinion. This diversity of views is explored in the study as also are the reactions of various groups (e.g. , laity, clergy, students) to the judgements of the civil court concerning the Veto Act and to the campaigns for non-intrusion and spiritual Independence mounted by Church leaders. The contrasting responses of the three presbyteries to the allied issue of the Chapel Act are examined, while local preparations for the Disruption are explored in detail and set in the national context. The final sections of the study are devoted to a careful examination of the local aftermath of the Disruption: the manner in which the three Established presbyteries responded to their loss of ministers and elders and their attempts to recover their earlier social dominance; the ways in which the Free Church developed during the post Disruption years; the differences between the social and economic characteristics of those ministers and elders who adhered to the Established Church and those who joined the Free Church.

No description available.

This thesis examines Evangelicalism as a broadly-based intellectual and social movement which sought to shape the overall thought and life of the Church of Scotland during the first half of the nineteenth century. A set of distinctive organisations --religious periodicals, voluntary societies, education, and corporate prayer-- provided its institutional structure. They represented the practical response to a general concern for revitalising the Church, for evangelism, and for social morality. 'Evangelicals' are defined as those who combined participation in these institutions with a fundamental commitment to the Church of Scotland as an established, national church. The development of each of these institutions is explored as a means of tracing the growth of the movement as a whole. Religious periodicals helped to unite scattered individuals within the Established Church who shared a desire to spread experiential Christianity. By providing a forum for discussing issues related to this concern, these publications communicated Evangelical ideas throughout the Kirk, giving Evangelicals far greater influence than their relative lack of power in the ecclesiastical courts around the turn of the century suggested they would have. Religious voluntary societies enabled Evangelicals to translate their ideas into action on a wide range of issues. The seeming effectiveness of groups such as missionary and Bible societies made Evangelicalism increasingly attractive, and led to the incorporation of their activist approach into existing Kirk structures after the mid-1820s. However, Evangelicals struggled with the tensions between the gathered and territorial views of the Church inherent in their commitments both to societies and to the Establishment. Because Evangelicals, following the Scottish Reformers, believed that education encouraged biblically-based Christianity, they were actively involved in all levels of education, from Sabbath schools to the universities, helping to spread Evangelical ideas and practice among young people. Evangelicals' emphasis upon corporate prayer not only reflected their belief that they needed divine aid to achieve their aims, but built up social bonds at a local level and reinforced commitment to the other Evangelical institutions.

No description available.

Although lay patronage was abolished in 1690, the study emphasises the importance of linking that Act with the one restoring it in 1712, since there was a difference between the landed interest and the Church in their perception of both pieces of legislation. This divergence, together with the 1690 Act's placement of the heritor class into the process of ministerial election, and the vexations caused by the Abjuration Oath, combined to create the complications which undermined the Church's ability to throw off patronage. The study questions the idea that few patronage disputes arose in the first period after the Act, and goes on to examine how the intensification of Squadrone/Argathelian rivalry in the post-Union scramble for influence drew church vacancy matters inexorably into the web of politics. The most successful manipulators of patronage were Lord Ilay and Lord Milton, and a general comparison is made between their administration and that of the Marquis of Tweeddale. Skilful management of the Church's senior courts, along with a judicious preferment of ministerial loyalists, made concerted opposition to even the worst excesses of patronage, overwhelmingly difficult. The study however draws attention to one period, between 1734 and 1736, when forces antipathetic to the abuses of patronage appeared to achieve an effective unity. Finally, the study looks beyond the influence of simple party politics, to examine what local factors may have impinged upon settlements by presentation, and to this end examines the peculiar circumstances which obtained in the Presbyteries of Edinburgh, Duns and Brechin.

This thesis is an examination of the eucharistic doctrine of ten Scottish theological writers in the tradition of Scottish Episcopacy; five from the seventeenth century, two from the eighteenth century, and three from the nineteenth century. The doctrine espoused by each one throughout the stated period, 1620–1875, is found to agree with the other writers considered herein, because each writer turned to many of the same Church Fathers as the source of his doctrine and his interpretation of Holy Scripture. The argument of this thesis is that all of the writers, rejecting the Tridentine, Lutheran, Bezan-Calvinist, and Zwinglian definitions of the Eucharist, maintained a material sacrifice in the Eucharist, which is an offering to God the Father of bread and wine as the propitiatory memorial of Christ’s death on the Cross, commanded by Christ himself at the Last Supper. The sacrifice is propitiatory because it is the means of representing the one sacrifice of Christ on the Cross to God the Father, thereby pleading the benefits of the Cross for the communicants. The bread and wine do not change substance, but become effectively the body and blood of Christ. Three of the ten writers produced eucharistic rites, one in the seventeenth century, and two in the eighteenth century. It is argued that each of these rites is expressive of the Eucharist as being a commemorative and representative sacrifice. Each rite explicitly offers bread and wine to the Father, invokes the Holy Spirit’s action over the elements, and prays that by receiving the consecrated bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ, the communicants will receive the forgiveness of sins, the continuing grace of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life.