During the late nineteenth-century William Ross became the minister of Cowcaddens Free Church Glasgow, which was situated in an area of serious social deprivation. Subsequently the church experienced significant growth and was recognised by contemporaries as an example of successful urban mission amongst the working class. This study aims to explore the reasons for the apparent success of the church and its minister, the influences which formulated their response to the urban environment, and how this compares with the work and growth of other churches within the same locality. The wider aim is to explore the extent to which the social status, activities and work of Cowcaddens Free Church either support or contradict, existing understandings about the place of religion in nineteenth-century working class life and patterns of religious decline. This study also assesses the approach of Ross and his church to ‘social concern’, a subject of considerable importance to evangelicals during the nineteenth-century. The evidence concerning church growth and the social status of the congregation is explored through detailed statistical analysis. Examination of archive material and secondary sources contribute to the formation of a more detailed picture of the local social context in which Cowcaddens Free Church operated, and of the wider Scottish theological and ecclesiological context. The evidence suggests that this was an active, growing, working class church which succeeded in attracting the urban masses to religion, but that it did so through a concentration on evangelistic outreach rather than an emphasis on social concern. As an example of religious growth and successful urban mission, Cowcaddens Free Church contributes to ongoing research concerning the importance of religion to the urban working class, and present understanding of patterns of religious growth and decline during the nineteenth-century.

This study concentrates on the scientific writings of Thomas Chalmers, David Brewster, John Fleming and Hugh Miller. All belonged to the Evangelical party in the Church of Scotland and all joined the Free Church of Scotland at the Disruption in 1843. The thesis begins with a brief history of natural theology between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. It also reviews previous work on science and belief in the first half of the nineteenth century, pointing out that much of the emphasis in studies of Christian natural theology has been on the Anglican Broad Church. Chapter two describes the divisions in the Church of Scotland and the events which led to the formation of the Free Church of Scotland. It also indicates the particularly favourable circumstances for Evangelical intellectuals at the start of the nineteenth century by charting the rise and decline of the Moderate party during the second half of the eighteenth. Chapter three documents interactions amongst the four Evangelical scientists and describes their roles in the Disruption and in the formation of the Free Church of Scotland. Chapters four and five trace common threads in their natural theologies and in their views about the reconciliation of science and Scripture. Comparisons are made with opinions expressed within the Evangelical party as a whole. Chapter six describes Evangelical reactions to the dissemination of materialism and deism, concentrating especially on the activities of George Combe and his circle. Combe's natural theology is shown to have been specially threatening to Evangelicals in the Established Church because of the potency of the Book of Nature metaphor in challenges to the clerical supervision of education. Chapter seven examines similarities and differences in the geological work of Miller and Fleming and examines the role of rival natural theologies in the development of theories about the Earth's origin, history and development. Particular attention is given to the astronomical nebular hypothesis and to the transmutation theory put forward in Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chapter eight summarises the various functions of natural theology for the Evangelicals and for the Combeists.

The Free Church of Scotland's home-mission campaign played a major role in the Church's attempt to define itself as the true national Church of Scotland following the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843. It also represented the Free Church's effort to confront the problems of irreligion and social degradation which accompanied industrialisation and urbanisation. The study begins with the contribution of Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847). As a Church of Scotland minister in Glasgow between 1815 and 1823, Chalmers endeavoured to make the parish the focal point for the local community. Chalmers was supported in his ministry by a large voluntary agency which visited local residents and encouraged self-help and communal responsibility. He created a system of day and Sunday schools, and sought to reform the system of poor relief. The aim was to create self-reliant district communities, through what was termed the 'territorial plan'. This thesis argues that Chalmers' posthumous contribution to home-mission work, through his writings on the territorial plan and missionary work in Glasgow and Edinburgh, profoundly influenced the social outreach of all the Presbyterian Churches, and especially the Free Church, in nineteenth-century Scotland. Territorialism gave the Presbyterian Churches a valuable link to those groups in society which had been adversely affected by urbanisation and industrialisation. The thesis also considers how the home-mission movement in Scotland was influenced by external forces such as political, social and economic developments as well as religious matters such as theological controversies, Church union negotiations and a growing disestablishment campaign. This thesis demonstrates how the Free Church's territorial campaign was a fundamental aspect of its commitment to an essentially new, predominantly urban society.

Thesis (M.A.)--Briercrest Biblical Seminary, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-114).

Thesis (M.A.)--Briercrest Biblical Seminary, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-114).

James Orr (1844-1913) was a Scottish theologian, apologist and polemicist. He was the leading United Presbyterian theologian at the time of the United Free Church of Scotland union of 1900, and beyond his own church and nation he came to exercise a significant influence in North America. This study is an examination of Orris theological contribution, what he believed and how he expressed it, in its historical setting Particular attention is paid to the convictions which undergirded and gave impetus to his activities. The study reveals that while Orr was far from unaffected by the intellectual movements of the late-Victorian period, his contribution may best be described as a call for continuity with the central tenets of evangelical orthodoxy. He was one of the earliest and principal British critics of the Ritschlian theology, and a strong opponent of rationalistic biblical criticism. He emphatically rejected all evolutionary interpretations of man's moral history, and held firmly to orthodox Christological formulations in the face of alternative assessments of the historical Jesus. While factors of temperament affected the tenor of his work, his contribution was most decisively shaped by the convictions that evangelical orthodoxy is ultimately self-authenticating, that truth comprises a unity or interconnected whole, that genuine Christian belief implies a two-story supernaturalist cosmology, and that the rationalism of the times was a temporary malaise. A general lack of support for his views within the scholarly community, combined with his own deep-seated populist instincts and common sense convictions, led Orr in later years to direct his appeals primarily toward the Christian public. The conclusion reached is that Orr deserves to be recognized, not so much as a brilliant or particularly original thinker, but as an able and exceptionally vigorous participant in a period of dramatic theological challenge and change.

Text in English / This dissertation offers an analysis of Scottish Presbyterian Church mission policy during the period, 1898 - 1923. The study contains an examination of historiographical methodology, the historical background both in Scotland and South Africa along with the multi-faceted dimensions within the South African context of the time. The Mzimba Secession provides an appropriate historical starting point which led to a serious disruption of the Mission. The role of the major participants, black ministers and elders and missionaries, is assessed as a struggle between them and the Foreign Mission Committee of the United Free Church of Scotland, following the union of two churches in 1900, took place involving the various policy options. This eventually led to the formation of the Bantu Presbyterian Church of South Africa. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology)

Text in English / This dissertation offers an analysis of Scottish Presbyterian Church mission policy during the period, 1898 - 1923. The study contains an examination of historiographical methodology, the historical background both in Scotland and South Africa along with the multi-faceted dimensions within the South African context of the time. The Mzimba Secession provides an appropriate historical starting point which led to a serious disruption of the Mission. The role of the major participants, black ministers and elders and missionaries, is assessed as a struggle between them and the Foreign Mission Committee of the United Free Church of Scotland, following the union of two churches in 1900, took place involving the various policy options. This eventually led to the formation of the Bantu Presbyterian Church of South Africa. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology)

Any society is by nature coercive and its institutions are no exception. This was true of mission institutions in South Africa. While acknowledging the invaluable contribution of mission education to the development of black South Africans predominantly, it is clear that Lovedale Missionary Institution exemplifies the concept and reality of a ‘total institution’ which was as susceptible to the problems of power relations as any institution, secular or religious. Idris Shah’s concept of ‘coercive agency’ is apposite for this study. Lovedale’s foundation was laid and developed by the first two Principals. In a very real sense, it was perfected by the third Principal of Lovedale, James Henderson who, like his predecessors, emphasised the ultimate aim of conversion through a thorough process of character formation which infiltrated every aspect of life at Lovedale, especially discipline and the programme of industrial education. Those who studied there internalised its ethos in a manner which could not simply be discarded on leaving the Institution for it had become part of their identity, their indigenous personality and traditional life-style having been largely obliterated and reconstructed according to the ideological ideals of western Christian civilisation and European colonialism. Coercive agency was successful in that it effectively encouraged adaptation to missionary ideology. However, this was not an irreversible process for many Lovedale students came to reject the mores of the religion and education they received both during their stay at Lovedale and in later life in a variety of ways as they challenged and resisted the effects of the coercive agency of internalisation. Institutionalisation is, by nature, resistant to change as can be seen in the policies of the respective Principals. Yet, Henderson was able to initiate change while maintaining essential continuity of purpose. Consequently, black people were alienated by a process of ‘exclusion’. The Christian principles of justice, love and peace have a universal application and are appropriate tools for the development of a new model of education in South African society whose mission is to work towards reconciliation between individuals, within society and with the God who wishes to ‘embrace’ the totality of creation. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Missiology)

Any society is by nature coercive and its institutions are no exception. This was true of mission institutions in South Africa. While acknowledging the invaluable contribution of mission education to the development of black South Africans predominantly, it is clear that Lovedale Missionary Institution exemplifies the concept and reality of a ‘total institution’ which was as susceptible to the problems of power relations as any institution, secular or religious. Idris Shah’s concept of ‘coercive agency’ is apposite for this study. Lovedale’s foundation was laid and developed by the first two Principals. In a very real sense, it was perfected by the third Principal of Lovedale, James Henderson who, like his predecessors, emphasised the ultimate aim of conversion through a thorough process of character formation which infiltrated every aspect of life at Lovedale, especially discipline and the programme of industrial education. Those who studied there internalised its ethos in a manner which could not simply be discarded on leaving the Institution for it had become part of their identity, their indigenous personality and traditional life-style having been largely obliterated and reconstructed according to the ideological ideals of western Christian civilisation and European colonialism. Coercive agency was successful in that it effectively encouraged adaptation to missionary ideology. However, this was not an irreversible process for many Lovedale students came to reject the mores of the religion and education they received both during their stay at Lovedale and in later life in a variety of ways as they challenged and resisted the effects of the coercive agency of internalisation. Institutionalisation is, by nature, resistant to change as can be seen in the policies of the respective Principals. Yet, Henderson was able to initiate change while maintaining essential continuity of purpose. Consequently, black people were alienated by a process of ‘exclusion’. The Christian principles of justice, love and peace have a universal application and are appropriate tools for the development of a new model of education in South African society whose mission is to work towards reconciliation between individuals, within society and with the God who wishes to ‘embrace’ the totality of creation. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Missiology)