SCOTLAND and RELIGION The subject of religion has been something of a sore spot in Scotland for a long period of time, and for a great many reasons is often avoided altogether. Theoretically, and to a certain extent legally, Scotland has a National or State Church : the Church of Scotland. The very concept of a National Church is so alien to American thinking that it is very difficult for us to understand, but such ideas and institutions have been a part of life in the Western world for a very long time: since those days when kings and queens declared themselves to be the defender of the Christian faith through the protection of one or another of the great established churches. We see the problems which exist in the North of Ireland and wonder how such a chain of events could ever have come about, but it all goes back to that time in history when the Stewart Kings who were regarded as the Defenders of the Roman Catholic Church were deposed, and a Dutch Protestant husband of a Stewart Princess was put in place to rule jointly with her as the King and Queen of "Great Britain and Ireland ". William and Mary College in America is named for them in fact, having been first founded during their reign in our own Colonial period. In any case, as some of the people of Scotland remained loyal to the old Stewart line and were willing to fight for the Catholic Church, many others felt that there had been abuses of power on the parts of both the Stewart kings and the Church to which they had bound themselves, and that there had to be a sweeping away of the old and the establishment of a church over which the people had more control. Presbyterianism, with its elected representatives, ministers who are answerable to church elders or "presbyters", seemed to fill that particular order of the day. The Presbyterian church became the "Church of Scotland"……and remains so, by law to this day.
It is not the purpose of Siol nan Gaidheal to enter into this matter in any way which might try to establish any political or religious views. As a Fraternal Order, we cherish the ideals of harmony and understanding between persons and groups. As a cultural organization, we are required by our own agenda, to present Scottish culture , to continue in its study ,to preserve what we can of it, without falling into the morass of sectarianism. Interestingly enough, the men and women who constitute the membership roll of our organization represent every one of the churches, as well as the odd agnostic or out and out atheist. Somehow, we manage to get along quite well, mainly perhaps because religious convictions are considered to be a very personal matter. We might wish that this acceptance of the beliefs of another individual or group might be more universally the case…and that it might have been the case in those previous centuries which witnessed the destruction of so much of the work of ancestral hands! It would be extremely short-sighted to dismiss the tremendous amount of good that had been done while the Church of Rome held sway in Scotland. We see in the histories how the Scottish pre-reformation church had a hand in the establishment of the earliest Universities in Europe the University of Paris being a prime example. Scottish men of letters were to be lecturers, Deans and Chancellors at the great seats of learning abroad for a great many centuries. In that golden era before the intrusion of the English into Scotland, before Wallace’s stand at Stirling Bridge, before Bannockburn, during the reign of Alexander III, Scotland was considered by nations of continental Europe to be thehome of the happiest, safest and best cared –for people of the Western world. There, back in the 12th century, the Scottish church had established a great many hostels, hospitals and medical centers at a rate and a density far and away that of other kingdoms. At Melrose Abbey alone, 150 people were fed by the church in each day. The Scottish church also seemed not to meddle in the faith and practices of its people. Perhaps this may account for the high level of scholarship in the land. Neither had the pre-reformation church during that same time appear to have meddled in the politics of the state , and what had been happening in England between King Henry II and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a` Beckett…or on a continual basis throughout continental Europe, seemed to be no great problem in the Kingdom of the Scots during that same period. It was not until the Scottish royal family became involved with the religious problems of the continent that the church began to become politically involved , and as the church took to law and intrigue, something of the corruption which seems to attend politics found its way to the heart of the church. It is to be lamented that reforming church swept away so much of the old which had really not been tainted in any way. Many great Abbeys, churches and even cathedrals were destroyed, as were many leaders of the church who were good and honest men, but unfortunate to be on the wrong side of the sweeping reform. Yet, as much as Calvinism has been criticized in recent years for its zeal towards sweeping away the old and putting a reformed church in place, it is impossible for us, sitting as we are in the shade of protective laws which guarantee our right to religious freedom, to judge the actions or the people of those desperate times. Just as the old, pre-reformation church had given the beginnings of a medical and scholarly tradition which would be Scotland’s legacy and badge of honor right up to the present day, the Presbyterian church is to be remembered and honored for the way in which the establishment of universal education was encouraged throughout the kingdom. The sciences and applied arts , under the somewhat pragmatic guidance of the "Kirk", became Scotland’s jewels and have given the world some of its most important contributions in the past two centuries. The organization of the church itself and its General Assembly probably did more than anything to give Scotland a taste of representational government and indeed, may well have filled the void which was left as a result of Scotland’s own Parliament having been dissolved in 1707, when it was merged with the English Parliament at Westminster. There has been an Episcopal Church in Scotland as well since the days of Reformation. Loyal to the Stuart(Stewart) kings who brought their particular form of protestantism to Scotland, the Scottish Episcopalians were not under the leadership of the King as was the Church of England, being led instead by the Archbishop of St Andrews. The point is that Scottish Episcopalians are distinct from English Episcopalians in that regard. In fact when the thirteen colonies in America declared themselves to be independent of the King, the Church of England became the American Episcopal Church on these shores. When the Americans found that they could have no bishops consecrated by English bishops (the Church of England’s ‘Head" being the king) , it was the Episcopal bishops of Scotland who consecrated the young republic’s new bishops. If one looks at the flag of the American Episcopal Church, the blue upper corner with its white crosses organized in a St. Andrew’s cross (reminiscent of the very flag of Scotland!) is a memorial to this new beginning. There is much to be said for all of the organized churches of Scotland’s past. Each in its own way had much to offer and each gave of their strengths. We must not lose sight of the fact that it is not churches that fail, nor their creeds, but it is men and women who fail. It is how they apply their doctrines, how they discipline themselves or interpret and execute those doctrines, which will account for amazing triumphs, or pathetic failures, in the discharge of what is meant to be a sacred office. We need to look backward with a bit of charity, we who in our own time seem to be so prone to polarization and militancy.
Abbey Nave at IonaScotland’s first introduction to Christianity had nothing to do with the great, organized churches , having come into the country by way of the establishment of a monastic center by St. Ninian at Whithorn in southernmost Scotland in the fourth century, A.D…..and through the work of Colmcille, who came out of Derry in Ireland to establish on the Island of Iona a great place of learning, the burial place of a great many of Scotland’s kings , in the sixth century ,A.D.. There had been pockets of Christianity long before the establishments of these centers, but they are the most notable as the historical ‘starting points’. This was the beginning of the so-called "Celtic" church, which although nudged aside by the church of greater organizational skills, was to leave an indelible mark on Scottish spirituality ,right up to the present day and age. The fact that Scots members of the other great churches and their splinter groups are somehow in possession of an outlook which sets them apart from members of their respective churches in other lands, would seem to indicate that there has been something very much alive in the Scottish soul ; the legacy of a group of Christians who, according to a great many historians , have been dead and buried centuries ago .
In 1900 a set of volumes was published entitled " Carmina Gadelica" by Alexander Carmichael ,which was to cause quite a stir in academic and ecclesiastical circles. Carmichael had presented to the world a vast compilation of prayers, hymns, blessings and invocations which he had gathered from the ordinary people of the West Highlands and Islands . Now, these were not the works of great churchmen or their councils, or of "professional " , trained musicians and poets , but the heart-felt praise and worship music designed by and sung by,ordinary people at their daily work. We find in the collection prayers for kindling the first fire of the new day and putting the fire to its rest beneath the ashes at the end of the day; prayers for the land, for sowing, for fishing, gathering cattle and flocks as well as for the protection of those same animals. There are protection prayers for family, for home, journeys, leave-taking, for justice before the law. The hymns of praise are extraordinarily beautiful , and the love of the land and the water are evident throughout. These were not hymns which they would sing in church, but rather when alone. These were the acts of personal, rather than group devotion. As a matter of fact, the ministers and the priests had always been just a bit suspicious of these "incantations", sung low or muttered softly to oneself in the Gaelic tongue. Some of them did indeed appear to have some "pagan" overtones. There were songs for the new sun of each day and the new moon in each month, yet for the most part, although a great many of them exhibited something from the pagan past, they all seemed to carry a great message of Christianity. They were not full of gloom ,and a wrathful, Old Testament God of wrath and vengeance does not seem to blur their sense that God to be loved for God’s self and that one can even "like" God as well as love the Almighty. These people had been carrying something in their homes and hearts which had been a part of Scotland’s ancient faith a very long time ago. It appeared that the academics may have been wrong, and that the Celtic church had not died, but had instead followed the old rule :"rach as shealladh"( rah’hus hyah’lah…"to go from view," disappear from sight ).But, what had been this ancient branch of Christianity, and how was it so different?
