slimboyfat joins the Church of Scotland

by slimboyfat 28 Replies latest members politics

• 

  slimboyfat

  Yes when I was in uni I did a course called "Scotland in the Modern Age" with Majorie Harper. I looked it up online and she still teaches this course. The main book about the disruption she told us to read was:

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scotland-Age-Disruption-Stewart-Brown/dp/0748604332/

  It was a high demand book in the library so you could only borrow it for 24 hours, and it was pretty dry and heavy on the politics. I never read it all. It is probably still the standard text on the topic.

  Later I read a number of books by Callum Brown about general church history in Scotland. All his books are well written. This is probably his best book and covers the period of the disruption. I read it a couple of times. It has fascinating stuff like: ministers who were sacked for writing poetry; how the Church of Scotland practised excommunication; elders of the kirk squeezed women's breasts to see if they were lactating.

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Religion-Scotland-Christianity-Society/dp/0416369804/

  Later books Callum Brown wrote when he became interested in postmodernism and they focus more on changing discourse of religion rather than the politics.

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Christian-Britain-Understanding-Secularisation/dp/0415471346/
  

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Religion-Society-Scotland-Since-1707/dp/0748608869/
  

  The Death of Christian Britain book has become a bit of a classic, but it's heavy on cultural and feminist theory, rather than empirical data.

  His first book on "social history" above is the most enjoyable to read.

  One interesting thing about the disruption of 1843 that impacts Scottish towns to this day is the fact that the Free Church in the nineteenth century set up a parallel infrastructure including churches in every town. This meant that in the late nineteenth century there were two Church of Scotland and Free Church buildings where there had been only one before the disruption. There were smaller congregations and many more churches as a result. When the majority of free churches rejoined the Church of Scotland in 1929 this meant that they had many more church buildings than they actually needed. Add in declining attendances through the the 20th and 21st centuries and it's easy to see why so many churches are empty and closing down. Not only are people abandoning the church but the church had far too many buildings to begin with.
• 

  slimboyfat

  Somewhat related videos I watched on YouTube recently.

  Amazing unaccompanied Psalm singing in a free church on Lewis. They don't believe in musical instruments in worship and they don't believe in Christmas either.

  https://youtu.be/k3MzZgPBL3Q

  The church denomination that splintered because one man attended a Catholic funeral.

  https://youtu.be/R3L8mMK5npg

  Interesting discussion of the place of Church of Scotland in modern society. The woman on the left is a recent moderator (head) of the church. She is apologetic to conservative politician Ruth Davidson that the church has been slow to accept gay people.

  https://youtu.be/XFkGLcEehLs

  Advert for new ministers that makes it sound a bit like secular social work.

  https://youtu.be/CL1qCz7p9eo

  Interesting discussion including a young woman who became a Christian after studying geology at university. Later she became moderator of the National Youth Assembly.

  https://youtu.be/jfkgrKcRtfQ

  And here she presents her report to the General Assembly, including recommendations to move investments away from fossil fuels. The Church of Scotland is also famous for opposing nuclear weapons.

  https://youtu.be/jTehfKyGBdE

  The Church of Scotland YouTube channel has lots on interesting videos, but not very many views.

  Interesting video about the 1950s revival on Lewis.

  https://youtu.be/clWBNU10FEE
• 

  Lostandfound

  Many, many thanks for that. Will look at books you listed. Here, in Liverpool, there are so many redundant churches across the spectrum, also mass civic vandalism in 70s destroyed much of cities architectural history. Population migration from city centres also removed a lot of congregations, new town, new housing areas not blessed with architecture, and current generation forgoing the religiosity of parents😃/grandparents.

  In my experience JWs have not been very successful in the new developments, u think that due to the General abandoning of religions.

  Will let you know how Scottish history lesson goes, as I have said here the scholar system brushed Scottish history and its religious foundations aside, much as were the details about vast area of the map painted red then . That was in late50s.
• 

  Lostandfound

  Just made my evening, will have an early night and watch the YouTube videos, thanks
• 

  slimboyfat

  Yes there are so many empty churches in my home town it's amazing. And that's after lots have been knocked down too. That's right, in the centre you get a lot of empty old churches (Methodists, United Reformed, Free Churches, Baptist Churches) and in the suburbs you get some newer Pentecostal and evangelical churches.

  Locally we had two Baptist churches until they both closed. One became a restaurant and the other became a dance school. The two Baptist congregations merged and met on Sundays in a local cinema. Then another church closed down (The United Free Church) because of dwindling attendances and the Baptist congregation moved into their old church. I wonder how long it will last. Incidentally when the local United Free Church closed down they donated the last of their remaining funds (£20,000) to the local hospice. I wonder how many Kingdom Halls would do that if they closed down.

  In the video above I missed that it was in a separate interview where the moderator talked to Ruth Davidson about the church accepting gay people.

  https://youtu.be/YmA1hTOhGWY
• 

  Vidiot

  slimboyfat - "...The congregation was probably more than 60% female..."
  

  Huh.

  Surprised more guys haven't clued in to that little fact.

  :smirk:
• 

  slimboyfat

  Which is true of most religious meeting the world over. Better to find one where the average age is somewhat lower than 65 as in the Church of Scotland, if that's what your after.
• 

  cofty

  It's no surprise most of the churches are female when you listen to the "Jesus is my loverboy" song lyrics.

  It's weird.
• 

  slimboyfat

  Callum Brown's account of secularization in Britain says that piety was discursively constructed as male until around 1800, and was constructed as female between 1800 and 1963. In 1963 sex and gender equality were invented and religion has been in steep decline ever since. In fact he depicts the fate the Christianity as not merely involving popular or numerical decline. He argues that the culture of Christian Britain actually died in the wake of the 1960s revolution. It suffered a compete demise not simply a reduction or demotion. That's the history of Christianity in Britain according to Callum Brown.