At the age of nine I decided to stop going to church in Dundee. Chalmer's Ardler Church (Church of Scotland) was based in the community in which I lived – but said nothing to a young boy full of energy, questions, curiosity and looking for fun.
The minister and other church figures did not speak or connect to me or my parents and took many things for granted about how they saw the world. The minister was a fervent anti-Communist and regularly used his services to rail against 'militant Communists holding the country to ransom'. This was a spectacular misreading of his congregation, for Dundee in the 1970s was a hot bed of left-wing politics including a very active Communist Party. All his political comments underlined that the minister had little connection or interest in the people he was meant to serve; and this was underlined by the dynamic Catholic priest from the neighbouring church who was always campaigning for and with his parishioners.
That was then. Fast forward nearly 50 years and I now find myself living in the town of Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway after 30 years in Glasgow. In the past two years, most Sunday mornings I have taken the short walk from my front door to our local Presbyterian Church, Kirkcudbright Parish Church, as well as getting involved in church activities helping out at open days, coffee mornings and art fairs.
It is something that has been percolating for a long-time. First, I thought of myself as an atheist; then an agnostic; then a person respectful of faith and people of faith; and subsequently, I have become a member of a community which is about faith and more.
Writing about this feels very tentative and a journey still ongoing. I knew before moving to Kirkcudbright that I was going to embark upon this journey. In this, I do think that the feel, spirit and warmth that my local church embodies was more than a help and a pull factor in my crossing that line and being welcomed.
This has numerous different levels. Kirkcudbright Parish Church sits in the centre of the town, not only as a striking building, but one filled with space, light and beauty which cascade through its windows and which visitors regularly comment upon. It is a place of hope, calmness and activity.
Then there is the congregation who are welcoming, outward facing and active in the town doing a range of church and community activities. They are an embodiment of the best of the practices of Christianity – far removed from my Ardler Church experiences.
It helps that my local minister James Gatherer is thoughtful, intellectual, curious and has a humanity which informs his sermons and how he addresses his ministry. He talks the stories, parables, metaphors and signs of the Bible, and grounds and connects them to known recorded history and observations of today and the wider world. He does this in a generous, non-dogmatic, non-didactic way, miles removed from how I experienced Ardler all those years ago.
The past weekend I organised the first ever Kirkcudbright Fringe Festival with Chris Walker, owner of the town's Selkirk Arms Hotel. It was a great experience with events taking place in lots of venues including the church and its parish hall, with feelings of excitement and goodwill in the air. When I wrapped up one event at the church with journalist Gavin Esler and academic and activist Alison Phipps, one attendee asked me 'if this was my home', meaning did I live in the town. I answered by saying 'this is my home, one of my homes' – seeing the Church as a community I am part of, then adding that yes, I did live in the town.
Taking the Church out and putting it back in
How faith and people of faith are seen in recent decades has been going through dramatic changes. Once it was the norm. Now it is increasingly the exception. Scotland in the late 1940s and early 1950s was one of the countries in the developed world with high levels of church membership and religious affiliation.
The American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, visiting Glasgow in 1947, stated that the American people were probably more 'church-minded' than any other nation, with the possible exception of the Scots. The actual figures were that 58% of the US adult population were church members, with Scots about the same percentage. A staggering 57.8% of the adult population in Scotland were church members, more than twice the figures for England and Wales at 22.9%, according to the 1951 census.
During the Kirkcudbright Fringe weekend, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of
The Wicker Man film, much of which was filmed in Dumfries and Galloway, including our town. In the dramatic concluding scenes, in which Edward Woodward as Sergeant Neil Howie is burned to death by paganists led by Christopher Lee, he repeatedly states that he is a Christian who believes in the promise of 'life eternal'. Made in 1973, as the Christian faith was in irrevocable decline across the UK, the film gives the viewer two sets of true believers to identify with – or to disdain.
Earlier this year Scotland, much to its surprise, engaged in public conversation about faith and its role in public life during the SNP leadership contest due to comments made by Kate Forbes, a member of the Free Church of Scotland. What was clear when the dust settled was how unusual this was, and how a large part of the country found challenges in talking about faith and its public role, including some people of faith.
In the immediate aftermath of the above, I hosted a discussion on faith, religion and public life with Rev Doug Gay, a Church of Scotland minister. Reflecting upon this, it became clear to me that there has been a tendency since the late 1950s and early 1960s for many of us to encourage a Scotland which talked about moral, civic and political issues, without the dominance and overbearing influence of the Church.
This has occurred to such a degree that we now talk about Scotland without understanding the Church in an almost exclusively secular conversation. This brings us to a major crossroads in that we need to put the Church back into Scotland to explain who we are as a country – in understanding the past and present, and the future. And the word 'Church' I am using is shorthand for the Church of Scotland, organised religion and the faith tradition in its many strands.
There is no way of understanding Scotland without recognising the role of the Church and faith, both for good and bad. A Scotland which does not reflect upon this is doing itself a disservice – and being disingenuous. And a Scotland without the Church of Scotland and other traditions is a less interesting and unique place.
Such a point is not about whitewashing the role of Church and religion in its often problematic relationship with large parts of society. Scotland at times in its past was a theocracy and the moral authority of the Church was often brutal to those who did not fit in and demanded unthinking obedience from its adherents.
Think of the Church of Scotland's condemnation of the Irish as 'a menace' in the 1920s (which it took until 2002 to apologise for), its view of women and homosexuals up to the 1960s, and the role of the Church in providing a pillar of the society of male elders who seemed to dominate civil society into the 1960s. Rather, taking the Church out of our history is to present an ahistorical, caricatured Scotland viewed from the conceits of the present.
Too many modern references in Scottish public life cite historic religious examples but through a contemporary lens, which takes religion out of the picture. Take 1320 and the Declaration of Arbroath, something which has become a foundation story of modern Scotland, which is invoked to further the legitimacy of 'popular sovereignty'. Or the 1689 and 1843 Claims of Rights which have a lineage and direct link to the 1989 Claim of Right, which made the case for Scottish self-determination and a Scottish Parliament (and which itself invoked 1320).
All these examples – 1320, 1689, 1843 – are imbued with religious power, influence and terminology, and can only be understood by having religious sensitivity, knowledge and literacy. This is something we have chosen to forget, even to turn our backs on in Scotland, in the rush to overthrow the old and oppressive traditions which the worst of the Church embodied, to be modern and progressive.
In this process, we have fallen for the fallacy of a single-story Scotland: a land where these ancient acts are interpreted through the prism of modern, nationalist with a small 'n', self-governing Scotland. There is a danger in this of one oppressive, intolerant version of a rich tradition being replaced by another in wilful denial of the other Scotlands out there.
A Scotland only about politics or our individual wishes as consumers and the idea of the self is like, much of the West, a barren place. There is a richer, nobler Scotland(s) both in our past and present that we need to champion and nurture to tell better stories about ourselves. And that is one in which the Church, religion and faith has a place.
