Nathan Hood argues that the Church has faced, and overcome, similar problems to those it has in the present day

DECLINING attendances. Ministerial shortages. Financial peril. These were problems faced by the Kirk in the first decades following the Scottish Reformation.

The current challenges the Church of Scotland faces are frequently framed as a narrative of decline: Scotland was once a Christian nation, ministers in every parish leading the local communities in congregational worship; this golden age has been ravaged by secularisation, consumerism, individualisation, and neglect, resulting in a loss of members and revenue. Such a story can evoke anxiety, despair, and guilt over the future of the Church in Scotland. Yet, this portrayal of the Kirk’s past is misleading. It fails to recognise that there were many periods within which our ancestors were confronted by similar circumstances as we do today.

On August 1 1560, the Scottish Parliament established Scotland as a Protestant country. It approved the Scots Confession, co-authored by John Knox, and abolished the Mass. This set the platform for a reform of parish worship so that Sunday services would conform to the liturgical practices of the early apostolic church as presented in Scripture. The three visible marks of the worship of the ‘true church’ were its ‘true preaching of the word of God’, ‘the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus’, reduced from the Catholic seven to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and ‘ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God’s word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed, and virtue nourished’.

An immediate problem addressing the Kirk was a lack of ministers of Word and Sacrament. Though by 1574 90% of charges outside of the Highlands had been filled, 70% of these were filled by one of the 699 readers, with there only being 289 ministers. At this time, only ministers were allowed to preach and administer the sacraments. Readers were restricted to reading set prayers from the Book of Common Order, reciting bible passages, and leading congregational psalmsinging. This meant that for most Scots parish worship consisted in the Reader’s service, with sermons and the Lord’s Supper only encountered on occasions when a minister visited the parish.

From the late 70s into the 90s, ministerial numbers fell. The initial crop had been drawn from the Catholic clergy of the medieval church, but as older men died there were few trained recruits ready to take their places. For example, while in 1574 Nithsdale had six parishes unfilled, by 1608 it had 17. These vacancies were exacerbated by the Kirk’s disastrous finances. To address these financial constraints, in 1574 it was suggested that the number of parochial charges be reduced so that one minister would serve four parishes, while at the 1581 General Assembly it was proposed that the number of parishes be reduced from over 1000 to 600. In rural parishes, a lack of ministerial provision was paralleled by low church attendances. It is estimated that in the 1570s only 10% of Monifeith’s congregation participated in weekly worship.

“Scotland was once a Christian nation, ministers in every parish leading the local communities in congregational worship

The Kirk has, in the past, confronted and, by the grace of God, overcome similar challenges as we face today. While not mitigating the pain, our past can be a source of comfort in the knowledge that our travails are not wholly unique in the history of the Church in Scotland, and of hope that God will deliver us like our forebears. Moreover, that the Kirk’s structures changed in response to evolving situations (the first presbytery formed as late as 1580!) reminds us that our particular ecclesiology does not define the essential character of the Church of Scotland. What stands us in continuity with the post-Reformation Kirk is our worship of God, the typical service today would be recognisable to a 16thor 17 th century Scot in terms of its order and contents. That our ‘common worship’ binds the past, present, and future Church of Scotland encourages us to approach ecclesiological reform with creative endeavour and faithful courage. ¤

Nathan Hood is the Hope Trust Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh