The Impact of the Great War on Scottish Christianity

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of the Great War (1914–1918) on Christianity in Scotland. This includes the attitudes of various denominations to the war, the rise and fall of religious attendance, and the impact of the war on Sabbatarianism, Sunday schools, church attendance, theology, and social and moral issues in Scottish society.

1. Introduction

When war was declared in August 1914, the United Free Church commented that it “came with shock of great surprise”1. The belief in progress, advanced during the latter part of the 19th century along with the security of the Edwardian era, was shattered. Walter Mursell, a Baptist minister in Paisley,2 commented that the “old world of comfort, ease, and pleasantness for so many broke into fragments in August 1914, like a puff-ball bursting against a thorn” (Mursell 1919, p. 180). War would cast “its shadow over all areas of the country’s history … on a vast and unprecedented scale.”3 The Free Presbyterian Magazine expressed infuriation with Germany in the November 1915 issue: “Influenced by an unholy lust for dominion, her representatives did not hesitate to take advantage of the Austrian crisis with Servia, [sic] and refusing to confer as to peace with Britain and France, they deliberately called for War …”4

This essay explores the impact of the Great War on Scottish Christianity. This includes an examination of the way the war was justified in terms of it being “just”, a viewpoint which was maintained throughout the conflict. The cost of the war in terms of lives lost and the maiming of bodies and minds all contributed to a questioning of faith and hope in God among the churches. Despite this, religion maintained a prominent role within Scottish culture, although the hope for a renewed revival of religion did not materialize. Statistically, the membership of churches remained constant during the war, although there is evidence that the number of children attending traditional Sunday schools declined, and baptismal figure also fell. Moral and social issues were called into question and the role of women in society changed, although their role within the church remained a question to be addressed following the armistice. The final area that the essay addresses is the change in theological perspective that the war brought about in the thinking of many academic theologians as well as ordained ministers.

2. Scottish Churches and the “Just” War

The vast majority of Church leaders in Scotland unhesitatingly and confidently asserted that Britain had no option but to take up arms against Germany in 1914. Few people expressed any moral qualms about entering the conflict. George Adam Smith, principal of Aberdeen University and a member of the United Free Church spoke of “our faith in the justice of our case” (Smith 1942, p. 173). In his presidential address to the Baptist Union of Scotland in 1915, W. T. Oldrieve argued that “our Nation is involved in, and committed to, the prosecution of a righteous War”.5 In a similar way, Congregationalists said that “some of us who hate war with a perfect hatred are somewhat reconciled to the thought of the present one” and went on to speak of Britain as the “chief Christian nation of the world” with a responsibility of helping smaller nations who were being attacked (From the Chair 1914, September, p. 133).

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland spoke of the “militaristic and imperialistic ambitions of Germany” see (Smith 1916, p. 54) without ever questioning the motivation of the British people, whilst failing to recognize any inconsistency in this line of reasoning when it came to British colonialism. In a similar spirit, the Free Presbyterian Church supported the war “out of the Church’s sense of civic and national duty, a sense of scriptural duty to be patriotic” (MacLeod 2001, p. 84). James Denney, who had promulgated a peace settlement in 1913, was convinced by the events of 1914 that “if a Christian cannot take sides in this war and strike with every atom of his energy, then a Christian is a being that, so far as this world is concerned, has committed moral suicide”.6

Some Scottish denominations, more influenced by a conservative theological approach, expressed their strong conviction that Germany had fallen to a position where she engaged in war because of the impact of higher criticism on universities and on the life of the churches.7 In October 1914, the Free Church Monthly Record maintained that “This German war, with its cruelties, is surely a revelation of the woeful results of that modern scepticism with which Germany is so saturated with German Higher Criticism that has so long been patronized and imbibed by many leaders and schools of religious thought” (Causes of the War 1914, pp. 181–82). However, someone like John Baillie was also aware that the war could be seen as judgement upon Britain. “War” he wrote in June 1915, “is God’s judgement on our sins—the sins of militarism, the lust for power, the desire for material and military supremacy, international jealousy—there are lessons for us all” (Newlands 2000, p. 146).

Historians have recently questioned the paradigm that the war had become generally unpopular after 1916, arguing instead that patriotism possessed a remarkable resilience, and indeed that 1918 saw a refreshed outburst of support for the war (Wilson 1986, pp. 27, 570–1, 643–46, 658–59). The German spring offensive of March 1918 showed that British defeat was a real possibility and stirred up a fresh patriotism in Britain. It was more negative and defensive than the confident and triumphalist patriotism of 1914, but it still saw victory as crucial. At the conclusion of the war, Sir Douglas Haig, Commander in Chief of the British Army, spoke to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and the Moderator, in thanking him for his devotion to duty, mentioned that Haig “never wavered in his conviction that the battle was the Lord’s” (Smith 1916, p. 160).

3. The Cost of the War to the Churches in Scotland

The armed forces in Britain relied on volunteers until January 1916, when conscription was introduced. In the early days of the war, a competitive spirit was evident in the way in which Scottish cities vied with one another to provide the most men for the front. W. P. Paterson spoke of the “voluntary response to the appeal for war service” as being “magnificent”.8 It is estimated that about “40% of all professional men in Britain enlisted in the first two years of the war” and “the industrial west of Scotland had one of the highest levels of recruitment in the United Kingdom” (Findlay 2004, p. 5). Twenty-two thousand men from Glasgow alone had signed up by the first week of September 1914, and overall “about a third of a million Scots enlisted prior to January 1916”.9 Just over 41 per cent of the male population between fifteen and forty-nine years of age in 1911 served in the Great War.10

Many spoke of the adventure, almost as “romantic”,11 and of what was expected to be a short campaign that would be “over by Christmas”. A. J. Campbell was more realistic when he wrote of the young men who arrived at the front, viewing it as “a glorious adventure … poor fellows, some of them had a brief spell of their new life…killed within twenty minutes [of arriving at the front]”.12

Ministers, sons of the Manse, and missionaries and divinity students from various denominations volunteered not only as chaplains but as combatants.13 Michael Snape speaks of how “many clergymen of military age … enlist[ed] as medical orderlies or fighting soldiers” (Snape 2006, p. 133).

University students from all disciplines responded to Kitchener’s call to go to the front “with a readier spontaneity than perhaps any other class of the community”.14 Divinity colleges witnessed a drastic reduction in their work as roughly 40% of the Church of Scotland students “were with the colours” by the 1915 Assembly, “fifty-seven as combatants” and “seven as assistant chaplains and one as a member of the medical corp”.15 James Denney wrote to a friend in July 1916 that “two of my students have been killed at the Somme and the losses amongst our friends since the first of July have been endless” (Gordon 2006, p. 201).

In congregation after congregation, the “roll of honour” filled up as numerous young men went forward to enlist.16 In 1915, the Baptist Union of Scotland spoke of 96 churches that had sent 813 men, with one church, Hillhead Baptist, Glasgow contributing 132 of that number of men.17 This figure rose to about 2500 in 1916.18 Men from the Free Church in Lewis witnessed “no less than 4000 of their men serving in the naval forces of the King”.19

Paradoxically, the euphoria of the war brought together men from all counties and classes in Scotland, Protestant and Catholics, Gaelic-speaking Highlands,20 employees and employers.21 Jervis Coats spoke of how “barriers of caste and privilege have fallen flat at the front”.22 Men often joined up from a single area and banded themselves together in the same regiment. Sixty-four men from the Larbert Parish Church joined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.23 In the Outer Hebrides, so many men served on military or naval service that only women were left to take care of the crofts (Gregory 2008, p. 82).

As the war dragged on and as the fighting became more monotonous and meaningless in terms of the loss of life, a sense of disillusionment occasionally appeared on the horizon. George Macleod spoke of life in the trenches as being “grim”, filled with the stinking, rotting remains of comrades who perished, living in intolerable conditions with diseases such as dysentery and cholera becoming endemic.24 The loss of life was enormous. For example, during the Third Battle of Ypres, on the first day of the conflict, the British army lost 17,000 men and, within a week, a total of 30,000 had died. By 6 November, a quarter of a million British soldiers had died as the army advanced a full seven miles over a period of five months. By the end of the war, Scotland had lost something in the region of over 100,000 men, a figure which did not include those who were left disabled, shell-shocked, and maimed in body, mind, and spirit for the rest of their lives.25 Overall, over ten million people died as a result of the Great War and a further twenty million were wounded. Armistice Day, on 11 November 1918, produced a variety of feelings in Scotland. Some of the men at the front, when they heard the news, “could hardly appreciate joy—and the day was spent in rest and conjecture” (Martin 1936, p. 169).

4. Revival of Religion

The revival tradition in Scotland was one that was intimately woven into the experience and expectation of evangelicals in the Church of Scotland. Many revivals had taken place during the 18th century as a result of the ministry of George Whitefield. In the 19th century, visits by American evangelists, such as D. L. Moody, brought about significant growth in the Scottish churches (Pope 2001, pp. 200–20). Through Moody’s Arminian theology and unusual methods, especially the use of music, his message was favourably received in cities such as Glasgow where his mission lasted for over three months.26 This indicated a “growing shift in Scottish Presbyterianism towards a more Arminian perception of Salvation” (Holmes 2000, p. 72).

Earlier in the 20th century, the Welsh Revival in 1904 made a significant impact on many Scottish denominations (Roxburgh 2009, pp. 185–207). The Welsh revival received many visitors from different parts of the world, including numerous Scottish Baptist ministers who travelled south to experience the movement themselves and returned to encourage an expectation that the awakening could also affect Scotland. The Baptists were one of the major denominations in Scotland to be affected by the revival movement. In March 1905, the editor of the magazine returned to the subject of revival and spoke of how “The desire for a deep and widespread revival of religion has been growing in connection with our churches and throughout Scotland generally … [indeed] the revival has begun in many of our Churches… our own Baptist ministers are in fullest accord with the movement, and prepared to do their utmost to speed its progress …”.27

Many churches, scattered through Scotland, experienced the impact of the revival, including Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh and the “experience of revival…rescued the church from the fate of being sold as a city warehouse for one the Princes Street shops, and transformed it into a centre of exultant evangelism”.28 In February 1902, when Joseph Kemp accepted the invitation to become the new pastor of Charlotte Chapel, although the membership of the congregation numbered 100, there were only 35 of that number who were active in attendance. Three years later, 347 new members had been added to the church and the congregation continued to grow in the succeeding years, becoming the largest Baptist church in Scotland.

In Glasgow, the impact was especially felt in the ship-building community of Govan and its surrounding area, which had grown in size from 9000 in 1864 to more than 90,000 by 1914; the community struggled with poverty, overcrowded housing, and sickness.29 In 1895, the Baptist Union of Scotland supported the work of a young evangelist in Paisley Road, Govan and a church was constituted with twenty-five members in September 1897. In 1901, when the church had grown to 230 members, a hall with seating for 600 was built and, over the following four years, its membership grew to 445, the most vibrant period being September 1904 to October 1905 when 232 converts were baptized on profession of faith.30

In April 1905, the Scottish Baptist magazine reported that, since December 1904, over 700 people had professed conversion with 100 being added to the church membership. In October 1905, the membership stood at 507. By August 1906, there were indications that the revival was ebbing and the church minutes complain that “had it not been for the spiritual declension which has been quite manifest in our midst the number of conversions would have been very much larger”, although “the majority of the members are praying for a great revival which will surely be given”.31

Other Scottish Baptist churches that experienced significant growth during this period included Gilcomston Park Baptist Church in Aberdeen, which had welcomed its new minister in October 1902. A. Grant Gibb visited Wales in 1905 and “a gracious wave of revival swept over us….there was a continual stream of additions to the fellowship which in 1908 reached its highest figure of 355”.32

In the industrial coal and steel engineering communities of Lanarkshire, in the Borders area of Galashiels, the minister visited Wales for a week and on his return “much blessing followed” as the church held nightly meetings from 3 April to 8 July 1905, with over 120 conversions recorded.33 Although the numbers added to the church in Galashiels were not significant, with the membership rising from 244 in 1904 to 269 in 1906, this occurred during a period of time when trade depression hit the Borders area and affected all the churches in the area (Bebbington 1988, p. 124).

Overall, during the period from 1902–1906, Scottish Baptist Statistics indicate that membership grew from 16,250 to 19.179, the largest increase taking place in 1905 when 1970 people were baptised.34

In the early days of the war, the church leaders eagerly anticipated a revival of religion, not only in the armed forces, but also in the churches.35 The United Free Church spoke of “larger attendances at church than has been seen for a long time…many began to think that the revival they looked for had come in this most unexpected way”.36 D. S. Cairns believed that “the presence of death, sorrow, pain…is awakening the primitive religious sense … making him call out for God” (Cairns 1917, pp. 41–42). In the early days of the war, churches throughout the country were crowded on Sunday 9th August, and smaller denominations, such as the Baptists, reported 1293 baptisms in 1914, an unusually high figure.37 This intensified interest in religion was maintained through January 1915, when the King called for a “Day of Prayer” and “everywhere the churches were filled”.38 However, the United Free Church was realistic enough to report that, in May 1915, through the winter the attendances had lessened and intercessory services had either ceased or were more “sparsely attended than at the beginning of the war”.39 They concluded that although “large numbers…have made profession of their faith in Christ …. we have not seen a great return of the nation to God, nor the great revival which ought to be the outcome of the present terrible experience”.40 C. M. Black, the Episcopal Rector of Christ Church in Edinburgh thought that only “a very few have been religiously affected by the war…the call of religious revival which was sounded at the beginning of the war, has not been answered to any great extent”.41

Although the revival of religion that many desired did not occur, this did not mean that religion disappeared from the lives of either civilians or those who served at the front. At the conclusion of the war, General Sir Henry Home, commander of the First Army in France, addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and spoke of how one of the features of life in the trenches had been the “religious feeling on the part of the officer and the soldier”.42

At the end of the war, D. S. Cairns, professor of dogmatics at the United Free Church College in Aberdeen University, drafted an interdenominational national report by Protestant clergy, which investigated the Army and Religion.43 The report concluded that the vast majority of soldiers had no living connection with the church prior to the beginning of the war (Ibid., pp. 189–90).

One of the reasons given for the lack of interest and involvement of men in the life of the church was said to be due to the church’s “cowardice and want of enterprise in dealing with social and economic questions”. This would have been particularly true of men who came from urban communities, such as Glasgow.44 Others suggested that the church had been ineffective in stopping war, even though both Britain and Germany claimed to be Christian nations. The fact of disunity between the various denominations45 was also reported to be a contributing factor.

Despite the major difficulties the church faced in presenting a relevant message both to the members of the armed forces and civilians at home, religion remained a major presence in many people’s minds.46 Michael Snape argued that the “vast network of church and Sunday schools, welfare agencies and voluntary societies” continued to impact the lives of communities throughout Britain, even though the war was “fought against a backdrop of religious decline, particularly in terms of formal and regular religious practice in civilian life” (Snape 2005, pp. 58, 241). For Neil Allison “a general revival of the kind the Free Churches had hoped for did not materialize. The war as a catalyst for localized revivals but these were not linked to, nor sustained by normal church life” (Allison 2013, p. 54).

5. Church Life

The great number of men who enlisted and perished during the war, as well as the involvement of women in various ancillary work connected to the war and working on Sunday in the early days of the conflict, had an inevitable effect on church attendance, Sunday school, and Bible class figures. However, churches located in the larger towns and cities, or in locations where troops were billeted, were often able to attract visitors to their services. Churches in Edinburgh, such as Charlotte Baptist Chapel, held Saturday night gospel meetings. Members would go out to Princes Street and invite people in uniform to tea and to hear a “gospel address”.47 However, the war also had its effect on when services took place. The city of Edinburgh called for the “obscuration of lighted windows” in February 191648 and during that year, the gas lights were not lit in the streets, making it very difficult for people to travel, during the winter, for evening services.49 The loss of many ordained ministers who became involved in various forms of national service undoubtedly had its impact on the way the church functioned during the war.50 There were, however, other signs of growth in church life during the war. The Christian Brethren opened thirteen new Assemblies during the war (Dickson 2002, pp. 186–87) and three new Baptist churches joined the Union.

One of the greatest areas of concern to all denominations was the drop in the number of children attending Sunday schools. Baptist churches saw their numbers drop from 19,838 in 1914 to 18,065 in 1919.51 In 1917, the Church of Scotland recorded a drop of 6865 children attending their Sunday schools, noting that the decline had begun prior to the war, although the current situation was obviously exacerbating the situation.52 In 1919 the Assembly heard that 45,593 Sunday school scholars had been lost since 1906.53 The number of Baptisms in the Church of Scotland dropped 19% from 1884 to 1914, and this was during a period when the communion roll grew from 555,622 to 718,719, an increase of 29%. It would appear that although congregations were growing on the surface, parents were not committed to the theology and practice of the faith. In 1917, the United Free Church estimated that there were 180,000 Protestant children of school age outside of Sunday schools throughout the country.54 By 1919, the denomination estimated that they had lost 21,000 children during the period of the war.55

One further area of major concern to all the denominations was the way in which the traditional Scottish Sabbath was being affected by the war. In November 1914, the Edinburgh Presbytery of the Free Church deplored the way in which Sunday newspapers were being sold, something that was “utterly opposed to our highest interests as a city”.56 While seeking to avoid any legalistic Sabbatarianism, the Church of Scotland suggested that “Scotland should determine to abide by its Sabbath-keeping character” (Bruce 1918, p. 156). All the churches opposed the introduction of working on Sunday and other forms of recreation, such as the opening of cinemas, as being “introduced under the plea of necessity in time of war” and that could easily be “perpetuated in time of peace”.57 Although the Scottish churches emerged from the war with relatively healthy statistics, which remained at a statistical plateau during the 1920s, it was evident that the religious life of Scotland was changing and influences, both social and religious, were going to affect the life of the church in the decades to come.

6. Moral Issues

The two particular areas that the churches addressed throughout the war were those of temperance and sexuality. In 1915, the example of Russia in prohibiting the sale of vodka and the action of France in following this lead was applauded, as was the “chivalrous act of self-sacrifice on the part of His Majesty” in deciding to abstain from alcohol during the war.58 It is interesting to note that, during the war, many congregations began to move away from using fermented to unfermented wine for communion services. By 1917, twenty congregations out of the two hundred located in Glasgow were still using fermented wine for the Lord’s Supper (Report on the Temperance Committee 1917, pp. 7–8).

The other moral issue that the church believed was not disconnected to the misuse of alcohol was sexual purity,59 especially for soldiers who found themselves away from the influences of church and community.60 John White spoke of holding a service in France, when he gave an “exhortation to young lads to walk warily, to live cleanly and to carry home with them lives that are as pure as they took with them from the old hearths”.61 On another occasion he told the men, “quite frankly that their morals required a lot of cleaning up …. [as it was] imperilling their immortal souls” (Muir 1958, p. 179; see also Thompson 2013, p. 31). In a debate in the Commons on 23 April 1917, it was reported that 33,000 soldiers with venereal disease had been admitted to hospitals in Britain and a further 40 to 50 thousand cases in British hospitals in France.62 In 1918, the Church of Scotland expressed regret about the number of illegitimate births, the “worst record in the United Kingdom” (Ibid., p 67). The whole experience of war, associated with isolation from sweethearts and family, led many men away from the constrictions of religious morality and inevitably from the influence of the church.

7. Women

The place of women in society began to change fairly significantly during the First World War, although any alteration of their role and status within the life of the church would take longer to register. The loss of so many men in the early months of the war meant that women, especially those from working class families, who had formerly found work as domestic servants, were now called upon to fulfil significant roles in various forms of work associated with the war effort. Stewart Mews suggested that “the greatest single social innovation of the war was the change in the role of women”.63 By the end of the war, when they had been granted a limited franchise that added about six million women to the voter’s role, their attitude and action during the crisis was widely commended.64 In 1918, Lloyd George estimated that 1.5 million new women had entered the industrial workforce during the war,65 and between 100,000 and 400,000 left domestic service for new wartime jobs that brought greater financial independence and a greater sense of fulfilment (Watson 2007, p. 81). The work was also held before the women, by Lloyd George, in 1915, as a carrot for suffrage; he declared “You will get the vote but we must get you into the factories”.66

Three main areas existed in which women entered employment during the war. First, they entered into auxiliary military organizations such as a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, the Women’s Royal Naval Service, and the Women’s Royal Air Force. Secondly, many women became members of the “Women’s Land Army” as they worked on farms, performing tasks normally associated with men (McLaren 1917, p. 102). Finally, they worked in munition factories, an area in which more women found work than any other sector during the war. In entering a type of employment that was viewed as masculine and also connected to Trade Union control, women were now finding new status within society. Lloyd George considered that without women working in this area, “it would have been utterly impossible for us to have waged a successful war”.67

Prior to the war, many women within the Scottish churches became involved in the Suffrage Movement, seeking to “express…the spiritual equality of the sexes, and the justice of the principle of their political equality”.68 The initial attitude of the church as a whole to the Suffrage Movement was almost entirely negative, with many women as opposed to it as their male counterparts. The Presbytery of Edinburgh, in January 1915, “deplored the social and economic evils from which so many women suffered” and yet “expressing no opinion on the question of political enfranchisement”.69 When a group of women interrupted the United Free Church Assembly in 1914, they were ejected from the Assembly Hall and their attitude rejected by all the “Fathers and Brethren” of the Assembly (Reith 1933, p. 152). The opposition of churches to the Suffrage Movement, however, led many women to view it as “an alternative female religion”.70

However, by the conclusion of the war, church leaders were fulsome in their support of the movement. In his presidential address to the Baptist Union of Scotland in 1918, R. E. Glendening spoke of the way in which “women have been enfranchised” and that “the equality of sex has become a great fact, and recognition has been given to the full rights of that humanity she holds in common with man”. This, he argued, should mean that “they can never more be put back into the old conditions existing prior to the war”.71

Despite the changes taking place in society, the role that women had within the life of the majority of churches was minimal. The fact that the churches were solidly patriarchal in structure and attitude (demonstrated by the fact that members of the General Assembly of all Presbyterian churches were referred to as “Fathers and Brethren”) meant that any service women offered was never recognized in terms of status and authority.

In 1914, the United Free Church recognized the great changes taking place in society and a committee reported to the 1915 Assembly that the church needed to take action to “reconsider its organization and methods of work” to include women in its life.72

8. Theology

The years leading up to and surrounding the First World War were filled with turbulence in theological circles. The acceptance of Darwinian thought in science faculties, and the adoption of the higher critical approach to biblical studies by divinity colleges had an impact on the way in which clergy and laypeople thought about God, the nature of sin and evil, and soteriological themes. It was widely held by churchmen who had imbibed this new approach to scripture that “the biblical authors were in the realms of Science subject to human limitations and speak with authority at the most in matters of faith and morals”.73

Writing about James Denney, James Gordon suggested that “churches and clergy struggled to offer any pastorally adequate theological account of human loss on such a scale”.74 George Adam Smith spoke of the “smoke of war” which “swept between our hearts and the throne of God … [as] our world shook around us” and challenged the “easy views of God”, which most Christians had adopted in times of peace and security (Smith 1918, p. 2). In different writings, it is possible to see the various defences of God’s goodness and omnipotence being expounded. W. A. Mursell maintained that “we must believe that this portentous thing…comes somehow within the scope of providence, and finds a place in the cosmic sweep of the divine purpose, and that good must therefore come out of evil … within the mysterious orbit of God’s permissive will”.75 D. S. Cairns was convinced that “in all these things God’s overruling providence is at work creating something new …. God, through man’s evil, is working out His purpose in history”.76

There was a common stress on the omnipotence of divine love as constituting the heart of the gospel. Jervis Coats, in his presidential address to the Baptist Union of Scotland in 1918, called for “love theology” to be that which was “wanted” more and more. He criticized a recital of orthodox theology in the creeds and confessions of faith that a church might profess, when the actions of men and women’s lives expressed a different message. This, he said, would be detrimental to the authenticity of the message that the church presented to a lost and lonely world.77 In 1917, the United Free Church argued that ministers must adopt a new simplicity and directness in their preaching as they proclaimed the “redeeming power of the Saviour…and the salvation from sin and war that is guaranteed in Christ”.78

This emphasis on the love of God, as well as a concern to bring a message of comfort to thousands of parishioners who had lost husbands, sons, and brothers in the trenches, led many ministers to speak of a wider hope of salvation for those who had died fighting for the just cause of their country. George Adam Smith, along with others, adopted the use of the term “martyrdom” to refer to those who had perished.79 They had given their lives, he argued, not just for their country but for “a better future for the whole race….this is the spirit of Christ and His cross”.80 Their death, for such a cause “could only be the entrance on higher forms of service”, the implication being that they had entered into the joys of heaven (Ibid., pp. 189–90). In a sermon preached at St. Columba’s Church of Scotland in London, J. R. P. Sclater preached on 1 Thessalonians 5:10 “who died for us… that we should live” and stated that in remembering their death “we set upon them the benediction of our love, in the confident assurance that no evil shall come nigh them, and perpetual light shall shine upon them”.81 The fact that many of these men had died without faith should not limit an understanding of God’s mercy, whether the one who died was British or even German, for “the character of their dying” would be “recognized and accepted by so searching and merciful a judge” (Ibid., p. 194). William Watson from Aberdeen argued that although the religion of many who had died was not articulated in common Christian terms, their “conduct was … they knew their cause was righteous and they were willing to die for righteousness sake. Thus in a vague uninformed way they trusted in God and that trust made them strong”.82 MacLean and Sclater asserted “in the hour of [the soldier’s] death, these His children, content to be blotted out on earth that their country might live… They launched forth on the illimitable sea with the course set God-ward” (MacLean and Sclater 1918, pp. 208–9).

W. J. Nicol Service, minister of West Kirk in Greenock, in a sermon on “The Fallen” suggested that those who had lost loved ones who fell in battle demonstrating “noble and self-sacrificing” virtues will “meet again those whose spirits are risen from the grave or given up by the sea” and that this thought should encourage “a vision of the triumphant dead”, concluding his sermon with verses from a poem:

• Peace, peace! He is not dead, he doth not sleep—
• He hath awaken’d from the dream of life—
• From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
• He is secure, and now can never mourn.
83

W. P. Paterson, expounding on the aspect of the Apostles’ Creed that spoke of Christ “descending into hell”, suggested that “it may be that it is one of the joys of the fatherly heart of God to keep in store a world of merciful surprises”.84 In a review of MacLean and Sclater’s sermons, Robertson Nicol spoke of their view that “there must be an intermediate state where God can work upon the soul and ply it with numberless opportunities”.85 On the other hand, James Sinclair, a Free Presbyterian minister, remarked that this belief of salvation by an honourable death “is entirely inconsistent with, and subversive of, the most vital principles of Christianity” (MacLeod 2002, p. 91).

It seems evident that the war, with the significant loss of life, and a questioning of the nature of God, led many people to reimagine their understanding of the being of God in terms of the apparent dichotomy between his eternal love demonstrated in and through the cross of calvary, and the threat of judgement. For many Christians, both clergy and laity, the message of the crucified Christ led them to adopt a wider hope of salvation, especially for those who had died in a “just war” conflict.

9. Conclusions

The twentieth century has not been kind to Christianity in Scotland. A country that had been marked by significant levels of Church and Sunday school attendance at the beginning of the century has experienced a steep decline in the number of members in churches of every denomination. Although the steep decline began in the 1960s, there is evidence within this paper that the onset of decline was already to be found as a result of the impact of the Great War. Presbyterianism remained a dominant influence in culture and society, but even there, the influence on religious symbols, such as Sabbath observance and Sunday school attendance, was gradually being eroded. In 1901, the Church of Scotland thought that they were “simply holding their own, without making progress” (Reid 1901, p. 82). The Great War exacerbated the decline of children and young people attending church activities and the United Free Church reported its largest decline in attendance at Sunday school and Bible classes, although the drop in the latter was attributed to “so many of our young men having joined His Majesty’s forces”.86 During the early days of the Great War, Norman Maclean, minister of St. Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh preached a sermon denouncing “degenerate Scotland” and spoke of the way in which “the Sabbath was no longer honoured” and “literature reeked with sensuality”.87

Much of the debate surrounding the secularization thesis advocated by Steve Bruce88 and the views of Calum Brown (Brown 2001), focus on the question of when religion began to be displaced from the centre of the cultural life of countries such as Scotland.89 Although there is much more to this question than an analysis of Church membership statistics, it is clear that this is one of the major indicators of how seriously people are taking their faith as Christians. As fewer and fewer people appear to be worshipping on a regular basis in the Churches of Scotland, it seems clear that there is either a “loss of faith or a loss of interest” in Christianity.90

Early on in the century, one result of industrialization and urbanization was the recognition that the church had lost much of its contact with the working classes. In many of the churches, attendance, when it happened, was related to various “rites of passage” such as baptism, dedication, marriage, and death. The 1900 report by Robert Howie on Scottish religion at the turn of the century estimated that about 1.6 million, some 37.5% of the population, had no church affiliation (Fleming 1933, p. 56). In 1913, the Church of Scotland indicated that the number of communicant members had decreased by 1,066 and that this was the “first decrease reported within living memory”.91 By 1920, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland expressed his concern that although “statistics might be produced so to make it appear that the church had a relatively larger following than fifty years ago” it did not have “an increasingly vital hold on the population. For a Church, the static condition spelt death; only a progressive, dynamic condition spelt life.” He indicated that they did not face “active hostility but indifference”.92

One factor proposed by Callum Brown is that before 1800, “Christian piety had been located in masculinity” but after 1800, this moved to femininity. Brown argued that following 1960, as women moved more and more into the workplace, the moral revolution and new gender roles in society meant that “women cancelled their mass subscription to the discursive domain of Christianity” and stopped the task of passing on religious beliefs and customs to the younger generation, with catastrophic effects on the life of the Christian church in terms of attendance and its role in society. However, the paper has demonstrated that the Great War opened up many new opportunities for women in Scotland and their role was enlarged following the war, especially after they received the right to vote in 1918. This franchise was given to them because of their work during the war. Although a change in role within the church took many more years, the seeds of change were already forming and this led to a real decline in the 1960s, when women began to abandon the church entirely.

The Great War was not the only factor that led to a serious decline within Scottish Christianity in the 20th century. However, to ignore its significance is to fail to recognize just how devastating the war was in terms of Scottish religious, economic, and political life.

Although the country was still Christian and “many were intensely religious … the state was largely secular and would become increasingly so in the aftermath of the War”.93

The poem Lament for the Lads94 by Scottish war poet Neil Munro expressed both the pathos and pain that so many families experienced during the war.

• Sweet be their sleep now wherever they’re lying
• Far though they be from the hills of their home

When the Armistice was signed in 1918, the work of establishing peace and reconciliation was often blurred by a desire for recompense. Allied countries made it clear that they regarded Germany as solely responsible for the outbreak of war in 1914 and “solely responsible for the [resulting] unparalleled mass deaths and immense destruction” (Konrad 2013, p. 608). There were individuals such as the Scot, Andrew Carnegie, who gave an endowment of $2 million to found the Church Peace Union.95 The Peace Conference lasted from January 1919 until January 1920 and the result was that Germany lost a significant amount of land, about a seventh of its territory and tenth of its population, and also its colonies. This included mining and mineral resources, as well as monetary reparation. The Versailles Agreement was soon seen in Germany as a “shameful peace” and was later believed to be a reason for the rise of National Socialism and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.

The changes in social and moral issues during the war would continue to be a challenge both to the conservative nature of Scotland, as well as the life of the church. These issues would occupy the mind of the church over the following decades and would contribute to the place of the church in society and culture as a diminishing institution.