the scottish episcopal church

A New History, by gavin white

Preface

1
Tullochgorum

2
Eighteenth Century

3
Seabury

4
Worship

5
Edinburgh

6
Oxford Movement

7
Glasgow

8
Publications

9
Church or Province

10
'English Episcopal'

11
Schools

12
Social Service

13
Synods and Councils

14
Clergy Training

15
A Small Dog Barking

16
As Others See Us

17
Women

18
Society

19
Second World War and After

Selected bibliography

Links

In 1934 it was revealed that the three leading Glasgow clergy, Canon John McBain, Canon E.J.Petrie, and Canon W.Henderson-Begg, had been accustomed to "conspire" before Diocesan Council meetings to have "sham fights" lest everyone present should be bored out of their skulls. McBain, the only one left alive, admitted this, but insisted that their disagreements were real, even if their fights were rehearsed. It is encouraging to think that these men were aware how excruciating it was to listen to endless speeches which were sometimes incomprehensible and sometimes all too comprehensible. And it is tempting to wonder if people in some synods are still conspiring to disagree in order to keep people happy, and it is tempting at other synods to wish that if they are not so conspiring, they would do so. (1)

The legislative gatherings of the Episcopal church have seldom been a pleasure. On the one hand it was a matter of pride that everyone was represented at everything, but on the other it was a great struggle to find someone willing to go. Small congregations felt themselves lucky if anyone not tied down by other duties would make the sacrifice. And some lay representative went on till blind, deaf, and past it, while others had not so much become past it as never reached it in the first place. If a legislative body was sometimes regarded as only an audience to be inspired by the leaders, this was not surprising. But there were other complaints. Canon John McBain said that diocesan councils "in the mind of lawyers are to be compared to annual meetings of shareholders where dividends are to be declared", and lawyers were frequently the most wordy and unpromising speakers. In 1927 the Glasgow diocesan council called the Representative Church Council "a peripatetic debating council", and noted that only a third of the laity elected to attend had actually done so in that year. (2)

Yet for all its shortcomings the Representative Church Council was what was needed for its day. From 1689 until 1811 the bishops had ruled alone, though with some attention to the wishes of lairds and, with regard to the election of bishops, at times a nod to a monarch overseas. In theory the clergy could elect the bishop. In fact the bishops used appointments of co-adjutors to serve alongside aged bishops in order to have the desired people elected later, and they manipulated other elections as seemed best. In 1768 Robert Forbes was elected to Aberdeen, but the bishops ruled him out as he lived in Leith; they had earlier tried to block his election to Caithness but been forced to give way. Gleig was elected four times before Skinner as Primus grew weary and accepted him, while Skinner also blocked Jolly until the others elected one of their number Primus for the day and consecrated. And yet the bishops were not always unreasonable in overriding votes of tiny numbers of clergy. One man was elected by the only presbyter in two dioceses, and in 1774 Dunblane, with two presbyters, was given a mandate to elect and chose Rose because the other bishops wanted him as a colleague. Yet the power of the bishops declined until W.G.S.Snow could write in 1938, "The bishops still retain the right to reject a bishop-elect, but such a step is unlikely to be necessary, and in any case would only be taken in the gravest circumstances." (3)

From 1743 the Deans had a voice but no vote; they were supposed to represent the clergy and be a counterbalance to the bishops. From 1811 there were General Synods, the term being invented for the purpose, and the word "General" was probably copied from the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. For sixty years this body ruled alone; it had bishops and presbyters, but no laity. In 1828 it was agreed that it should meet every five years, but Jolly vetoed this, and next year the requirement was repealed. It finally settled into a pattern of meeting roughly every fifteen years. The Diocesan Synod had no laity either. There is a whimsical description by Dean Ramsay of such a synod, in which the bishop's charge was invariably about episcopacy, and the proceedings very tame with the aim being to "let well alone". Ramsay describes the clergy, beginning with Mr. Lowstaff, an Evangelical, "of earnest feeling and genuine piety. He had a great deal of the conceit and self-esteem which always seemed to me to attach to that party...", an opinion which reminds us that Ramsay suffered much from certain Evangelicals, and then Mr. Drybones, "our great ritualist", and so on down the line. But these contrary figures grew more friendly at the dinner, "As the wine or the whisky-toddy circulated conversation became more easy...", until the hotel waiter broke up the discussion by announcing that the horse "omnibus" was ready to carry them home to neighbouring towns. (4)

But this did nothing for lay participation. In 1852 Gladstone, who differed from his friends of the Oxford Movement on this key point, wrote to Bishop William Skinner, the Primus, urging that the laity be brought into the system. In fact they already served in the Scottish Episcopal Church Society, founded by Dean Ramsay and others in 1838, and based on an earlier body founded in 1806, and on a Gaelic Episcopal Society founded by Bishop Low in 1831. And there were laity on local vestries. In 1862 it was moved that male communicants should elect lay representatives, that these should vote in episcopal elections, that they should attend but not vote in diocesan synods, and that they should be, or could be, lay readers. Yet this only gave the laity real power when electing bishops, so there was "smouldering discontent", as Dean Farquhar described it. And into this discontent galloped Major Scott of Gala, the champion of lay claims, writing innumerable pamphlets. This occurred at a time of controversy over the Eucharist so lay claims seemed only a by-product of this, opposition to lay participation being equated with belief in the Real Presence. The opponents of the lay claims were unimpressed by American examples, "Are we prepared to innovate upon what has been for eighteen centuries the universal practice of the Church, till a Church formed under peculiar circumstances, and which rejects the Athanasian Creed, sets an example to the contrary ?" And the Canadian Church was seen as an "awful warning". (5)

The Episcopal Synod, the meeting of bishops alone, noted in 1870 that all the diocesan synods recommended more lay power, though Forbes vetoed the Brechin synod on the matter. Of the bishops, Eden of Moray, the Primus, and Wordsworth of St. Andrews were in favour, Suther of Aberdeen and Forbes of Brechin and Wilson of Glasgow were against, and Terrot of Edinburgh and Ewing of Argyll were absent through illness. But after the death of Terrot, Cotterill of Edinburgh had each congregation send a "sidesman" to diocesan synod, though with no vote, and the gallant major of Gala grumbled that, "The laity are considered a dangerous class !" In fact that was unfair, the clergy as a whole supported the lay claims, and the real objection was to be found in what was thought to be history. (6)

The answer was to create a body with no history, though while Forbes was alive they could do nothing more radical than follow the English in having a Church Congress. This allowed laity to hear addresses from bishops and scholars, somewhat like the present Provincial Conferences held every three years, and the first one was in 1874. The whole situation changed with the death of Bishop Forbes in 1875. A conference voted for a Representative Church Council by 155 to 47, the title coming from the Church of Ireland, though there was still dissent over whether representatives should be elected from congregations, or from dioceses. The outcome was that every congregation had a directly elected representative and these would also form "Diocesan Councils" meeting alongside the all-clergy Diocesan Synods. And the new council was to be purely financial and only concerned with housekeeping. General Synod accepted this in 1876, and the Scottish Episcopal Church Society was absorbed into the new body. It was useful, it was the best that could be hoped at the time, it was better than England, and yet the dual system was cumbersome and out of step with synods of bishops, clergy, and laity in Anglicanism overseas. (7)

There was further change in 1890 when the General Synod renamed itself the Provincial Synod, for reasons which which were not clear then and are not clear now, but which was probably a move from Scottish to English models. Furthermore, the title of "archbishop" was desired for the primus, though this was resisted. And there was renewed demand for the Representative Church Council to be able to discuss anything at all, though with no more real power than before. Finally, in 1905, a Consultative Committee was set up to bridge the gap between the Provincial Synod and the Council, though without powers. Thus the Episcopal Church lived for nearly a century with a double set of legislative bodies. Only in 1982, following the examples of almost all the countries at which Scottish Episcopalians had sneered in earlier times, a single General Synod with bishops, clergy, and laity, paralleled by Diocesan Synods of bishop, clergy, and laity, came into being. Since it was Anglican practice elsewhere to have a "Provincial Synod" for one province, and a "General Synod" for a group of provinces, the title used in the Episcopal Church was misleading. Nonetheless, the term "province" for Scotland is unhistorical, Scotland in the middle ages not being a province in the usual sense, and only having an archbishop from 1472. But since Scots invented the name "General Synod" they are entitled to use it as they wish. (8)

There was understandable regret at losing the Representative Church Council to which every congregation sent, or tried to send, at least one layman or laywoman, and on which every licensed clergyman sat. But the regret was mainly because the Council had brought people together, and made them friends, much in the fashion of the synod described by Dean Ramsay, though without the wine and the whisky-toddy. If the dancing of the Dashing White Sergeant at the social evening of the Council was a relic of the tradition that the bishops would put on a party to thank the landowners for financial support, and not something out of the ordinary life of most of those present, it still brought people together. But as a legislative body the Council was hopelessly overweight. There were so many people who had little idea of what was going on that a pattern of voting resulted. The first vote on any issue would be fairly evenly divided, but when it became clear which way the wind was blowing votes swung that way, like water sloshing around in the hull of a sinking ship, increasing in weight and momentum every time the ship heeled over.

A word should be added about Church Congresses. Some brought in English bishops and dons, and they had wise things to say, but they were not very good at saying them in ways that ordinary people might understand. Others were less academic, and that of 1926 was entirely staffed by local men. Bishop MacLean of Moray spoke at length on worship and used a form of composition unsuited to his task (Was he, and other bishops of like ilk, unconsciously reverting to type and producing Oxford or Cambridge essays to be read to dons long since gone where they were safe from such torments ? Or not, as the case may be.) Bertram Talbot, a leading layman, spoke on having a weekly Eucharist but not weekly communion, and if he was dull it was at least clear what he was talking about. Bishop Deane who could always communicate did so on lay participation. Provost Erskine Hill did likewise; perhaps rather better. He saw the main problem of the church as a lack of public school men amongst the clergy, but at least he was wrestling with problems of social class which others wished to sweep under the carpet. E.W.M.Balfour Melville spoke well on state education, with its enormous expense, and its dangers, "We do not want our country to be populated by 'clever devils'". Again, the point of view he adopted may have been impractical, but he did show that major changes were taking place. (9)

Finance was always a problem; the church reeled from one crisis to another, and set up new funds, and amalgamated old funds, and usually managed to get money for the new funds from the same people who were already paying into old funds and would, surprisingly, keep on doing so, though whether from devotion or inertia was not quite clear. In the beginning there was the assumption that landowners who were still Episcopalian would pay for churches in one way or another, and any other means of support was temporary and to be regretted. But gradually church people rallied to the cause, even if some continued to think it was not really their business, and incomers from England assumed that churches were part of the landscape and should not need money.

Perhaps the earliest scheme was "Bishop Rose's Fund" set up after 1690 for the relief of distress amongst ejected Episcopal clergy, and amalgamated into a Friendly Society in 1795, but this depended on the wealthy and some legacies. From 1903 congregations were expected to contribute to the Aged and Infirm Clergy Fund, though some never did, and clergy were obliged to contribute to the Widows' and Orphans Fund. After the Scottish Episcopal Church Society came into being in 1838, 32 out of the 76 congregations asked for funds from it, but, as J.Hampton Shepherd noted, "the Society never quite managed to convert the wealthier members of our Communion to the necessity for generous giving." One of the by-products of Friendly Society origins was the Equal Dividend, and well into the twentieth century there were still arguments as to which congregations received the Equal Dividend, which was given in equal amounts regardless of need, and according to archaic principles which were little understood. (10)

But when ordinary church people were asked to contribute, it was recognised that many had little cash, and a form of barter-economy evolved in which work-parties produced marvels of clothing and quilting, while home-made jams and marmalades at spring and Christmas fairs were a major part of church finance and, it must be admitted, a major means of bringing people together. For the rest, there would be gift-days, on which the clergy sat in church and received gifts, or special appeals. If this was not very efficient, it was valued just because it was painful to give in such a way, and this was thought better than regular giving. The "Duplex Envelope Scheme" was advocated from at least 1924, though under the confusing English name of "Free-Will Offering", probably to distinguish it from compulsory tithing, but there was deep distrust to be overcome. In 1927 it was attacked for preventing special appeals, and church life becoming "stereotyped". By 1930 a survey of 244 congregations, of which 180 replied, found that a third had some sort of envelope system, usually a single envelope. Others said this was "mechanical and that it made giving the matter of a system", whereas special appeals required decisions and were spiritual challenges. Other statistics were even more pessimistic, but regular giving probably made headway in city churches while small rural charges could afford to ignore it as they were not yet living in a cash economy. Yet behind this apparently unimportant difference lay a fundamental division about the nature of God; does he work in the ways of the world and is he in the world or is he quite outside and only making periodic interventions ? (11)

But even if some wealthy Episcopalians were slow to give, others were generous, and legacies and trusts made a great difference to fortunate congregations and to central funds. Perhaps the most notable of these was the Dunderdale Trust, set up by Cyril Dunderdale, a manufacturer in the iron trade at Airdrie, and later in insurance, of whom his friend Dean im Thurn wrote fondly if frankly in 1937, "He never could understand the other fellow's point of view; indeed I doubt if he thought that the other fellow had a right to a point of view, except, of course, in the abstract." After he became rich, he moved to Lasswade outside Edinburgh, where he had a large house and beautiful gardens, and allowed his daughters to have horses, but was too disciplined to have a carriage or a motor for himself. "Due to the early death of his mother and the re-marriage of his father, his childhood and youth were very unhappy." "It largely accounts for his austerity and rigidity and narrowness in some respects." Of course this austerity led to greater generosity. (12)

Yet in the running of the church there was tension between the view that the bishops should give a lead, and the view that they should be constitutionally limited. In times of crisis there was a natural temptation for bishops and other leaders to make a decision, and then to present this to a grateful Representative Church Council for support. So it was with the Policy Committee. Nicholas Faith, the financial writer, has observed that the idea of the Oxbridge classical graduate as expert in any field has been replaced by that of the management expert, as if management was universally applicable. In 1974 the Policy Committee sought the advice of a management specialist and then recommended down-sizing, in those days the answer to everything, with re-training of clergy for secular work and compulsory redundancies for those above a certain age. One clergyman questioned the power of the Representative Church Council to do this and was brushed aside. The thing went through on the nod, and there was then a painful period until an arbitrator ruled that the Council had no such powers, and that Episcopal clergy had a form of parson's freehold. Reductions of clergy numbers were achieved though without the proposed measures. But the incident was a reminder of divisions in the mind of the church over the way in which power should be exercised. It was also an occasion for serious thinking on real problems to be diverted into discussion of structures and numbers. (13)