Land, Faith and the Crofting Community: Christianity and Social Criticism in the Highlands of Scotland, 1843-1893This book probes the deep-rooted links between the land, the people and the religious culture of the Scottish Highlands and Islands in the nineteenth century. The responses of the clergy to the social crisis which enveloped the region have often been characterised as a mixture of callous indifference, cowering deference or fatalistic passivity. Allan MacColl's pioneering research challenges such stereotypical representations of Highland ministers head-on. Land, Faith and the Crofting Community is the first full-scale examination of Christian social teaching in the nineteenth-century Gaidhealtachd and addresses a major gap in the historical understanding of Gaelic society. Seeking to lay bare the existing myths by a wide-ranging analysis of all the denominational, theological and social factors at play, this study boldly overturns the received scholarly and popular interpretations. A ground-breaking work, it explores a substantial but under-utilised field of evidence and questions whether or not Highland Christians - both clergy and laity - were committed to land reform as an engine of social improvement and conciliation. The Christian contribution to the development of a distinctively Highland identity - which found expression during the Crofters' War of the 1880s - is delineated, while wider links between theology and social philosophy are examined from beyond the perspective of the Highlands. |
Contents
Presbyterian Social Thought in | 19 |
Highland Religion and Identity | 58 |
Genesis 18803 | 96 |
Copyright | |
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Land, Faith and the Crofting Community: Christianity and Social Criticism in ... Allan W. MacColl No preview available - 2006 |
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Alexander Ansdell Argyll attitudes Cameron Christian Church General Assembly Church of Scotland clearances clergy clergymen congregations cottars criticised criticism crofters crofters and cottars Crofting Community debate destitution Dingwall Disruption Donald MacCallum ecclesiastical economic Edinburgh elders emigration Established Church Established Church minister evangelical eviction evidence famine favour Free Church ministers Gaelic society Gaidhealtachd Glasgow grievances Gustavus Aird Highland evangelical Highland Land Highland Land League Highland ministers Highlands and Islands HLLRA Hunter influence Inverness Inverness-shire Ireland Irish Kilmuir land agitation land issue Land League land question land reform landlords Lewis Liberal London Lowland Macaskill MacDonald MacFarlane Macinnes Mackay MacLeod MacPhail Mactavish Meek meeting ministerial Murdoch Napier Commission nineteenth century Oban organisation parish PDGAFCS period political population poverty Presbyterian pro-land reform proprietors radical Rainy religion religious Report roman catholic Ross Scottish Highlander Skye social spiritual Stornoway Sutherland tenants theological tion United Presbyterian Waternish Wester Ross Whilst