Protestantism in the Hebrides

Protestantism in the Hebrides
Prostanachd

One of the most salient characteristics by which the northern Hebrides are known is its fundamentalist Calvinism.

Why should this be so?

The influence of the Catholic Church in its Celtic guise seems to have been borne lightly and not to have overwhelmed these Hebridean communities. The small chapels dotted around the island speak of a quiet and unobtrusive style of belief. There is little evidence that the centuries following the Reformation brought a great deal of change or that a strong and sustained mission had been undertaken.

By the early 19th Century there were four ministers working in Lewis, and given its scattered townships their presence could not have made much impact. The picture one gets is of a community still in touch with its own rich and ancient folklore with a world view which others were to denigrate with terms such as 'pagan' or 'superstitious'. But this was culture which was sufficiently strong to incorporate into itself elements of Christianity, once it arrived, without having to jettison its basic structure.

The evangelical belief-system that arrived in the early 19th Century changed all that. In the crude dichotomy of the Sacred and the Profane it relegated to the latter category all aspects of life other than the tenets of its own system. All elements of culture which did not fall within its own paradigm were labelled as being worldly and therefore profane. It was altogether an amazing event, where people's understanding of themselves and of the world they inhabited was transformed totally.

Evangelical activity in Lewis in the early decades of the 19th Century was varied and extensive. A crucial element is that the Lady Hood MacKenzie, the owner of Lewis, was very much for this mission and brought a number of evangelical ministers to Lewis. A parallel strand of development complemented the work of these ministers considerably: this was the Gaelic School Movement.

Another crucial element was that the Bible was now available in Gaelic for the first time. What occurred was the most significant programme of child and adult literacy ever experienced in these islands. These small schools were set up in the villages and they were open for long hours and soon generated an atmosphere where everyone was learning to read in their native language, and in so doing, learnt of another world of understanding which they could not but believe in totally.

The whole social fabric of Lewis was transformed during those years: its infrastructure was re-created along new lines and according to an entirely new system of knowing the world. This reforming of its social structure gave the people an all-encompassing, all-knowing social reality. The individual was reformed within a reformed society. The Lewis that is known today was constructed during those early years of the 19th Century: from 1820 to the mid 1840s Lewis was on the Calvinist potter's wheel.

By the 1860s the Free Church was already considering uniting with the United Presbyterian Church, but there were many who opposed such a move. But in the following decades the Free Church was developing in such a way that opposition to the proposed union was confined largely to the Highlands. Due to, 'the backslidings that had characterised the past twenty years of the Free Church', the Free Presbyterian Church was set up in 1893 by Highland ministers and elders who seceded from the Free Church. As with all seceders they felt that the Church they were leaving had changed and had betrayed its true principles and that these were being maintained only by the new seceding Church.

In 1900 the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church united to form the United Free Church, but the majority of people in Lewis did not join the new Church and instead remained within the continuing Free Church. In this the people did not follow their ministers: only two of Lewis' twelve ministers remained in the Free Church, but the vast majority of the people did. This was a time of turmoil in Lewis with heated arguments on both sides. The local minister who led the opposition to the Union was Hector Cameron of Back and the bete noire was Principal Rainy who was regarded by many as the moving force behind the Union. The 'new' Free Church set about re-establishing itself in Lewis and with meetings well-attended and at least one being held in the open air the feeling of an inspired new movement was soundly established. The Lewis Free Church was on course, with its doctrine as securely applied to Lewis as in the early part of the previous century. Elsewhere there had been chance: Free Church doctrine held the line in Lewis.

Thus the names of Rainy, Lee and Cameron, and terms such as the Declaratory Act, Higher Criticism and the 'Speckled Bible' of the United Free Church are still well-known in Lewis today.

Meanwhile the minority who joined the United Free Church were being given a rough time. Their lives were being affected by the actions of the majority; in some places they had crosses drawn on their doors with red paint. Events in Ness may not have been typical of happenings throughout Lewis after the Union but they do highlight the antipathy between the new Church and the old. The physical focus of discontent was the Church in Cross, Ness which had been built by the people a few years previously. The United Free Church minister was Rev MacDonald and the feelings for and against him in the community were expressed in both adulation and hatred. One 1901 account tells of a group of 700 anti-unionists pushing the minister and his congregation out of the church. The minister later arrived with the Sheriff Officer and the police but they were met by a crowd who barred their way. Arrests followed. Cornstacks were set alight and windows were broken. Members of the police were later locked in the church by protesters. Extra police came from the mainland and a warship was dispatched to Port of Ness. Memories of such event lasted for decades in these Lewis communities.

Thus did the Free Church continue to retain its overwhelming grip on Lewis, and has continued to do so throughout the 20th Century. The evangelicalism of the early 19th Century had established itself as the 'given' culture, to which there was no alternative provided, and its paradigm enveloped every aspect of people's lives. It had been introduced with confidence and style, not by foreign missionaries but by Gaelic-speaking Highlanders.

It is not surprising that it has taken such a long time for it to be affected significantly by change. Currently it is in the throes of potential change which is fascinating to observe. It cannot retreat further into far-flung geographical locations, known as the 'last bastion of the true Gospel'; it can only secede into ever smaller units or face the equally intriguing prospect of union. It is too deeply embedded into Lewis history and culture to be anything other than central to Lewis' future.

See also: Island Catholicism