Great Scot - The Scotch Family Magazine - Issue 151 September 2017 GreatScot_Internal_Sept_2017_FA | Page 8

Chaplain
Rev Doug Campbell – School Chaplain
REV DOUG CAMPBELL
SCHOOL CHAPLAIN
The social contribution of
Scottish Reformation
ABOVE: THE GREAT TAPESTRY OF SCOTLAND: A SCHOOL IN EVERY PARISH.
This year marks the 500th
anniversary of the Protestant
Reformation. In 1517, Martin Luther,
a little known priest and professor of
moral philosophy in the University of
Wittenberg, drafted a list of debating
points for an academic disputation and
nailed them on the door of the castle
church.
This list, the 95 Theses, questioned
certain practices of the Church and
sparked a great controversy that
would eventually lead to Luther’s
excommunication and the Reformation.
This schism in the Catholic Church would
profoundly change the face of Europe.
While the Reformation was highly
influenced by social and historical
factors, the rise of nationalism, social
unrest, the importance of the printing
press and King Henry VIII’s marriage
problems, it was also, as in the case of
Luther, a profoundly spiritual movement.
Luther and the other major Reformers
wrestled with the question of how a
6
person could be in right standing with a
holy God.
However, the Reformation did not
simply remain focused on theological
and spiritual issues. The Reformers and
successors looked beyond the church
building to the social needs of the people
in their localities. One example of this
was education in Scotland.
It was inevitable that education would
be a major theme of the Reformation. In
contrast to the Roman Catholic Church’s
emphasis on the sacrament of the Mass,
the Protestant churches’ focus moved
away from the altar to the pulpit. For it
was the preaching of the Bible, God’s
Word, that took the central place of
Protestant liturgy and practice.
John Knox, the leading figure of the
Reformation in Scotland, noted the need
for education to reflect the importance
of the Bible in Protestant piety. It was not
much use to own a Bible in their own
language rather than Latin, if the farmer
and his family could not read it. Knox and
his colleagues were quickly convinced
of the need for a ‘school in every parish’.
This meant a school connected to the
local church congregation. It also meant
that any child with aptitude would be
able to access education, no matter
their social need and financial ability. To
deny these children an education was
to impoverish both them and their local
community.
Knox’s educational vision was a
grand one. However, his task was not
without difficulty. At the beginning, the
size of the parishes, especially in the
highlands, made access to the new
schools impossible for many families.
Moreover, the expected monies from the
land and buildings owned by the pre-
reformation Church failed to materialise
due to the avarice of the noble families
of Scotland. Yet the vision for education
remained, and by the 18th century
schools were present in the main burghs
of the country. These schools taught a
curriculum that included reading, writing
Great Scot Number 151– September 2017