A provocation to God

The notorious splitters in the Free Presbyterian Church are at it again. The Wee Wee Frees (who should not be confused with the more numerous Wee Frees) warn that Scottish independence is a risky ploy since the Act of Union copper-bottomed the protestant faith and any change to that, however well-intentioned, risks wrath and much else besides. It could be ‘a provocation to God’, no less.

It might be, you know. Though the SNP has devoted much time and effort to wooing the Catholic hierarchy, the fact remains that modern Scottish nationalism is an almost exclusively secular business. Indeed one could go further and suggest that though the nationalist revival has many causes, an oft-overlooked contributor to the SNP’s present ascendancy is the decline, indeed death, of religious Scotland.

It is not simply that the Kirk (that is, the Church of Scotland) tended to be Unionist by persuasion too.