Constitutional issues at the end of Elizabeth's reign - free access to journal article during March 2014

Will King Charles be able to be declared 'Defender of Faith' and not 'Defender of the Faith'

Why a new monarch has to declare the Protestant Faith.

Why a new monarch, according to the Acts of Union, swears to 'maintain and preserve the True Protestant religion

Will the next monarch be the Head of the Commonwealth?


For free access to an article in British Politics during March 2014 click the following link

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/bp/journal/v7/n2/full/bp20123a.html

IRRELIGIOUS SCOTS - A HALF OF SCOTS NOT RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL - 26% SAY THERE IS NO GOD

                                                                    

John Knox would be dismayed

Findings from a recent social survey emphasise the great diminution in the influence of religion in contemporary Scottish life

A half of Scots say they are not spiritual or religious 

Only 35% Scots say that they are now influenced by Christianity 
while 62% say they were influenced by Christianity when they were a child or a young person.

Just over a half of Scots (53%) say they are not currently influenced by religious or spiritual attitudes 

11% say that they are influenced by other religions

21% of Scots prayed in the previous month; 8% read a holy scripture in the last month

82% of Scots do not attend religious or spiritual events with other people

BELIEF IN GOD
27% believe that there definitely is a god or higher power; 21% say there probably is

16% say there is probably NOT a god or higher power; 26% say there definitely is NOT a god or higher power.

11% don't know

Data source

62 years ago today - Queen Elizabeth's oath to maintain and preserve the 'True Protestant Religion'

On 8 February 1952 (62 years ago today) Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom swore the following oath, required by the Acts of Union of 1707, at the Accession Council, two days after the death of her father, George VI

‘I, Elizabeth the Second (sic) by the Grace of God of Great Britain, Ireland and the British dominions beyond the seas, Queen, Defender of the Faith, do faithfully promise and swear that I shall inviolably maintain and preserve the Settlement of the True Protestant Religion as established by the laws of Scotland in prosecution of the Claim of Right and particularly an Act entituled an Act for the Securing the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government and by the Acts passed in both Kingdoms for the Union of the two Kingdoms, together with the Government, Worship, Discipline, Rights and Privileges of the Church of Scotland’.

(National Archives of Scotland 1952 37(3) 496/4 Scottish Home Department 11 February. Certified copy).

The Scottish Government in its independence plan ‘Scotland’s Future’ pledges not to change the legal status of any church or religion in Scotland (Q590) even though the Scottish Parliament has more than once passed a motion urging the repeal of the Act of Settlement of 1701 which excludes Roman Catholics from succession to the throne.

This topic is explored in much greater depth in ‘Monarchy, religion and the state’ by Norman Bonney. Details at; http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9780719089879 

Field Marshall Haig - a man with honour in his own time

Alan Massie is correct in his column (8 January) to remind your correspondent Alan Hinnrichs who offered such a damning indictment (6 January) of Field Marshall Haig, the commander of UK forces on the Western Front in France and Flanders for much of the First World War, that he was widely respected in his own time for his leadership role in the catastrophic battles and eventual victory - a victory that probably had to do not only with German exhaustion but also the imminent arrival in battle of tens of thousands of fresh American troops. 

The Edinburgh born General, commemorated with a plaque in Charlotte Square, was the heir of the wealthy whisky producing family and was made an Earl after the war in recognition of his roles.He was granted the freedom of both the City of Edinburgh and the City of Glasgow in the Peace Celebrations of July 1919, following the conclusion of peace treaties at Versailles.

In 1924 the Glasgow Herald reported that 'there is unbounded satisfaction that the honour of unveiling Glasgow's war memorial will fall to Earl Haig. Since the Field Marshall has returned from France he has not spared himself on behalf of the men who served in His Majesty's forces'. George Square was filled by countless thousands on that day, 31 May 1924, as they listened to the commemoration and then filed for hours past the Cenotaph and Stone of Remembrance in front of City Chambers. 

20,000 Glaswegians were estimated, by the then Lord Provost, to have died in that war

And it was the support of Haig that led to Edinburgh's  war memorial, the Stone of Remembrance in front of its City Chambers, finally being constructed and dedicated some three years later, a year before he died.

Letter in the Scotsman 9 January 2013

Church of Scotland minister expelled as chaplain from Glasgow school; council education chiefs and school heads act as religious functionaries and censors

The expulsion of a Church of Scotland minister as the chaplain at a Glasgow Council Gaelic School for expressing his religious and political views, following upon the recent expulsion of a Christian  evangelical chaplain at another Scottish school, raises profound issues about the access of religious groups to pupils in our state schools.

Local authorities and school head teachers are, in fact, acting as censors and religious functionaries in determining which religious organisations will be allowed into our schools and which religious views will be allowed to be expressed to pupils.

Is it not time to end religious observance in schools?

END, NOT AMEND, SCOTS SCHOOL PRAYERS

For more on the latest expulsion of a school chaplain visit http://bit.ly/1cVjsF6

Who are the nones? People with no religion tend to be pretty average folk

I recently examined data about the characteristics of people with no religion compared to those who have religions of various types.

There is need to do this because official studies frequently focus more on the different religious denominations rather than thinking systematically about the growing proportion of the population that has no religion - 37 per cent in the 2011 Scottish census. For instance, the informative source I consulted (see below) summarises its findings for well known religious groups but not for those with no religion. So here I offer a quick summary.

Those who report to surveys and censuses that they have no religion tend to be not that much different from the average citizen,

They have about average employment rates and are spread around a typical selection of occupations.

They have less wealth than average but this may be because they tend to be younger. They live across all types of neighbourhoods in the same way as the general population.

Slightly healthier and slightly more inclined to drink

Some statistically significant but small differences emerge with respect to health. The non-religious are slightly less likely than average to be obese, to have cardio-vascular disease or diabetes and are more likely to meet the daily recommended levels of exercise.

However, like Roman Catholics, 28 per cent of them smoked, compared to the national average of 25.

The non-religious are also more likely to exceed daily recommended alcoholic intake limits at 41 per cent compared to the national Scottish average of 39.

One thing the biggest differences that mark out the non-religious is that they are much more likely to go to the cinema. 60% of them do compared to 54% overall and 44% for Church of Scotland adherents.

For more information visit http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00420970.pdf
The summary of the report is available at p37-8 with no mention of the near 40% with no religion.

Religion and the Scottish independence referendum

Abstract of article in the December 2013 issue of the

Political Quarterly

The Scottish independence referendum debate, like the Act of Union of 1707, has significant religious dimensions. The Act gave special recognition through the monarch to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Church, a national church, has not yet declared a position on independence, but is seeking to protect its existing privileges, whatever the result. The Roman Catholic Church, recognised by the Scottish Parliament, unlike its formal rejection by the UK Parliament and monarchy, symbolically associates itself with the case for independence. Paradoxically, Scottish Catholics supporting independence subject themselves, in their religious lives, to an authoritarian foreign power. The SNP Scottish Government attempts to draw Roman Catholic support for independence from its traditional support base in the Labour Party of the central belt by cultivating a sense of religious grievance that is not justified by the evidence. Old religious divisions are still relevant but non-religion is growing fast and resulting in new perspectives on the independence debate.

Full version available at

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-923X.2013.12051.x/abstract