The Lord Is My Banner
"To all that are faithful under His banner, Jesus wears a crown in the Kingdom of Heaven."
I Bob Un Sy'n Ffyddlon
by Henry Lloyd (1870 - 1946)
I don’t have any strong feelings either way about
the prospect of another Indyref but I do feel that a more
accurate name for ‘All Under One Banner’ would perhaps be ‘All Under Lots of
Banners’. Sure, it’s not as catchy but it is factually accurate.
For example, do you recall the hullabaloo over some
of the banners on display at the last Independence march in Glasgow before
lockdown?
The demo now seems like a life time ago but you may recall
that more than a few folks on social media took exception to banners displaying
messages such as ‘Tories Out’ and ‘Tory Scum’ etc. Others had then gone on to
argue that the entire Independence Movement was (by association) intolerant and
hateful towards Tories in Scotland.
This issue is of course one of the problems which
comes with building a broad mass movement which inevitably attracts tiny communist
and anarchist organisations - Small groups with big banners.
Even some of my own friends from our little Glasgow
Catholic Worker community were also in attendance at the march, since the continued
presence of Nuclear Weapons on the Clyde is very much a constitutional issue.
In reality, there are a plethora of reasons and arguments for Independence
coming from a diverse range of organisations.
A banner which caught my attention was the ‘Radical for
Independence Edinburgh’ banner which called for a ‘Democratic Secular Scottish
Republic’
Fair enough you might say, but generally speaking,
whenever faith communities hear calls for ‘secularism’ coming from Marxists and
revolutionaries, they tend to hear such calls as expressions of anti-theism. Rather
than a demand for equality or an end to any perceived accumulation of undemocratic
power and privilege.
To be fair, I can fully understand why far-left
progressives and secularists might seek to jettison any expression of
religiosity from their particular vision of a forward-looking Scotland.
To my mind, this kind of hostility to religion has
developed, mainly, as a response to our long-standing problems with
anti-Catholicism and anti-Irish racism. As well as arising from the perception
that most Churches are, by their very nature, patriarchal, oppressive and
intolerant.
Even so, is there really any need for a secular
‘year-zero’ after independence? Do Scottish Christians, with their greatly
reduced numbers, any longer have the capacity (or desire) to turn Scotland into
some kind of theocracy?
To believe that a future independent Scotland could become
some kind of Neo-Covenanter version of the Republic of Gilead, is to indulge in
the same kind of fear-mongering rhetoric which George Galloway peddled around
the notion of a Protestant supremacy during the last indyref. I happen to have
a lot more faith in the inherent goodness of my Presbyterian brothers and
sisters.
In reality, the idea of Scottish Nationalism being mildly
anti-Catholic and solidly Protestant was put to bed decades ago by the late SNP
leader Gordon Wilson, who was himself a sincere Christian and Free Church
adherent. Thinking on Gordon Wilson, it seems somewhat odd that there are now some
pockets of hostility to religion within the wider independence movement and
indyleft.
A movement which was forged by Presbyterian Christians
like Gordon Wilson, a man who was not only respected for reaching out to the Catholic
Community in Scotland but was also widely admired for his human decency and
social conscience.
More so, we sometimes (wrongly) assume that
dwindling congregations are a disaster for parishes. Yet, three positive changes
take place when Church membership goes into decline; Cultural Christianity tends
to disappear to the point where only the faithful remain. Our obligation to
others and the desire to serve replaces the temptation to rule or dominate; meanwhile
an emphasis on ecumenism and reconciliation tends to grow.
It’s also worth noting that while Church attendance
is indeed in decline, Church affiliation still accounts for a significant
number of Scots. In reality, Sunday worship is collapsing at the same dramatic
rate as trade union and political party affiliation, along with participation
levels in community councils, fraternal associations, social clubs, bowling
clubs, angling clubs and every other kind of collective activity.
None of this is a cause for celebration, civil
society in Scotland is in retreat and our communities are becoming less
associational, more atomised and individualistic. Middling institutions such as
Churches are essential in a democracy as to overcome the powerful sovereignty
of state and market which too often seeks to commodify
and dehumanise every area of our lives.
This is why faith communities are very often
involved in Community Organising alongside other community groups, as a method
for returning power to people. It’s also why Catholic Social Teaching uses the
language of subsidiarity and personalism rather individualism, just as it
speaks of communitarianism rather than collectivism.
Or in other words, the vast majority of Scottish
Christians aren’t especially interest in waging some kind of culture war but
neither do they wish to be marginalised or voiceless in the public square.
Instead, they are interested in creating a peaceful coexistence which allows us
all to bring forth our gifts and flourish together.
Interestingly, it was within this same context of a small
nation resisting the encroachment of a secular state dominated by unfettered
capitalism, that the Calvinist Dutch Prime Minister Abraham Kuyper’s concept of
‘sphere sovereignty’ took shape early in the 20th century.
Like the aforementioned SNP Leader Gordon Wilson,
Kuyper built a shared liberty and sought a common good between religious,
secular, Catholic, Protestant and Humanist in The Netherlands through the
application of his ‘sphere of sovereignty’ theory derived from his Christian
faith.
Yet, regardless of how we all feel about
constitutional change, it’s clear that if the Independence movement is ever to
move beyond the 45% then it needs to take a more reconciliatory approach.
Especially towards social conservatives, monarchists, religious people and yes,
even the Tories referenced in banners displayed on all the marches to come over
the next 12 months once restrictions on large public gatherings have been
lifted.
Maybe they could even learn something from the
origins of the Welsh independence movement. It’s no coincidence that two of the
most prominent early leaders of Plaid Cymru; R. Tudur Jones and John Edward
Daniel, were also both leading theologians in the Welsh Calvinistic-Methodist
tradition. It’s been said that that both
the theology and nationalism of Jones and Daniel can be summed up by the phrase
“Asks nothing for itself that it does not wish for others."
Paradoxically, it is exactly this shared ‘cultural
union’ with Welsh Christian Socialism, rather than Westminster, which I’d miss
the most if Scotland was ever to break with the rest of Britain.
Dylan Thomas, Nye Bevan and the Treorchy Choir etc are all positive aspects of British working
class culture which I admire and I would be deeply sorrowful to be cut adrift from
this shared heritage. Indeed, speak to any old
Scots miner and they’ll talk to you about the Aberfan
disaster with such knowledge and solidarity, that you’d be forgiven for thinking
that the disaster had taken place in their own Ayrshire or Lanarkshire mining villages.
Nonetheless, this pursuit of the common good,
combined with a desire to self-manage elements of its own affairs, while contributing
to our civic life, is the value that all our Gurdwaras, Churches, Mosques and
Synagogues can bring to a modern Scotland.
Scotland would be greatly diminished without our faith
communities and the positive role which they can play in mediating between
state and market, especially at this critical moment in our country’s long history,
a history which, for better or worse, has always included the presence of religion.
