Ian Meredith

Lost and Forgotten Ian Meredith

The stereotype of the Scottish Episcopal Church as being 'The English Church'; middle-class and 'mainly Anglo- Catholic' has been challenged in the past few years by academics who have discovered 'lost and forgotten' groups of people, who in some cases made up the majority of our congregations. Patricia Meldrum's book 'Conscience and Compromise' uncovered a significant, but now forgotten evangelical constituency now largely forgotten. Rowan Strong's 'Episcopalianism in Nineteenth century Scotland' uncovered a church which was mainly working-class, and strong in the Highlands. Ian Meredith's research has uncovered another 'lost and forgotten' group - migrants from Northern Ireland, who from the mid 19th century made up the majority of our congregations, such as Paisley, Girvan, Dumbarton, etc which were all founded as missions to the Irish. None of these groups, however, felt welcome in the Church, which by the 20th century was becoming more English, middle class, liberal and Anglo-Catholic, and as time passed, were made unwelcome, largely forgotten and airbrushed from our history. In an ironical way, the history of the Episcopal Church in the west of Scotland mirrored the history of the Roman Catholic Church. The late Cardinal Gray was once asked what the Catholic Church in Scotland would have looked like if it had not been for Irish migration, to which he replied, "a lot smaller, but a lot more respectable." What might the Episcopal Church looked like, (and what size might it have been in the diocese of Glasgow & Galloway) if we had kept the Irish? This book also challenges issues faced by the Church today: to what extent are we just a holy enclave for those who are like us, or to what extent might we allow diverse cultures and theologies to have a robust sway in challenging our orthodoxies; and how do we deal with pastoral sensitivity with those who hold embrace deeply held views different to our own.