Scottish Gods: Religion in Modern Scotland

This book deals with the how and why of over a century of religious and cultural change. Steve Bruce explores Scotland’s transformation from the largely devout Presbyterian country of 1900, with the church as a major social force, to the diverse, more secular society of today, when less than 10 per cent of Scots attend church. He bases his study on a career’s worth of historical, ethnographic and statistical research, to provide both a coherent description of Scotland’s current religious complexion and a considered explanation of the forces that shaped it. Scottish Gods is both a fascinating summary of over a century of religious and cultural change, and a searing analysis of the state of religion in Scotland today by one of our leading social historians. It explores how religion has become more varied over time: growth in Catholicism and charismatic Christian fellowships; easternisation of Scotland’s religious vocabulary through Buddhism and Hinduism; the growth of the Muslim population, and pursuit of spiritual interests once considered pagan. It looks at the decline in the Protestant-Catholic divide. It discusses controversies over the proper public place of religion.