The Erosion of Calvinist Orthodoxy: Drifting from the Truth in Confessional Scottish Churches

In the nineteenth century, Scotland was a Christian nation, composed of a church-going people. Among its churches, Presbyterianism was strongest and within Presbyterianism there were several large denominations. From one perspective, the future looked bright and optimism marked many of the church leaders and congregations. Yet the fact is that most of them were blind to the presence of dangers that ultimately caused the demise and not the continued growth of the church in Scotland. Ian Hamilton looks at the changes that took place within one of these Presbyterian denominations -- the United Presbyterian Church -- and analyses the roots, developments and consequences of these changes, particularly the departure from the doctrines summarised in the Westminster Confession of Faith. It is a salutary lesson to observe that the movements for church unions and increased evangelism of the nineteenth century were not signs of spiritual health; instead they were inadequate plasters that hid dangerous spiritual disease. This book sketches the development of Confession thinking in the post reformation Church in particular how the churches developed and subsequently modified the Westminster Confession of faith

Ian Hamilton has been the minister of Cambridge Presbyterian Church since 1999 and also serves on the board of the Banner of Truth Trust.