Honey from the Lion: Christianity and the ethics of nationalism

Reviewed by Ian Bradley
SCM Press, 192pp, £19.99
Tablet bookshop price £18                  
Tel 01420 592974

Freedom & Faith: a question of Scottish identity
Donald Smith
Saint Andrew Press, 164pp, £14.99
Tablet bookshop price £13.50           
Tel 01420 592974

Given the overwhelmingly secular and rather shallow tenor of the debate on Scottish independence, with both sides appealing largely to narrow economic self-interest, any injection of deeper considerations is to be welcomed.  These two books, both written with the ­forthcoming referendum in mind, explore the subject from an avowedly Christian ­perspective.

Doug Gay, a Church of Scotland minister who lectures in practical theology at the University of Glasgow, unashamedly presents a Christian case for Scottish nationalism. He cites three theological traditions: Catholic Social Teaching, reformed theology and the more radical Anabaptist tradition. Despite himself belonging firmly in the second camp, it is to the third that he particularly appeals, and especially to its two main modern exponents, Stanley Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder. At times this preference gives a slightly exclusivist and isolationist feel to his ­
argument.

It is surprising that he does not make more of Catholic Social Teaching. Gay scarcely mentions its key principle of subsidiarity, nor does he engage at any point with liberation the­ology, both surely strands that might be enlisted in the construction of a theology of Scottish nationalism. Less surprisingly, when it comes to citing the Bible, he draws much more from the Old than from the New Testament. His title is taken from Samson’s remark in the book of Judges (14:14), “out of the strong came something sweet”, referring to honey made by a swarm of bees in the corpse of a lion. It provides a somewhat strained metaphor for the relationship between power and virtue, and by implication for that between the UK and Scotland. He quotes the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, rightly pointing out that most recent scholarly interpreters read it as a divine blessing on linguistic and cultural diversity and a condemnation by God of what he calls “the imperialistic, even fascistic project of ein Volk, eine Sprache”. Whether this reading ­supports a theology of nationalism, however, is very debatable.

Gay spends too long on a rather turgid and jargon-laden analysis of political theology. He only really gets into his stride halfway through when the focus turns to Scotland and its recent history. He makes surprisingly little of the argument often advanced by nationalists that Scotland has a naturally more communitarian and egalitarian ethic than England, in part springing from its different religious complexion. Rather, he contents himself with a pious wish list of 29 aims, ranging from fewer unwanted pregnancies to low levels of crime, and from fair trade to high levels of political participation, which he describes as a “narrative of the common good” springing out of a Christian vision for transforming Scotland. In truth, most people of goodwill wherever they are in the world would sign up to these aims – there is nothing distinctively Scottish about them.
Significantly, the final item in Gay’s list is “a society that glorifies and enjoys God”, a phrase that any fellow Presbyterian will instantly recognise as having its origins in the Shorter Westminster Catechism of 1647. It indicates a rather touching conservatism and traditionalism which pervades his case for Scottish nationalism. Like Alex Salmond, he cannot bring himself to ditch the monarchy and he argues for the continuance of royal regalia and other rituals in the national life and ceremonies of an independent Scotland. He also argues for a Scottish constitution which begins by “recognising the value and wisdom of the Christian tradition”, and acknowledges “the belief of many of Scotland’s people that the state is accountable to God”.

Donald Smith, director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre, is more neutral, more realistic and more radical than Doug Gay. Writing from a similar Christian standpoint and seeking to analyse and discuss Scotland’s spiritual identity, he takes an agnostic view on nationalism, arguing that “there are no presumptions in Christianity for choosing independent statehood as over against other forms of political order” although his sympathies seem to lie with independence. Much of his book is taken up with historical and cultural reflections and he is good on the shifting ­fortunes and aspirations of Scotland’s major Churches, suggesting that for a period after the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 the Roman Catholic hierarchy flirted with the nationalists, and aspired to become de facto the national Church in Scotland.

Noting that the last census showed a considerable decline in Christian belief among Scots and a concomitant rise in the number stating that they have no religion, Smith advocates a wholly secular independent Scotland without any state privileging of a particular Church or religion. For him, such an arrangement would be “a liberating one for Scottish Christianity, which is trapped within its trad­itional institutional forms”. He is exceedingly critical of the main Churches in Scotland, which he feels have betrayed and perverted both the Gospel and the country’s spiritual tradition. A very sermonic and very Presbyterian chapter entitled “Sin and Salvation”, purportedly exploring that tradition, contains lengthy Bible passages (disappointingly in the New International Version rather than one of the excellent Scots versions) and quotations from Julian of Norwich and Francis of Assisi. There is no mention in it of Columba, of the Aberdeen doctors, of Thomas Chalmers, George Matheson or George MacLeod, or any of Scotland’s other spiritual giants. As with Gay’s preference for the American theologians Yoder and Hauerwas, I find it strange that so little is made of these native figures – could it be because they were not nationalists?