Radical hope: Reimagining church and society in Scotland

This article proposes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the factors that have led to the Church of Scotland’s current programme of reorganisation of its presbyteries and parishes in the face of a steep decline in its membership and recruitment to ordained ministry. Drawing on sociological, philosophical, and theological sources, it argues that the Kirk is experiencing the devastation of its local parish culture and way of life as an integral part of modern, industrial Scotland under the impact of hyper-individualism in a post-industrial and post-modern Scottish society, but like the Crow tribe, it can find radical hope in its traditions.