Paul Thomson’s frustration as a young Church of Scotland pastor led to a far-reaching search. Paul was serving a state-recognized church, in a nation where the vast majority are baptized, where Christian principles are taught in the schools, and a Christian world view and values are deeply rooted in the culture. . . yet only a small minority of the population ever shows up in church, and all the social and moral problems common to other Western nations afflict Scotland as well. What’s wrong with this picture?

It was not until he had distanced himself from the church that Paul could begin to see Scotland’s spiritual plight with new eyes. He surveys Scottish history, offering a penetrating socio-spiritual analysis of what went wrong, and illustrating the spiritual devastation that affects every aspect of society, including the church. Paul sees three main elements in the breakdown of Scottish culture, all of which are the result of alienation from creation. The Scots lost the majority of their land in centuries past, to the wealthy, to the church, to conquerors. A profound sense of dislocation, loss of dignity and rootlessness resulted. This alienation manifests itself today as:

1. Addiction – to alleviate the pain of disruption and loss; an addiction showing itself not just in substance abuse but psychologically, in addiction to power and influence.

2. Masochism – rage against injustice expressed in violence toward the self.

3. Sectarianism – as historically manifested in the clans, and now in the sacred/secular split fostered by the church.

The Church of Scotland, in Paul’s view, shares an unwitting complicity in the alienation that pervades the nation. As the established church, it has enjoyed the benefits of empire, power and wealth, and it has lost its soul and its saving message. The church needs to be saved. “We have modeled 300 years of sectarian, addictive and self-harming forms of Christianity, while in bed with empire, in the full gaze of Scotland and half the world.”

What to do then? “Start building a new future from the rubble of a failed, Scottish Christian empire, a game of releasing a ‘new Scottish Christianity,’ that loves not its old empire-lovin’ self, that will let go of the dark desire to manage God and his people… and run … into the arms of a rather more wilder Christ who seems to have no interest in congregations, services or leaders, but is full of dreams for and is passionately, intimately involved with His land of haggis, neeps and tatties… to re-find their faith in his warm friendship in the healing of his land.”

And what about church? Paul redefines it entirely. “Church is no longer a wee clan or a kind of religious primary school or some thing you idolise or upkeep or visit or manage, but church at its depths, breadth and height stretches and becomes an ontology, a whole way of being, 24-7. It is a covenant with God and with the land and its people in that particular locality – a covenant to see it through to the bitter end no matter what it costs, ’til all people, all the powers that be and all of creation itself in that specific locality come to perceive the height and depth and breadth of God’s love in Christ Jesus.”

Because the institutional church itself needs to be freed from its cultural captivity, Paul is convinced the place for the gathering of God’s people for the time being must be outside the structures of the traditional church. Sitting in an outdoor coffee shop, Paul looked at the urban landscape of Edinburgh and declared, “This is my church.”

Paul Thompson, former Church of Scotland pastor, now has a larger parish than ever before.