Paul James-Griffiths of Christian Heritage Edinburgh writes, “This is now my final article for the series, which covers 210 weeks. We hope you have been inspired and challenged over the months and years by these articles. Today’s one ends with the 21st century and is a reflection on the state of things in Scotland today. My book, What has Christianity ever done for Scotland?, which is based on these articles, will be out in January, 2026.
Image: Chris Fenning, 8 April 2020
As we come close to completing the first quarter of the twenty-first century, it is time to briefly assess where Scotland is today in its spiritual journey. If we could somehow bring some of the great Christian leaders back to life from previous centuries, and place them in a city like Edinburgh or Glasgow, they would probably be paralysed with shock and disbelief. The freedoms that they won for us, often in their own blood, came with God’s boundary stones. Democracy for them in church or state was under God; human rights were not about people getting whatever they want, but about God’s rights first, followed by human rights under his order. When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, he replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all of your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40, NKJV). Scripture says, “Cursed is the one who moves his neighbour’s landmark [boundary stone]. And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’” (Deuteronomy 27:17). By removing God’s standards, which protect people, we have inherited a curse which is destroying Western civilization.
As we progressed into the twenty-first century, we discovered that the Christian faith had become irrelevant to the majority of the people of Scotland. The Christian voice has been largely drowned out by atheism and hedonism. Christians had mostly retreated to the corners of our culture. Liberalism, the darling child of the Enlightenment, gave birth to political correctness; political correctness gave birth to woke, and in turn, woke gave birth to extreme woke. Christians found themselves not just ignored, but facing a new era of persecution as LGBTQ+ took centre stage. Christians found themselves becoming cancelled in the so-called “culture war”; some had bank accounts, or Facebook accounts closed down for expressing traditional Christian beliefs about marriage and sex. Others began losing their jobs, or were not allowed in some public buildings. Street preachers started to be handcuffed by the police, and pro-life activists began to be arrested for thought-crimes, of praying in their heads near abortion clinics.
Everything in our culture began to be shaken. Corruption in politics, banks, the church, and in all areas of life started to come to the surface. The pandemic of 2020-2021 was replaced by war between Russia and Ukraine. This was followed on its heels by the atrocities of Hamas on 7 October, 2023. We began to see a new movement erupt, not just in Scotland and the UK, but across the whole of Western civilization: the pro-Palestine marches began to dominate the news, alongside tensions between locals and multitudes of illegal, mostly Muslim immigrants. A strange alliance between woke people, Marxists and Muslims began to grow in strength. It seems as if this force would tear Western civilization apart, bringing self-destruction to our culture. We have now entered a different era: for decades we experienced general apathy, now polarization is happening across Scotland and the UK. Those who dare to question, or challenge extreme woke or Islam, are labelled “fascists”, or “far right”, or “Islamophobic”, even if such people are actually moderate people, or liberals.
We now live in a culture which is crumbling down in every part of society, from government to education, healthcare and family. The very things that had been pioneered over centuries of sacrifice and hard work, seem to be falling to pieces. It is as if the glue binding everything together has been removed. The curse is consuming our culture. Some people began to wonder where we had gone wrong. At first, few could connect up the dots and realise that the glue was the Christian faith, and that the very structure of our civilization had been largely built on Christian values. As far as the majority was concerned, Christianity, like the sea on a sandy beach, had gone far out beyond sight, leaving only traces of its influence in rock pools.
Sometime in 2023, some Christians began to feel the onshore wind from the sea. After a period of slack water, when nothing much seemed to be happening, the tide began to turn, imperceptibly, at first, and then others also began to notice it. We began to hear and read of brave individuals, who not only were sounding the trumpet to alert the nation and Western civilization about the coming internal dangers, but also began calling people back to a Christian worldview. The extraordinary thing about this, is that most of these trumpet-blowers are not Christians! And then this year (2025) we began to hear of the “Quiet Revival” in the UK. We have also discovered during conversations with Christians who visit our Christian Heritage Centre, that the same movement is growing all over Europe and in America. Generation Z is on a quest to find God, and they are discovering Christ through the internet, and by reading the Bible on their mobile phones.
It may be in the UK and in Scotland, that we are poised to see a huge harvest of people coming into the churches, not just from Gen Z, but also from people of all age groups and walks of life. But will the churches be ready? Will their nets hold? Are the biblical structures in place to cope with the return of the sea? Time will tell. Whatever happens during the next quarter of the century, we know that Christ has promised to build his church, but it will be purified through trials and persecution. Christians will either be loved or hated, but we must remain true to our Lord, whatever the cost, and encourage ourselves by the great crowd of witnesses in Scotland who have gone before us.
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2, NKJV).