Church and Theology in Enlightenment Scotland : The Popular Party, 1740-1800 Book

This study of Enlightenment Scotland diverts attention from the Moderate Party, with its focus on the small group of Edinburgh literati, to the unexpectedly broad-based Popular Party which opposed patronage in the Church of Scotland, and which included all shades of theological and political opinion.

As well as delineating the evolving theological re-alignment which led eventually to the 19th-century Evangelical revivals and which contributed much to the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843, the book suggests it is the emergence of an intellectually confident grouping of ministers who were orthodox Evangelicals, but "englightened" thinkers which is the most significant feature of the 18th-century Church.

The responses of the Church of Scotland to the Scottish Englightenment, to the American and French Revolutions and their associated ideas, and to the social implications of the Industrial Revolution are also considered.