Stuart C Weir, is a Scottish Theolgian
Scottish land today is comprised of historic and consequent present-day frustrations. Particular episodes from Scotland’s past have created fault lines not of primordial and subterranean origin, but of human making. It is essential to name these pejorative blights from history because they loom large over contemporary Scottish life due to injuries sustained between would-be dwellers and the land. Such narratives are culturally defining in Scotland and thus essential to pay heed to, even if they are not the Church’s primary shapers. After identifying some painful cultural recollections this essay will highlight some alternative waymarks which must theologically inform how we frame historical problems which have caused contemporary difficulties of and on the land.
The Story We Find Ourselves In
The loudest of such stories which shrieks out like a recurring, haunting klaxon is that of the Highland Clearances (1750-1860). Scotland was changing due to mass industrialisation. Southern industrialists and sheep farmers saw an opportunity to make a lot of money in buying up and/or farming Scotland’s cheap land in a new way. Historian Tom Devine depicts the scene:
“The new order and the old pastoral economy were fundamentally incompatible as not only was there intense competition for scarce land but the rental return from sheep was significantly higher than that from cattle. This was not only because of price differences in the market resulting from the new industrial demand for wool but also because sheep used land more intensively and extensively than cattle. They were able to graze in areas formerly underutilized in the old pastoral economy. Landlords also stood to gain from more secure returns. Sheep farms were normally run by big graziers who could guarantee the proprietor a regular and rising income in most years, whereas small tenants were much less dependable.[i]“
Families who for generations had worked certain fields and hills were now ousted from their crofts and farms to make way for the efficiency of new sheep graziers who greased the palms of Highland landowners. Sheep are selective grazers who go for the most nutritious plants. Over time, as a consequence of the introduction of these non-native beasts, the vegetation became degraded and more uniform. Unlike cattle, sheep grazed back all the young woodland growth, thus altering the futurity of native woodland in the Highlands. Such novel sheep farming caused widespread social dislocation for the shepherds and farmers of the old ways. Families had no option but to seek work in the booming mass industry of the river Clyde. In what looks like in today’s terms a shift in markets with subsequent economic casualties, was taken to extreme levels between 1807-21 when the factors of the Countess of Sutherland and Lord Stafford forcibly removed 6,000-10,000 locals to coastal crofts.[ii] Torn from the land they had worked and belonged to for generations, Scots continue to retell the pain of these Clearances from land to which they belonged.
It would be a glaring omission to occlude the power struggles over land possession regarding the Scottish/English border. One of the last iterations of such a struggle took place during the 18th century when it was decided by the Wales and Berwick Act 1746 that ‘Berwickshire’ was to be Scottish, whereas its corresponding town ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed’ was to be English. The dozen or so tit for tat reclamations of Berwickshire by the Scots and English was initially precipitated by England’s invasion and taking of Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1482 during the Anglo-Scottish wars.[iii] So keenly felt is this ancient history that even as recently as 2008 longstanding Scottish Nationalist Borders MSP, Christine Grahame, called for the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed to “come back into the fold”.
In the early 1990s the patience of Isle of Eigg residents ran out due to issues surrounding an absentee landlord which was stymieing decision making about life and work. Given mounting difficulties which required resolution on the island, locals sought to take matters into their own hands. Yet without legal permission to act their hands were tied and tensions eventually boiled over. It took an immense, complex “theology of insistence”[iv] on Eigg over seven years to realise a community owned island by its own residents, which eventually took place on 12th June 1997. This was the first of several efforts to bring about community buy-outs by island-dwellers motivated by the need to govern their own affairs. This pioneering change of how Isle of Eigg is governed has seen it become one of the most innovative communities in United Kingdom today.
In 1991 the proposal to blow up Mount Roinebhal on the Isle of Harris, an area of outstanding natural beauty, was another sign that those who did not live on and work the land were making inalterable decisions which would devastate it as well upon those who continued to live there. Scottish businessman Ian Wilson had acquired the mineral rights of numerous sites where mountain foundations met the ocean. Mount Roinebhal was one of these. The idea for Mount Roinebhal was to gouge out a large quarry from the bombsite and quarry 200,000 tons of stone per annum, reducing the 1500-foot summit to a mass hollow below sea level. But industrialists such as Wilson had never considered the question, “[w]hat is the mountain actually for?”[v] Blowing it up and quarrying its contents for a limited time was only ever a means towards making money. After a huge environmental campaign in the media, the mountain was saved.
This small handful of examples are far from exhaustive, but instead highlight how critical any acts upon all/portions of land can be. They provide a modicum of context to how people live, think, and in some cases, and handicap dwellers today. And yet, these stories should not become the dominant tales of the Scottish Church. They may remain stories which the Church reflects upon, but they should not be her primary narratives. Yet they recollect societal stories which mark us out as dwellers in and of Scotland.
The Politics of Scottish Land
Who owns Scotland? Such is the penetrating question of writer, researcher and former MSP Andy Wightman. Rural Scotland accounts for 98% of all Scottish land.[vi] Only 17% of Scotland’s (almost) 5.5 million population live rurally. And the majority of this rural land is privately owned. According to Wightman, over half of Scotland’s rural land is owned by as few as 432 landowners. Three percent of Scotland’s land is in community ownership like the Isle of Eigg.[vii] Moreover, the state is the dominant owner of Scottish land with government funded organisations like Land and Forestry Scotland and Nature Scot making up a huge proportion of it.
The Scottish Government has since 2015 been attempting land reform legislation. 2024 has seen additional legislation being scrutinised through committee at the Scottish Parliament.
The Scottish Government is committed to an ongoing programme of land reform, aimed at bringing about “a Scotland with a strong and dynamic relationship between its land and people, where all land contributes to a modern, sustainable and successful country, supports a just transition to net zero, and where rights and responsibilities in relation to land and its natural capital are fully recognised and fulfilled.[viii]
The Scottish Government intends to interact with lots of communities in Scotland where land is becoming available in order to give communities the opportunity to input on how and who buys said land. At this draft stage, the Scottish Government hopes to balance matters by allowing a range of new owners of land while being careful to not allow any monopolisation of it. There is a long journey of travel expected for this draft legislation given that Scotland has a minority government and will have to make concessions in committee.[ix]
Nevertheless, the importance of how and why we allocate land has been at the very heart of the seat of political power in Scotland for the last nine years. This is a signal of land’s present cultural significance.
Some Waymarks for a Theology of Land
Although the multifarious historical episodes of Scotland make for helpful and disturbing reading, they encourage the Church to thrust themselves upon her primary stories about the importance of land.
In surveying the biblical narrative, we discover that Adam and Eve were placed in a particular garden. The garden had an irrigating river that ran through it which broke out into four tributaries: the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris and the Euphrates (Gen. 2.10-14). Sin meant an expulsion from that precise garden. A forcible displacement was but one of many consequences for attempting life without reliance upon the Creator. It is worth noting that the act which breached full communion with God was the plucking of fruit from a tree of taboo. The first sin was wrapped up in doubting that this sole tree was fair game for food. The risk of overstepping the borderlands for untapped foliage, even despite real perimeter clarity from the Creator, is not only instructive about how life should unfold for humans, but it is also a warning shot across the bow regarding sustenance, land and obedience to God’s command.
Abram was commanded by God to relocate from Haran near Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of the Canaanites which was earmarked for him and his descendants (Gen. 11.31-12.4). This Canaanite land was specified by God as the territory He wished Abram and his caravan to be present upon. As Pentateuchal readers gradually discover, there was a divine strategy to this foreign land being identified. In terms of climate for living and conditions for farming, Abram’s new location happened to be ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ (Ex. 3.8). Not that Abram was ever able to govern this place in his lifetime; that moment came later under Joshua’s leadership.
It is noted that under certain trees the LORD revealed Himself to Abram: (i) the oak of Moreh near Shechem (Gen. 12.6-9), and (ii) at the oaks of Mamre (Gen. 13.14-18; 18.1-15). In Beersheba He manifested Himself to Isaac (Gen. 26.24-5). To Jacob He made Himself known in Bethel, near Luz (Gen. 28.10-22). The fact that the LORD chose to reveal Himself in these precise places is why they are named and why the patriarchs built altars to worship Him there. Over time the God of these patriarchs insisted on being identified with these men, men who belonged to the land He had marked out for them to inhabit. Indeed, the land itself was named ‘Israel’ after Jacob was renamed with the very same name. The man ‘Israel’, then, bore the same name as the land his descendants had occupied. Both the people and the land they lived in became interdependent in a way God intended. This is instructive for how necessarily integrated humans are, whether this is recognised or not today, with the turf on which we all stand, sit, work on and eat.[x]
The Temple became the permanent manifestation of the previously roving Tabernacle in the position of Mount Zion. It was these unique coordinates that the LORD not only wished for His people Israel (provision was made for Gentiles too) to come and worship Him, but in which He elected to restrict His presence atop the Ark of the Covenant. This place became significantly enhanced precisely because God Himself chose to reside at an enclosed part of this cultic edifice. This place became particularly special because of God’s immanent presence there. In the small room called ‘theholy of holies’ the Creator and Deliverer of His people chose to dwell amongst His people. He restricted His presence to this place, inviting the high priest to serve Him there.
In summary of the Old Testament, it is clear and obvious that God, his people, and the Promised Land were all intended by God for a thoroughgoing intersection. God’s people were to worship and honour Him in the land. Concomitantly, God’s people were to take care of the land by allowing it its sabbath, fallow years. Sabbath was not simply for humans, but for all creation. For if the tending of the land took place without any worship of God, inevitably the people drifted into moral decay, typically manifested in idolatry under trees or upon high places (e.g. 1 Kings 14.23). When the people worshipped the LORD but neglected the land, not only was this a sin and blight against the land, it was considered a sin against the LORD too, punishable by exile (2 Chron. 36). It is useful, therefore, to consider a relational view of place between God, His people, and the land in triangular dynamic to best characterise how God desired life to be.[xi]
Many in the Scottish Church today believe that with the advent of Jesus of Nazareth that the Old Covenant emphasis on land has been ‘ditched’ with the new dispensation of the full revelation of this God Man. But this is only partly accurate. There are two moments in Jesus’ ministry which give ongoing prominence to place which blurs the suggestion that the specificity of place is gathered up into Christ and therefore bears no relevance. These are negative examples but are nevertheless illuminative. (i) Jesus castigates two Galilean towns, Chorazin and Bethsaida, for not believing in the power of the miraculous done in their very streets and homes (Matt. 11.21; Lk. 10.13). All of Jesus’ acts did not convince these townspeople that the good news of the kingdom required them to repent and live in an alternative manner. These towns are identified as territories which have chosen poorly to the extent that Jesus’ woes fall upon them. Jesus did not categorise all places in such a way. There was something particularly awry in these two towns which needed addressing. Their cultures were such that the news of the kingdom coming near evoked opposition, deflection, or indifference. (ii) Jesus despairs of Jerusalem, the city in which God’s presence was once pleased to dwell through Temple sacrifice, at the city’s lack of spiritual intelligence in detecting His arrival as Messiah. The oblivious nature of Israel’s capital, ‘the city of our God’ (Ps. 46.4), in dismissing Him who had finally arrived after centuries of storytelling and expectation was worthy of tears. Here lies an example of a place bearing no relationship with its Messiah, the One in their midst. It was Jerusalem herself who had the greatest of opportunities to willingly throw herself at the feet of the One who brought all things into being out of nothing, but was clueless to what she was missing. Jesus wept at the reality that this place was so undiscerning.
With Jesus’ announcement and proclamation of the kingdom of God in Luke 4.18-19, the fulfilment of an Isaianic prophecy began taking concrete form: ‘The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners,to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn’ (Isa. 61.1-2). This is significant because Isaiah 61.1-2 rehabilitates the year of Jubilee principle for the land as outlined in Leviticus 25.10-55. Jesus’ messianic campaign launch, then, sets out that ‘You shall observe my statutes and faithfully keep my ordinances, so that you may live on the land securely’ (Lev. 25.18). In this messianic era jubilee debts are written off and domestic servitude is eradicated. There is forgiveness of past debts (literal debts), liberty to set up life differently, and ecological reform too. Correspondingly, communities of this jubilee practice live and act messianically in keeping with the Messiah. They advocate for and seek to arrange a social programme befitting of Luke 4 building upon Leviticus 25. Such communities end up being prophetic insofar as they become “contrast societies” in and of themselves. When these efforts bear fruit, this becomes really good news for the homeless, low-income families, ecological hopefuls, and for the disenfranchised![xii]
From the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament there have been seers who saw pictures of the specific place of Mount Zion being linked with the fulfilment of the Abrahamic blessing (Gen. 12.1-3) and the culmination of world history. These visions foresaw a pilgrimage towards Mount Zion, people being drawn in by the magnetic tractor beam of God’s glory (Isa. 2.2-4; Mic. 4.1-3). Once again, this picture identifies the very rise on which Israel’s Temple was always located in eschatological fulfilment of created life. This vision is international in scope rather than solely national. The very place in which the God of Creation and Redemption chose to locate Himself in days gone by will be the very place where fulfilment, justice and peace will emanate from across the whole earth. Nowhere else is singled out except Mount Zion. It’s not the highest peak in the world, but it’s a place of especial significance due to God’s persistent presence there. Fulfilment will move from the particularity of Mount Zion to widen out with universal scope.
Following the example of the Patriarchs and 2nd-4th century AD Egyptian/Syrian Christian monasticism, the earliest followers of Jesus in Scotland, who were missionaries from Ireland, sought out distinct places in which to set up Christian communities. (i) Sometimes the location of these was due to God’s revealing Himself to them. After all, “[i]f a mountain was sacred, it was not because of its impressive height or any noumenal quality inherent in the place itself, but because Yahweh consented to be met there.”[xiii] (ii) Another rationale meant the coordinates were selected due to the æsthetic beauty of a place, knowing that their eventual place of resurrection would be in glorious surroundings, enhanced significantly by Christ’s parousia.[xiv] (iii) And different again was the approach to place which sought complete isolation in wild places so as to prevent any distraction from the world as they sought the face of God.[xv] (iv) Further still, locations for some Christian communities demarcated where prominent Christians were born or died.[xvi] Following the approach of seeking a location where God reveals Himself, Glasgow born bishop and abbot Kentigern (died 614AD) once went wandering for God in Wales. In seeking God for where to build a Christian community, a white wild boar presented itself. The appearance of this rare animal was interpreted as the answer to his question in prayer. For the boar was understood to represent the Holy Spirit, not unlike His appearance as a dove at Jesus’ baptism.[xvii] The very place where God appears must be marked, remembered and hallowed. Such places are regarded as ‘thin places’; locations where the membrane between earth and heaven appear to be more permeable than other places. These are places which God has identified, not His followers.[xviii]
Place matters. Place should matter a lot more than it does in the Christian psyche and in Christian practice because where we stand, eat, work, sleep and play matters to God. These are but a smattering of the Church’s stories about the significance of land.
Contemporary Land Problems and a Suggestion
On 16th May 2024 the Scottish Government declared a nationwide housing emergency due to their decision to cut £200 million from the housing budget. Additionally, there are 100,000 homes lying empty in Scotland today in desperate need of retrofitting. Given these statistics it is unsurprising and yet maddening that “[t]he most severe and immediate forms of homelessness … have risen by 11% since 2020.”[xix] This is nothing to say of the mounting figure of “now around 130,000 people on social housing waiting lists at any given time.”[xx] What if government were able to equitably distribute small parcels of land to singles, couples, millennials and zennials, all unable to access the housing/rental markets, allowing them to build their own dwelling? This might be one solution to dealing with the embarrassing figure of humans hoping to not end up defaulting on their mortgage because of the second quarter of 2023s insane spike in interest rates, or indeed those who do or who are close to ending up sleeping rough.
It was also recently announced (9th April 2024) by the Pesticide Food Network that there are forever chemicals embedded in over half of the U.K.s healthy foods such as in strawberries, cherries and grapes. Due to irregulated pesticide sprays on these food stuffs there is “exposure to some PFAS chemicals [which] decreases fertility, impacts childhood development, and is linked to several cancers.”[xxi] Moreover, on 15th May 2024, it was reported by the Trussell Trust that “[b]etween 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, these food banks distributed 262,400 emergency food parcels, including almost 156,200 parcels for families with children.” What if the aforementioned rural dwellings necessarily included space to grow food, thereby bypassing the recklessly unhealthy standards of mass mechanised food production? What if scarcity began to swing towards self-sustainability as people learned how to produce their own food from the land? What if such local food production precipitated its own local exchange economies? What if such a concept engendered the instinct to invite one’s neighbours to your table and hearth to get you through another day?
Given how special to God land is as one part of His creation, what if a retrieval of preindustrial ways of using land, motivated by the Church’s primary stories, open up vistas where there are currently no solutions whatsoever? Living on the land, from the land, would forge afresh life in close proximity with “the community of creation”.[xxii] To increasingly interact with the air, sea, sky, trees, plants, rocks, mountains, as well as with all animate species, being fully conscious of and sensitive to them, is to take one’s place as but one creature (albeit as vice regents of the rest) in God’s creation. What if we chose to rearrange life not trying to ‘make a living’, but instead, made living itself in the Holy Spirit the tenor of our lives? Only by allowing the primary clues of Scripture to permeate our thinking as they intersect with societal challenges and historical chains might we find our way forward. The way forward could very well be the way back.
To grow and develop one’s own humble piece of land would provide necessary but meaningful work in a Scottish society which currently has 130,000 unemployed. With soaring costs to afford energy providers’ bills, supermarket food bills, transport costs rising, and salaries nowhere near matching inflation, can a different way of living be conceived? One possibility would be for people to affordably possess new pieces of land on which a home could be built (housing), growing their own food (sustenance) and thereby creating meaningful work for themselves. This could be a future worth living for. And by so establishing ourselves to particular spaces in the land perhaps the God of Jesus will reveal Himself and speak in fresh ways to us today.
[i] T.M. Devine, The Scottish Nation: 1700-2007, London: Penguin Books 2006, 176-7
[ii] Devine, Scottish, 177
[iii] Magnus Magnusson, Scotland: The Story of a Nation, London: Harper Collins 2001, 108
[iv] Alistair McIntosh, Soil and Soul: People Versus Corporate Power, London: Aurum 2005, 271. This book tells the story of the residents of Eigg contending their way to community ownership of their island.
[v] McIntosh, Soil, 155. Chapter 14 tells the saga of the efforts to stave off industrialists from permanently obliterating Mount Roinebhal.
[vi] ‘Land Reform (Scotland) Bill Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA)’, 2.2 (accessed 18.6.2024)
[vii] ‘Land Reform (Scotland) Bill’, 2.2.2
[viii] ‘Land Reform (Scotland) Bill’, introduction 5
[ix] ‘Land Reform (Scotland) Bill’, introduction 6-9
[x] Avoiding isolationism, Israel as a people were also given clear, divine guidance on how to care for and welcome in those who were refugees or who sought asylum. See: https://logosscotland.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Logos-Shake-the-Dust-final-Feb-24.pdf
[xi] John Inge, A Christian Theology of Place, Aldershot: Ashgate 2003, 46-7
[xii] Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions (trans. Margaret Kohl), London: SCM Press 1993, 119-22
[xiii] Belden C. Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality, Oxford: OUP 2007, 46-7
[xiv] Ian Bradley, Colonies of Heaven: Celtic Models for Today’s Church, London: Darton, Longman & Todd 2009, 198
[xv] Lane, Solace, 47
[xvi] Elizabeth Rees, Celtic Saints in their Landscape, Stroud: Amberley Publishing 2011, 106, 109
[xvii] Rees, Landscape, 112-3
[xviii] Philip Sheldrake, Spaces for the Sacred: Place, Memory, and Identity, London: SCM Press 2001, 41
[xix] ‘The Homelessness Monitor: Scotland 2024’ https://www.crisis.org.uk/ending-homelessness/homelessness-knowledge-hub/homelessness-monitor/scotland/the-homelessness-monitor-scotland-2024/#:~:text=The%20most%20severe%20and%20immediate,to%20an%20estimated%2018%2C400%20households. (accessed 10.7.2024)
[xx] ‘Housing Crisis has Worsened’ https://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/opinion/24307813.katy-clark-column-housing-crisis-worsenened/ (accessed 10.7.2024)
[xxi] ‘PFAS: ‘Forever chemicals’ linked to cancer found in over half of UK fruit and vegetables’
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/pfas-forever-chemicals-cancer-uk-fruit-vegetables-b1072840.html (accessed 10.7.2024)
[xxii] For a detailed unpacking of this theology, consult: Richard Bauckham, The Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation, London: Darton, Longman and Todd 2010