The Disruption is the name given to the secession of a third of the Church of Scotland’s ministers in 1843 to form the Free Church of Scotland. It came at the end of a period called The Ten Years’ Conflict during which the Church asserted and the State refused to recognise the Headship of Christ over His Church.
The cause of the conflict was patronage. This was the right of landowners to present their choice of minister to a church on their property, over the wishes of the congregation. It had been abolished in 1649, restored by Charles II in 1662, abolished again in 1690, but restored again in 1712 in an Act of Parliament contrary to the 1707 Act of Union. It was a primary cause of the Secession in 1733 and the creation of the Relief Church in 1761. By 1833, the Evangelical party in the Church of Scotland had grown to the point where the General Assembly had the will to challenge the practice.
The initial principle at stake was non-intrusion. It had been a principle in the Church since the Reformation that a minister should not be forced upon a congregation against the wishes of a majority of the people. The General Assembly in 1834 enacted legislation which gave congregations a veto over the patron’s presentee. This was challenged in civil cases which took several years to run through courts. The Church lost.
The final principle at stake was the Headship of Christ over His church. As the patrons’ and presentees’ arguments were pleaded in court and the judicial decisions confirmed them, it became clear that the courts understood the government to have an Erastian control over the Established Church of Scotland. Rather than the State recognising and supporting a pre-existing body, the courts held that in establishing the Church, the State had created it.
At this point, with all appeals exhausted, came the Disruption. In order to maintain the rule of Christ, over 450 ministers left the Established Church to form the Free Church of Scotland. Thomas Chalmers said, “Though we quit the Establishment we go out on the Establishment Principle; we quit a vitiated Establishment but would rejoice in returning to a pure one. We are advocates for a national recognition of religion – and we are not voluntaries.”
The Disruption is a reminder that there are times when the price of state recognition, even if that recognition is only tax-exempt status, can become too high.