ABSTRACT
In September 2014, Scotland will hold a referendum on whether to secede from the United Kingdom. Scotland’s political position on the island of Britain has long been intertwined with religion. Religion was used as Scotland’s legitimating argument for medieval statehood and, later, as a key rationale for joining with England in the Great British project. Yet observers of contemporary Scotland will find little in its political culture to suggest either that religion has a central role in Scottish society or that religious differences map onto party cleavages. For sure there are religious voices in politics, not least in contentious ethical areas such as gay marriage and abortion. On the key issues of who feels Scottish and what Scotland should be, however, religion is largely absent. This chapter explores that absence by noting the (re-)imagining of Scotland through religious lenses over its history and exploring the far-reaching secularisation undergone by late modern Scotland. It then demonstrates the extremely limited role of religion with relation to three core political issues: national identity, political partisanship and the constitutional issue.
