Edinburgh
About this date: 1560 dates major confessional and parliamentary decisions, not the first Christianity in Scotland or the instant completion of its later Presbyterian system.
Edinburgh provides a doorway into the Scottish Reformation, the Scots Confession adopted by Parliament in 1560, and the subsequent development of Presbyterian church order. John Knox's work connects Scotland with Geneva, but the Scottish outcome had its own political and ecclesiastical history.
Historical context
Christianity in Scotland predates the Reformation. A Church of Scotland institutional history is a useful confessional source, not a substitute for the perspectives of all Scottish Christians.
Key points
- The Church of Scotland's own account distinguishes the Reformation of 1560 from later developments in church courts.
- The conflicts between Presbyterian and episcopal arrangements continued after Knox.
- The 1910 Edinburgh missionary conference is another event and should not be confused with the sixteenth-century Reformation.