Robert D. Anderson

“Davie's hostility to sectarianism, and to religious 'fanaticism', was perhaps part of his appeal. He acknowledged the legacy of Calvinism in his interpretation of the Enlightenment and democratic intellectualism, and continued to argue that the distinctive blend of religion, law and education was Scotland's special contribution to civilisation. But by the 1950s and 1960s, the Church of Scotland and its ministers were widely regarded in intellectual circles as a repressive force, morally censorious and culturally philistine. Davie's work, it may be suggested, was attractive to the youthful intelligentsia created by post-war university expansion. Before the war, most Scottish graduates had gone into the professions, the civil service, or school teaching. But now there were new career fields in the media, politics, and college teaching which promoted a less conformist attitude. The Reformation had long been seen as the basis for Scotland's identity and its cultural difference from England, but Davie offered a version of Scottish identity which substituted a secular intellectualism for the well-worn themes of Calvinism and John Knox, and made no appeal, either, to Kailyard sentimentality. Davie became a cult figure for journals like Cencrastus and the New Edinburgh Review, to which he contributed himself.”
― Robert D. Anderson, Writing Scottishness: Literature and the Shaping of Scottish National Identities