In the past decade philosophers and political theorists have
increasingly pondered the role of religion in a modern secular
society, and of the possible value of religion as a resource for
contemporary thinking. The global resurgence of a new religious
politics ? graphically symbolised by 9/11 - has added a new urgency
to this project; how is religion to be integrated, and if necessary
contested, in such a time? As this study shows, the desire to
integrate religion into a ?progressive? politics is not new.
Providing a comprehensive analysis of the Common Wealth movement,
this work seeks to bring together for the first time the religious
and political commitments of four of the leading thinkers in the
movement, bringing to light the significance of the relationships
between them.
This study examines at four interwar British radicals ? the
philosopher John Macmurray, the novelist and sexual theorist
Kenneth Ingram, the Science Fiction writer Olaf Stapledon, and the
Liberal M.P. Richard Acland ? and examines their attempts to
develop a socialism that whilst defending the achievements of the
secular age was also sensitive to the virtues of religious
traditions. Thus it considers Macmurray's attempt to draw on the
seemingly antagonistic traditions of Marxism and Christianity,
Ingram's long struggle to develop a Christian response to ?deviant?
sexual behaviour, Stapledon's exploration of a non-Christian
religious spirit, and Acland's journey from liberal atheist to
Christian socialist. It then follows the activities of all four in
the radical political movement founded by Acland in the midst of
the Second World War, Common Wealth, particularly focusing on the
positions they took in the serious battles over the function of
religion that convulsed the leadership of this body.
This work will be of great interest to scholars of political
theory, religious studies, social and political thought.
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