|
Showing 1 - 3 of
3 matches in All Departments
Examines the role of Christianity in British statecraft, politics,
media, the armed forces and in the education and socialization of
the young during the Second World War. This volume presents a major
reappraisal of the role of Christianity in Great Britain between
1939 and 1945, examining the influence of Christianity on British
society, statecraft, politics, the media, the armed forces, and on
the education and socialization of the young. Its chapters address
themes such as the spiritual mobilization of nation and empire; the
limitations of Mass Observation's commentary on wartime religious
life; Catholic responses to strategic bombing; servicemen and the
dilemma of killing; the development of Christian-Jewish relations,
and the predicament of British military chaplains in Germany in the
summer of 1945. By demonstrating the enduring -even renewed-
importance of Christianity in British national life, British
Christianity and the Second World War also sets the scene for some
major post-war developments. Though the war years triggered a
'resacralization' of British society and culture, inherent racism
meant that the exalted self-image of Christian Britain proved sadly
deceptive for post-war immigrants from the Caribbean. Wartime
confidence in the prospective role of the state in religious
education soon transpired to be ill-founded, while the profound
upheavals of war -and even the bromides of 'BBC Religion'- were, in
the longer term, corrosive of conventional religious practice and
traditional denominational loyalties. This volume will be of
interest to historians of British society and the Second World War,
twentieth-century British religion, and the perennial interplay of
religion and conflict.
Bringing together researchers in modern British religious,
political, intellectual and social history, this volume considers
the persistence of the Church's public significance, despite its
falling membership. During the twentieth century, the relationship
between the Church of England and the British state was
transformed. The character and dynamics of the connections shifted
as politics became more democratic and society more secular,as the
role of the Crown and parliament in Church government was
curtailed, and as the Christian foundations of secular law were
weakened. Yet the increasing formal separation of Church and state
was not accompanied by ecclesiastical disengagement from politics
and government. Despite its falling membership, the Church of
England continued - and continues - to wield influence on political
life in Britain. This volume of essays brings together researchers
in modern British religious, political, intellectual and social
history to consider the persistence of the Church's public
significance. The introduction reviews the developing literature on
the relationships between the Church, the state and politics from
1900 to recent times. The essays which follow consider aspects of
these complex intersections: in parliament, party politics and the
parish; on the nature of the Church establishment and conceptions
of national identity; in religious and sexual education; on
colonial and foreign policies; on race and the multi-faith society.
In these various ways, the volume shows that pronouncements on a
modern demise of ecclesiastical influence in political life have
been premature.
This book traces the influence of Anglican writers on the political
thought of inter-war Britain, and argues that religion continued to
exert a powerful influence on political ideas and allegiances in
the 1920s and 1930s. It counters the prevailing assumption of
historians that inter-war political thought was primarily secular
in content, by showing how Anglicans like Archbishop William Temple
made an active contribution to ideas of community and the welfare
state (a term which Temple himself invented). Liberal Anglican
ideas of citizenship, community and the nation continued to be
central to political thought and debate in the first half of the
20th century. Grimley traces how Temple and his colleagues
developed and changed their ideas on community and the state in
response to events like the First World War, the General Strike and
the Great Depression. For Temple, and political philosophers like
A. D. Lindsay and Ernest Barker, the priority was to find a
rhetoric of community which could unite the nation against class
consciousness, poverty, and the threat of Hitler. Their idea of a
Christian national community was central to the articulation of
ideas of 'Englishness' in inter-war Britain, but this Anglican
contribution has been almost completely overlooked in recent debate
on twentieth-century national identity. Grimley also looks at rival
Anglican political theories put forward by conservatives such as
Bishop Hensley Henson and Ralph Inge, dean of St Paul's. Drawing
extensively on Henson's private diaries, it uncovers the debates
which went on within the Church at the time of the General Strike
and the 1927-8 Prayer Book crisis. The book uncovers an important
and neglected seam of popular political thought, and offers a new
evaluation of the religious, political and cultural identity of
Britain before the Second World War.
|
You may like...
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|