Citizenship, Community, and the Church of England

TRAMA

This book offers a new evaluation of the political role of the Church of England in inter-war Britain. It argues that, at a time of crises such as the General Strike of 1926, the Prayer Book controversy of 1929, the Abdication Crisis of 1936 and the rise of Hitler, religion remained central to political thought and debate. Anglican thinkers like Archbishop William Temple offered a theory and rhetoric of Christian community which had a wide appeal as an antidote to class consciousness and Nazism, and that Anglicanism played a central role in the articulation of inter-war ideas of Englishness.

NOTE EDITORE

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.

SOMMARIO

1 - Liberal Anglican Theories of the State2 - Groups versus Community: The Pluralists3 - Class versus Community: The General Strike4 - Church versus State: The Prayer Book Crisis5 - Church, King and Country: The 1930s

ALTRE INFORMAZIONI

• Condizione: Nuovo
• ISBN: 9780199270897
• Collana: Oxford Historical Monographs
• Dimensioni: 224 x 19.1 x 148 mm Ø 451 gr
• Formato: Copertina rigida
• Pagine Arabe: 300