Synopses & Reviews
Christianity and cultural aspirations are inevitably in tension: the combination invites a suspicion that temporal pursuits have slackened a quest for divine approbation. Nevertheless, as Christians generally believe that worldly success may be a position of influence worth seeking for noble reasons, it is truly an area of tension, rather than merely temptation. This volume explores this lively juxtaposition in the context of modern Britain and America. In fifteen original essays, a range of well-respected scholars examine the cultural aspirations of a broad spectrum of Christians, including Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and Anglicans, as they were expressed in arenas as diverse as politics, education, arthitecture, and sport.
Synopsis
Christianity and cultural aspirations are inevitably in tension: the combination invites a suspicion that temporal pursuits have slackened a quest for divine approbation. Nevertheless, as Christians generally believe that worldly success may be a position of influence worth seeking for noble reasons, it is truly an area of tension, rather than merely temptation. This volume explores this lively juxtaposition in the context of modern Britain and America. In fifteen original essays, a range of well-respected scholars examine the cultural aspirations of a broad spectrum of Christians, including Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and Anglicans, as they were expressed in arenas as diverse as politics, education, arthitecture, and sport.
Table of Contents
Introduction--David Bebbington and Timothy Larsen<br/>1: A Dissenting Historian's Formation--Clyde Binfield<br/>2: Professor Clyde Binfield: A Critical Appreciation--W. R. Ward<<br/>Part I: Popular Culture<br/>3: "Thews and Sinews": Nonconformity and Sport--Hugh McLeod<br/>4: Nonconformity and the Pottery Industry--John Briggs<br/><br/>Part II: Architecture<br/>5: "An Important Work": Building a Victorian Chapel--John Handby Thompson<br/>6: Newman, Pugin and the Architecture of the English Oratory--Sheridan Gilley<br/><br/>Part III: Education<br/>7: The Cultural Aspirations of the Welsh Clergy--Frances Knight<br/>8: Honorary Doctorates and the Nonconformist Ministry in Nineteenth-Century England--Timothy Larsen<br/>9: Cultural Aspiration and Dissenting Colleges: The First Students at Mansfield College, Oxford--Elaine Kaye<br/>10: Nonconformists at Cambridge Before the First World War--David Thompson<br/>11: Methodist Attitudes to Education and Youth: Halifax, 1800-2000--John A. Hargreaves<br/>Part IV: Politics<br/>12: The Dissenting Political Upsurge of 1833-34--David Bebbington<br/>13: Educational Aspirations versus Social Hierarchies: The 1906 Education Bill--John Wigley<br/>14: Abraham Lincoln, Religion and Self-Improvement--Richard Carwardine<br/><br/>Part V: Ecclesiology<br/>15: The Disruption in London: English Presbyterians and the Scottish Disruption of 1843--David Cornick<br/>16: From Union to Church: Autobiographical Recollections on Congregational Ecclesiology in the 1960s--Alan Sell