Reading Religious Decline: Secularisation and Spiritual Self-Fashioning in the Fans of Malcolm Muggeridge,c. 1966–1982†

This article argues that Malcolm Muggeridge's fans used his religious writings to self-fashion their religious identity. This action was made in direct response to their belief, increasingly accepted in Britain and beyond during the 1960s and 1970s, that Christianity was in a state of inexorable decline. These letters provide near-unique access to non-elite readings of religion where readers crafted narratives of their spiritual lives, candidly disclosing their deepest apprehensions and concerns, hopes, and aspirations. They reveal the pervasive quality of the secularisation story regardless of social setting, and they illustrate the inchoate character of its popular reception. In this context, readers depended on Muggeridge's own presentation of a popularised secularisation thesis to crystallise the nebulous feelings about the vitality of religion that preoccupied their thoughts. Their concerns about the future of Christianity coalesced with their growing disenchantment with institutional Christianity, which they felt was either too ill-equipped or theologically bankrupt to engage adequately society's spiritual crisis. In response, readers sought alternative expressions of their faith that were unencumbered by the churches they held in suspicion. This analysis builds on recent attempts to historicise the “secularisation thesis” by showing it functioned as an agent in the events it purported to describe.     

What was the Religious Crisis of the 1960s?

The crisis of the 1960s is now central to debates about religious change and secularisation in the twentieth century. However, the nature of the crisis is contested. Using Hugh McLeod's The Religious Crisis of the 1960s (2007) as a starting point, this article explores the issues that divide scholars — the origin and length of the crisis (was it revolution or evolution?); was it generated more by developments within the Christian churches or by developments without them; and what was the relative importance of liberal Christianity versus conservative Christianity in the development and legacy of the crisis? It argues that secularisation of the period should be regarded as mostly a sudden and shocking event, based on external threats, and reflected in the churches dividing between liberals and conservatives in ways that were to become ever more militant as the century wore on.     

The Protestant working class in Belfast: education and civic erosion – an alternative analysis

This paper explores and reassesses the issues of social decline, educational underachievement and civic erosion in relation to the Protestant working class in Belfast. Prior to the ‘Troubles’ the Protestant working class in Belfast had at its heart a civic-mindedness which was in tune with working-class communities across the UK at the time. This civic-mindedness encouraged the growth of extended communities and placed an importance on church attendance and educational achievement; something which has been conveniently ignored in most analyses. Owing to population movements in Greater Belfast which followed the violence that followed the introduction of internment without trial in August 1971 Protestant church congregations dwindled and school attendances dropped significantly. The paper ultimately seeks to provide a ‘long view’ of the Protestant working-class experience in order to assist those who are concerned with the problems facing it in the current era.     

Covert and Overt Activism: Christianity in 1950s Coastal China

The phenomenal growth of Catholic and Protestant churches-both officially-registered Three-Self patriotic churches and unofficial house churches-in China has drawn attention to the underlying dynamics of Chinese Christianity.This article draws on archival research and ethnographic findings to investigate the interactions between the officials and Christians in the coastal regions of Shantou (Guangdong province) and Wenzhou (Zhejiang province) during the 1950s and 1960s.The Chaozhou-speaking Catholics,Baptists and Presbyterians in Shantou succeeded in transcending sectarian boundaries and helped each other to cope with political pressure.The Seventh-day Adventists in Wenzhou did likewise by organizing clandestine house gatherings with other Protestants.They held onto their faith,continued their worship activities on Saturday,and maintained a distinct,though not independent,identity under the broad spectrum of Protestantism.These local stories show that as a collective force,Chinese Christians not only employed a variety of tactics to help each other but also reinvented congregational,kinship and cross-regional networks as conduits for pursuing religious goals.Their covert and overt activism highlight the need to combine archival research and fieldwork to assess the revival of Christianity in present-day China.     

“Bound in darkness and idolatry”? Protestant working-class underachievement and unionist hegemony

Over the past decade or more there has been a growing concern at the levels of educational underachievement within loyalist working-class areas of Northern Ireland. The inability of both educational and social policy initiatives over the past decade to improve the situation in any meaningful way has raised important questions concerning how the problem can be tackled more effectively. Placing the issue within the theoretical framework of Gramsci's hegemony, this paper argues that there is a need to better understand the historical nature of the problem and to recognise the political and social forces that have shaped its existence. It argues that there is a need to move away from explaining Protestant underachievement simply by the availability of jobs in Ulster's industrial past and to place its roots in the complex battle for social, political, and economic power since the 1801 Act of Union.     

Yangjiao or the ��Other��? Christianity and Chinese society in the second half of the nineteenth century

This article explores the relationship between Christianity and Chinese society in the second half of the nineteenth century by re-examining the primary sources of anti-Christian movements. The first part shows how Christian churches broke the dominance of the Qing government over local society. Conflicts between Christianity and Chinese religion were often transformed into political confrontations between churches and the Qing bureaucracy. The second part analyzes how Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism interpreted Christianity, with an emphasis on how to understand the perception of Christianity in Chinese society. Exploring broader societal perceptions of Christianity—and not just those expressed in the writings of the Confucian literati—allows for a more nuanced understanding of Chinese interpretations of Christianity. The third part studies the relationship between churches and Chinese religious sects. On the one hand, in the language of anti-Christian movements such as those of the Zaili and Cai sects, Christianity was the hateful “Other.” On the other hand, in the process of preaching Christianity, churches themselves experienced a period of transmutation: they recruited into the church not only non-religious civilians but also the followers of popular religions. For a long period, Christianity was called yangjiao, the “foreign religion,” making it the “Other.” Missionaries started to feel an urgency to reject their identity as the “Other” after the harrowing experience of the Boxer Movement.     

Class,Religion and the Foundation of the Australian Party System: A Revisionist Interpretation

The Australian party system's historic affiliation between religious identification and party support has generally been explained in terms of overlapping cleavages, with the coincidence of Catholicism and working-class socio-economic status given greatest agency. The evidence, however, is inconclusive for working-class predominance amongst Catholics at the time of Fusion. The accepted explanation fails to recognise the power and agency of religion and so overlooks the role of Protestant values and beliefs in the Deakinite Liberals' response to Labor's organisational demands for the subordination of individual judgement to party discipline, and in the subsequent rhetoric of the nonlabour parties. Nonlabour's easy slippage between the vices of Labor and those of the Roman Catholic Church explains why Catholics preferred Labor more convincingly than does the accepted class-based explanation.     

The Purpose-Driven Darwinist: Henry Ward Beecher and the Theology of Progress

Henry Ward Beecher's sermon series on evolution in the summer of 1885 reconciled Christianity to the new science in a way that asserted far more than the mere compatibility of natural selection and divine providence: The Brooklyn preacher appropriated Darwinism to support a uniquely bourgeois political theology, one that envisioned the spiritual progress of humanity through commercial republicanism, aided by a morally assertive (but emphatically modernist) church. Coming from so prominent a clergyman, this early adaptation of evolution theory highlights the liberal and postmillennial tendencies of American Christianity in the late nineteenth century, as well as the pliability of Darwin's scientific insights to diverse social agendas. Beecher's sermons, however, also open a window onto the philosophical dilemmas that preoccupied early progressives. Addressing both the ontological revolution of Darwinism and the social realities of industrialization, Beecher articulates an account of progress that succeeds without the supervision of government, that prizes the liberty and property of the individual, and that arches toward a télos of moral perfection – a perfection that conforms, more or less, to the Protestant ethic.     

Divine Healing in Australian Protestantism, 1870–1940

The topic of divine healing was not at the forefront of the Protestant movement during its first three centuries as it reacted to what was seen as an exaggerated and often fallacious miraculous supernaturalism in Roman Catholicism. By the middle of the nineteenth century the Protestant churches in Britain, America, Europe and Australia had to consider divine healing in light of a newly emerging holiness movement. This article examines the developments in practice and theological perspective of the Protestant churches in Australia, particularly as they responded to the clear claims of the growing Pentecostal movement in the nation and the sacramental perspective on healing supported by the High Anglican sector of the Australian Church of England.     

Eliding the Esoteric: R. J. Campbell and Early Twentieth Century Protestant Discourse in Britain

R. J. Campbell was arguably the most renowned British religious figure of his generation, a prominent promoter of reform as a leader of non‐conforming Protestantism in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century. He is generally regarded as a promulgator of pre‐war optimism, a universalist who courted personal fame and who sparked an intra‐Protestant sectarian crisis when he initiated a new reformist movement, the “New Theology.” Most of the analysis, including Campbell's suspect retrospective memoir, treat this religious ferment as rooted in Protestant/Christian perturbation. This perspective does not allow for a wider consideration of the vibrant religious milieu of enquiry then in vogue which brought Campbell into contact with a variety of esoteric ideas and philosophies and their interlocutors. Absent this focus, important figures participating in that religious colloquy are marginalised. My article seeks to fill out the commonly accepted version of events. Material not previously examined is interrogated towards illuminating Campbell's wider interests. It postulates that Campbell was one of a number of contributors to a broad discussion on religious ideas and their relationship to Christianity, one of a number of figures shaped by, as much as shaping, the contemporary discursive environment.     

Australian Seventh-day Adventism and World War One: A Different Path

The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) church in Australia differed from most Christian churches in its response to World War One, openly condemning the war as an evil to be avoided while attempting to remain focused on its evangelistic mission. This article explores the philosophy of the SDAs that allowed them to stand apart from the bulk of the churches, and the evolving nuanced path forward negotiated between the ideals of the church and the needs of the government. The success of the SDA church in maintaining its spiritual focus broadens our understanding of the relationship between churches and state in Australia in World War One, and adds a level of subtlety in understanding the government's response to a church that had an ambivalent response to the state's war goals.     

Christian Marriage,Money Scams,and Melanesian Social Imaginaries

In this paper, we draw on fieldwork with middle‐class investors in ‘fast money schemes’ (Ponzi scams) to consider how Neo‐Pentecostal Christianity may be mediating social and economic change in Papua New Guinea, particularly in relation to gender equality. Ideas of companionate marriage and the cultivation of an affective self imply masculinities that are more sensitive and less domineering. As these images of fulfilled modernity flow out from Pentecostal churches into broader Papua New Guinean society, they corroborate Taylor's theory of how change occurs within the modern social imaginary.     

The Protestant Work Ethic and the Australian Mercantile Elite, 1880–1914

This article tests, in the Australian context, Max Weber's thesis that the work ethic of capitalism owed its origins to Protestantism. It studies the Australian Protestant churches for the presence of a work ethic, and investigates whether the Catholic Church also promoted such a moral precept to its members. The study then examines whether the work ethic of the Australian mercantile elite was drawn from that of the Protestant churches, from which most of its members came. The article proceeds to describe how the mercantile elite removed the religious origins of the work ethic and made it one of the foundations of its creed of economic individualism. This creed was based on the self-righteous dogma that those who worked hard were rewarded by getting rich while those who were poor only had their own lack of hard work and thrift to blame. The article demonstrates that the work ethic of modern capitalism, as espoused by the Australian mercantile elite, was the result of the secularization of the work ethic of Protestantism, a process in which the religious content of the moral principle was removed.     

Missionaries and the Māori Language in Nineteenth‐Century New Zealand: A Mixed Inheritance

The historiography dealing with New Zealand's colonial period (1814 – c.1900) underwent a substantial revision during the second half of the twentieth century. In particular, the role and activities of the missionaries in the country during the colonial era was subject renewed scrutiny, which served as a much‐needed antidote to the largely uncritical depiction of these proselytisers in earlier histories. However, this revisionism sometimes took a reductionist approach to the work of the missionaries, and in the process, overlooked some of their accomplishments in a colonial environment that was at best unsympathetic and often hostile towards the Māori culture and language. Since then, a more nuanced and considered historiography has emerged – one which also incorporates the histories of imperial missionary activity in the realms of literacy and indigenous languages in other parts of the world into New Zealand's experience. This work examines the seminal role that Protestant missionaries and their parent churches played in the colonial era in converting Māori into a written language, in spreading the use of literacy within Māori society, with consideration given to the role of Māori agency in this process, and the challenges in policy and practice that the Protestant missionaries had in this period.     

城市宗教景观的空间布局及演化——以1842年以来的广州基督教教堂为例

景观研究一直为国外文化地理学界所重视。作为宗教景观重要组成部分之一的教堂历来也是宗教地理研究的重点。教堂在城市中的时空演化可以直接反映城市宗教景观的形成与扩散机制。对广州基督教教堂历史时期空间布局的研究表明:从1842年开始,广州基督教教堂从十三行和南关一带逐渐向外拓展;建国前,原老城区、汉民路(今北京路)和河南(珠江南岸)北部已成为教堂集中区;在1960年代的教堂大联合之后,广州教堂的分布表现出收缩之势。教堂的空间布局主要受内在交通区位和人口因素的影响,同时,政治因素、城区经济发展水平、城市空间形态、宗教景观的空间集聚和竞争、城区环境等外部条件也对其有一定制约或促进作用。而当今的社会信息化与文化全球化,也对城市基督教教堂的空间格局发展提出了许多新的问题。     

The British Pharaoh?: James I and VI and internationalist religious writing at the wedding of Friedrich V and Elizabeth Stuart

The marriage of Elizabeth Stuart and Friedrich V, Prince Palatine, has recently been described as “the pinnacle of Protestant European festival,” a transnational, transcultural event celebrated throughout Protestant Europe. Politically, it marked a high point of internationalist Protestant sentiment in England. In this article, I examine three sermons preached for the occasion, by the court preacher Andrew Willet, the Wiltshire parson George Webbe, and Friedrich’s court chaplain, Abraham Scultetus. All three use the wedding to advocate an internationalist agenda and subtly critique the Church of England. This is done, in part, through a shared typological understanding of the event based on Psalm 45, read by early moderns as a song on the marriage of Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter, which aligns James with an idolatrous Pharaoh. Their interpretation of the marriage implicitly anticipates a move toward the pure biblical worship practiced by the continental reformed churches, and shifts the focus of Pan-Protestant hopes from London to Heidelberg.     

Carrying the Cross,Caring for Kin: The Everyday Life of Charismatic Christianity in Remote Aboriginal Australia

ABSTRACT In this paper, I address the important yet under‐examined role of charismatic Protestant Christianity in the reconfiguring of personhood and social relations in the remote Yolngu settlement of Galiwin'ku. I focus in particular on the ways in which this form of Christianity, locally articulated, brings together indigenous concepts of personhood with those introduced by the market, the state, and evangelism to produce what I refer to as Christian individuality and Christian relatedness. These dialectical tendencies in postcolonial settlement life call attention to the ways Yolngu converts use their Christian practices both to continue kin‐based moralities in the present and to engage (if selectively) modern individualism. This paper addresses post‐colonial conditions where demands of state institutions and modern governance interact with changing ideas of personhood and sociality. It contributes to the growing anthropological literature on Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity.     

The Conflict between Traditional Christian Churches in Ukraine as a Conflict of Identities: Where to Search for the Prospects of Reconciliation? A Reflection in the Light of the Theories of Paul Ricoeur and John Paul Lederach

Abstract

After the independence of Ukraine in 1991 there emerged or re-emerged four churches that derive their roots from ancient Kyiv Christianity. Those churches conflict with each other, the main cause of the split and tensions being the issue of cultural and social–political identities in the country. Such conflicting narrative identities have to be reconciled by the mutual recognition of their diversity when churches in Ukraine want to become a real force for transformation in society. Among the different models of the search for rapprochement in this article I refer to the theories of Paul Ricoeur and John Paul Lederach. According to the ethics of memory of Paul Ricoeur, traditional Ukrainian churches should abandon endless circles of melancholia about their losses and create new identities through the process of mourning. Because the tensions among traditional Christian denominations in Ukraine are not likely to be solved by institutional measures as history proves, churches should concentrate their efforts on working on social and relational platforms. Here I refer to the ethics of moral imagination of John Paul Lederach that envisions focusing the reconciliatory activities on locations of interaction between people that should finally contribute to the rapprochement.     

The Great Physician: mainline Protestant ministers’ expectations of doctors, 1840–1900

I argue that mainline Protestant clergymen adapted to the scientific and cultural developments of the post-Darwin era by encouraging a separation of bodily healing and spiritual healing that was unprecedented in Christianity. I use ministers’ depictions of Jesus in their addresses to physicians to illustrate this change. In 1840 ministers insisted that doctors’ value lay in their willingness to mimic Jesus’s example by healing both bodies and souls. As doctors gained authority in the late 1800s, the clergyman’s new ideal doctor stayed abreast of scientific developments and stuck to healing bodies. Ministers increasingly portrayed Jesus as an exclusively spiritual healer.     

Civic Sacrament and Social Imaginaries in Transition: The Case of the South African Churches and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Abstract

This article reflects on a seminal moment within South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC): the appearance of the African Initiated Churches (AICs) before the Commission in 1997. It demonstrates how this moment brought into relief divergent contestations of the public within South African Christianity in three ways: first, by situating the TRC within the liturgical performance of a reimagined South African nationality, making it a "civic sacrament" of reconciliation; second, by highlighting the formative role churches themselves played within this liturgy, deploying theological language to create a healed, secular body politic; third, by displaying the different social imaginary of the AICs—a social imaginary which interrupted the TRC's liturgical recreation of time and space, as well as challenging the historical relations between church and state in South Africa. The paper concludes with the question posed in this "interruption," a question that challenges the broader church with regard to fulfillment of the liturgy not in the secular nation-state, but in that City which is to come.