Churches and Social Issues in Twentieth-century Britain PDF Download

Author: G. I. T. Machin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198217800
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
During this century the Christian Churches of Britain have lost support and influence to the extent that their future is considered by some observers to be problematic. They have also been confronted with an unprecedented concentration of social changes, some of which have challenged central religious traditions and teachings. This multi-denominational study is the first to investigate these changes (public and private) across virtually the entire Christian spectrum.

Author: Callum G. Brown
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317873505
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
During the twentieth century, Britain turned from one of the most deeply religious nations of the world into one of the most secularised nations. This book provides a comprehensive account of religion in British society and culture between 1900 and 2000. It traces how Christian Puritanism and respectability framed the people amidst world wars, economic depressions, and social protest, and how until the 1950s religious revivals fostered mass enthusiasm. It then examines the sudden and dramatic changes seen in the 1960’s and the appearance of religious militancy in the 1980s and 1990s. With a focus on the themes of faith cultures, secularisation, religious militancy and the spiritual revolution of the New Age, this book uses people’s own experiences and the stories of the churches to display the diversity and richness of British religion. Suitable for undergraduate students studying modern British history, church history and sociology of religion.

Author: Ann Sumner Holmes
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 131540849X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Attitudes towards divorce have changed considerably over the past two centuries. As society has moved away from a Biblical definition of marriage as an indissoluble union, to that of an individual and personal relationship, secular laws have evolved as well. Using unpublished sources and previously inaccessible private collections, Holmes explores the significant role the Church of England has played in these changes, as well as the impact this has had on ecclesiastical policies. This timely study will be relevant to ongoing debates about the meaning and nature of marriage, including the theological doctrines and ecclesiastical policies underlying current debates on same-sex marriage.

Author: Tom Lawson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131712667X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Despite narratives of secularization, it appears that the British public persistently pay attention to clerical opinion and continually resort to popular expressions of religious faith, not least in time of war. From the throngs of men who gathered to hear the Bishop of London preach recruiting sermons during the First World War, to the attention paid to Archbishop Williams' words of conscience on Iraq, clerical rhetoric remains resonant. For the countless numbers who attended National Days of Prayer during the Second World War, and for the many who continue to find the Remembrance Day service a meaningful ritual, civil religious events provide a source of meaningful ceremony and a focus of national unity. War and religion have been linked throughout the twentieth century and this book explores these links: taking the perspective of the 'home front' rather than the battlefield. Exploring the views and accounts of Anglican clerics on the issue of warfare and international conflict across the century, the authors explore the church's stance on the causes, morality and conduct of warfare; issues of pacifism, obliteration bombing, nuclear possession and deterrence, retribution, forgiveness and reconciliation, and the spiritual opportunities presented by conflict. This book offers invaluable insights into how far the Church influenced public appraisal of war whilst illuminating the changing role of the Church across the twentieth century.

Author: Stephen Michael Cretney
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198268994
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 984

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Book Description
The law governing family relationships has changed dramatically in the course of the 20th century and this book - drawing extensively on both published and archival material and on legal as well as other sources - gives an account of the processes and problems of reform.

Author: B. Clements
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137313595
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Based on extensive analysis of surveys from recent decades, this book provides a detailed study of the attitudes of religious groups in Britain. It looks at continuity and change in relation to party support, ideology, abortion, homosexuality and gay rights, foreign policy, and public opinion towards religion in public life.

Author: Nigel Yates
Publisher: SPCK
ISBN: 0281065446
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 115

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Book Description
Nigel Yates brings together the religious and social dimensions of the 1950s and 60s and examines the enormous changes in moral attitudes that took place in these two decades. Much of the popular literature on post-war Britain tends to present the 1950s as a period of continuing repression and respectability in the area of private and public morality, and the 1960s as one in which there was rapid social change. Using a wide range of contemporary sources - books (including novels), magazines, newspapers, advertising, fashion catalogues, films and television, as well as a number of significant archive collections - Nigel Yates argues that changes in attitudes to religion and morality in the 1960s were only made possible by developments in the 1950s.

Author: John Carter Wood
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000822370
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
The dramatic social, cultural, and political changes in the twentieth century posed challenges and opportunities to Christian believers in Britain and Ireland: many, whether in the churches or among the laity, sought to adapt their faith to what was seen as a new, “modern” world fundamentally different than the one in which Christianity had risen to a position of institutional and cultural dominance. Alongside the more long-term processes of industrialisation, urbanisation, and democratisation, the formative experiences of war and post-war reconstruction, confrontations with totalitarianism, changing relations between the sexes, and engagements with an increasingly assertive “secular” culture inspired many Christians not only to reconsider their faith but also to try to influence the emerging modernity. The chapters in this volume address various specific topics – from mass politics to sexuality – but are linked by a stress on how Christians played active roles in building “modern” life in twentieth-century Britain and Ireland. Tensions and ambiguities between “religious” and “secular” and between “modern” and “traditional” make understanding Christian encounters with modernity a valuable topic in the exploration of the complexities of twentieth-century cultural and intellectual history. This book will be of great value to students and scholars in the fields of history including modern British history, religion, and the intersectionality of gender and religion. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Contemporary British History.

Author: Naomi Thompson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351623753
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
When the Sunday School pioneers saw a need in their communities in the late eighteenth century, their response provoked a 200 year movement. These early Sunday Schools met a clear social need: that for basic education. By the 1960s, they faced rapid decline – a rigid institution amidst societal change. Over recent decades, Christian youth work has emerged as a response to further youth decline within churches. Many youth workers engage with young people’s self-perceived needs by delivering open-access youth provision in their local communities alongside more specifically Christian activities. Tensions emerge over whether the youth worker’s role is to serve community or church needs, with churches often emphasising the desire to see young people in services. Drawing together historical and contemporary research, Young People and Church Since 1900 identifies patterns and change in young people’s engagement with organised Christianity across time. Through this, it provides a unique analysis of the engagement and exclusion of young people in three key time periods, 1900–1910, 1955–1972, and the present day. Whilst much commentary on religious decline has focused on changes external to churches, this text draws out the internal decisions and processes that have affected the longevity of Christianity in England. This book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of young people and Christianity in the twentieth century and today, as well as youth ministry students and practitioners and those interested in youth decline in churches more widely.

Author: Alana Harris
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317065689
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
Rescripting Religion in the City explores the role of faith and religious practices as strategies for understanding and negotiating the migratory experience. Leading international scholars draw on case studies of urban settings in the global north and south. Presenting a nuanced understanding of the religious identities of migrants within the 'modern metropolis' this book makes a significant contribution to fields as diverse as twentieth-century immigration history, the sociology of religion and migration studies, as well as historical and urban geography and practical theology.