Culture and Nonconformist Tradition

by Shaw, Jane; Kreider, Alan

• ISBN13: 9780708315170
• ISBN10: 0708315178
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-04-30
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Christianity has, from its very beginnings and because of its beliefs and practices, had a paradoxical relationship to the world. This stimulating book, which contains articles by seven leading historians, argues that the relationship between the Nonconformist tradition in Britain and 'culture' provides a particularly illuminating example of this paradox. Nonconformists, set apart from the Established Church, developed their own particular cultural practices and in so doing made a distinctive contribution to the culture of Britain as a whole. At the same time, they were inevitably influenced by that wider culture. These essays consider the development of chapel and Dissenting culture within the wider society , examining such issues as the emergence of the Nonconformist conscience, the place of politics in the pulpit, the contribution of women writers to provincial Nonconformity and the architecture of the free churches. This fascinating and varied collection of essays goes beyond the usual boundaries of denominational and ecclesiastical history and interacts with broader trends in cultural and social history to demonstrate the significance of such matters as gender relations, politics and economics in any exploration of the relationship between Christianity and 'the world'.

Table of Contents

Introduction: why 'culture and the Nonconformist tradition'?

Literary Women in eighteenth-century Nonconformist circles

Methodism and motherhood

Gospel and culture in Victorian Nonconformity

Politics and the pulpit: Robert Hall and the 'Signs of the Times'

Nonconformists, economic ethics and the consumer socciety in mid-Vicorian Britain

Dissent and the peculiarities of the English, c. 1870-1914

Victims of success: twentieth-century Free Church architecture

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