Evangelicals Now
Christian news worldwide
magnifying glass Search archives
home Home check the archives Archives Subscribe Subscriptions Advertising Information & booking of classifieds Adverts Find a local evangelical Church Find a church for the search engines and extremely curious! About us Contact us Site Map
Printable
Version

Conflict and crisis in the religious life of late Victorian England

Lack of stomach

CONFLICT AND CRISIS IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LATE VICTORIAN ENGLAND
By Herbert Schlossberg
Transaction. 322 pages. £46.95
ISBN 978-1-4128-1027-2

The 19th century may feel rather distant, but this scholarly book demonstrates, with a wealth of detail, that a study of it is still relevant. The author is a member of the US Ethics and Public Policy Center, and a leading expert on the relationship between Christianity and society

This book follows his earlier one, The Silent Revolution and the Making of Victorian England, which described the period of evangelical dominance and the ensuing moral transformation of the nation in education, politics, language and social reform. That dominance was short-lived, however, and the present volume shows how evangelicalism declined, with fewer outstanding leaders and many children of evangelical homes leaving their parents’ faith. The prevalent teaching on ‘worldliness’, coupled with Adventism, led to some withdrawal from social action. Evangelicals of the late 19th century would not have had the stomach for the prolonged battle against slavery.

The impact of German biblical criticism led to the growth of liberalism in the churches, while Darwin’s Origin of Species resulted in evolutionary thinking being accepted by many. At the same time ‘the non-conformist spirit’ was waning and becoming less distinctive as liberal views took root, while the High Church was on the way to ascendancy, and, by 1900, ‘its language, themes, and modes of worship had strongly influenced the whole church’. Liberalism led to the growth of ‘diffusive Christianity’, which had dropped particular Christian doctrines and was difficult to distinguish from humanism and other sets of ideas interested in spiritual and moral values.

The Victorian period was far from static and dull; rather, it was one of rapid change, not least in religious matters. By the end of the century, people were adopting alternatives to Christianity, such as pantheism, occultism, spiritualism and theosophy.

The author’s conclusion is that it was not so much a ‘crisis of faith’ as a drift with the flow of society’s opinion.

This learned portrait of a fast-moving period is supported by a mass of fascinating evidence, and the author’s judgments are nuanced and balanced. It helps us to understand not only the Victorian period but also the secularism in society today.

Joy Horn,
member of Cranleigh Baptist Church;
formerly on the staff of the University of London Institute of Historical Research