A further contribution to understanding the role played by Christianity in modern English thought.

In Religion and Public Doctrine in Modern England, Maurice Cowling defines the principles according to which the intellectual history of modern England should be written and argue that the history of Christianity is of primary importance. In this volume, which is self-contained, he makes a further contribution to understanding the role which Christianity has played in modern English thought. There are critical accounts of the thought of Toynbee, T. S. Eliot, Collingwood, Butterfield, Oakeshott, David Knowles, Evelyn Waugh and Churchill. It also contains less extended accounts of the thought of A. N. Whitehead, of Enoch Powell Minister. The book is given coherence by the connected ideas of the ubiquity of religion, of literature as an instrument of religious indoctrination, and of the intimacy of the connections between the political, philosophical, literary and religious assumptions that are to be found among the leaders of the English intelligentsia.

A further contribution to understanding the role played by Christianity in modern English thought.

In Religion and Public Doctrine in Modern England, Maurice Cowling defines the principles according to which the intellectual history of modern England should be written and argue that the history of Christianity is of primary importance. In this volume, which is self-contained, he makes a further contribution to understanding the role which Christianity has played in modern English thought. There are critical accounts of the thought of Toynbee, T. S. Eliot, Collingwood, Butterfield, Oakeshott, David Knowles, Evelyn Waugh and Churchill. It also contains less extended accounts of the thought of A. N. Whitehead, of Enoch Powell Minister. The book is given coherence by the connected ideas of the ubiquity of religion, of literature as an instrument of religious indoctrination, and of the intimacy of the connections between the political, philosophical, literary and religious assumptions that are to be found among the leaders of the English intelligentsia.

Good for Society: Christian Values and Conservative Politics In ‘Good for Society’ Martin Parsons has written a book well worthy of its sub title ‘Christian Values and Conservative Politics.’. Good for Society is a robust defence of both our Christian heritage and the Conservative Party. Rt Hon Lord Tebbit CH, former Chairman of the Conservative Party, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Secretary of State for Employment This is a magnificent, detailed and authoritative examination of the relevance of Christian teaching to today’s Conservative Party. Even when you do not agree with a deduction you are still challenged. Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe, former Conservative MP and Shadow Home Secretary Dr Parsons brings together expertise in politics, careful biblical study, research in Islam and experience of life under the Taliban in Afghanistan. He mounts a powerful case for identifying Christian values and view of the world in the development of the laws, liberties and institutions of the English speaking peoples. He also identifies these values in the approaches of Conservative politics and politicians. These must be recovered in order to develop a narrative and values to address the threat of Islamism which seeks to impose sharia both subtly and violently. Liberal secularists who might disagree with Dr Parsons need to demonstrate a more convincing case than he presents on all fronts. Canon Dr Chris Sugden, Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life Christians in many parts of the world, who are influenced by progressivism, reject Conservative values on social policy by default. They uncritically assume that big government, redistribution of wealth and other leftist policies are closer to the teaching of Scripture, while capitalism, wealth creation, individualism and other Conservative values represent greed, oppression and injustice. Dr Martin Parsons turns this myth on its head. Exploring the great philosophical and historical traditions of Conservatism and expounding the teaching of the Bible, he demonstrates that Conservatism is firmly rooted in the Judeo-Christian worldview. Dr Parsons has written the definitive book on Conservatism and Christianity. I wish this book were written years ago. It would have saved me from years of wandering in the desert of progressivism. Rev. Dr Jules Gomes, theologian and political journalist

Contrary to its popular image as dull and stodgy, the Victorian period was one of revolutionary change. In its politics, its art, its economic aff airs, its class relationships, and in its religion, change was constant. A half-century after Queen Victoria's death, it was said that she was born in one world and died in another. Th e most interesting and valuable studies of the period take the long view, as does Schlossberg, in his fascinating analysis of religious life in this period. For the Victorians, religion was not cordoned off from the push and shove of real life. Th e early evangelicals got off to a shaky start, beset by hostility, but the movement spread within the churches despite the suspicion in which it was held. Evangelicals, frequently called Puritans by those who opposed them, called for fundamental reforms in both the Church and the society; a social ethic was part of their program of religious renewal. Th eir moral sense explains the social activism of both Church of England Evangelicals and Dissenters, including the half-century crusade for the abolition of slavery. Schlossberg shows how religion in England dealt with such issues as science and the eff ect of German scholarship on religious thinking. Church history cannot simply be explained by its response to external forces as much as by the internal responses to those challenges. Th e nature of the religious enterprise itself, its theologians, clergy, lay people--like all people and all institutions--all responded with alternatives. Schlossberg helps us understand the Victorian period, as well as the increasing secularity of English life today.

A woman demonised by the left and sanctified by the right, there has always been a religious undercurrent to discussions of Margaret Thatcher. However, while her Methodist roots are well known, the impact of her faith on her politics is often overlooked. In an attempt to source the origins of Margaret Thatcher's 'conviction politics', Eliza Filby explores how Thatcher's worldview was shaped and guided by the lessons of piety, thrift and the Protestant work ethic learnt in Finkin Street Methodist Church, Grantham, from her lay-preacher father. In doing so, she tells the story of how a Prime Minister steeped in the Nonconformist teachings of her childhood entered Downing Street determined to reinvigorate the nation with these religious values. Filby concludes that this was ultimately a failed crusade. In the end, Thatcher created a country that was not more Christian, but more secular; and not more devout, but entirely consumed by a new religion: capitalism. In upholding the sanctity of the individual, Thatcherism inadvertently signalled the death of Christian Britain. Drawing on previously unpublished archives, interviews and memoirs, Filby examines how the rise of Thatcher was echoed by the rebirth of the Christian right in Britain, both of which were forcefully opposed by the Church of England. Wide-ranging and exhaustively researched, God and Mrs Thatcher offers a truly original perspective on the source and substance of Margaret Thatcher's political values and the role that religion played in the politics of this tumultuous decade.