Social Christianity in Scotland and Beyond explores the multifarious initiatives known variously as 'social Christianity', 'Christian socialism', or the 'social gospel', that spanned countries, continents, decades, and denominations. Building on the scholarship of Stewart J. Brown, to whom this volume is dedicated, fourteen leading and emerging scholars of the history of Christianity consider the varying social policies and initiatives that Christians have pursued in response to industrialisation, urbanisation, expanding global trade networks, and nascent democratic politics.
With a particular focus on religious communities in Scotland, the essays provide comparative lenses with which to view sociological and theological developments through examinations of similar phenomena in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. In adopting an international perspective that extends beyond Britain and the US, this volume encourages a more holistic understanding of social Christianity as part of a multifaceted and fluid belief system that evolved and shifted according to context.
Foreword - David Fergusson About the Authors Introduction, by Andrew Kloes and Laura M. Mair Chapter 1: The Social Concerns of Brunswick Wesleyan Chapel, Leeds, in the Victorian Era - David Bebbington Chapter 2: Navigating Cultural Pluralism: Christian Responses to Radical Unbelief in Early Nineteenth-Century Scotland - Felicity Loughlin Chapter 3: Wrestling with Dilemmas: Presbyterian Evangelism and Slavery in the American Ante-Bellum South - Iain Whyte Chapter 4: Awakened Protestants’ calls for ‘Christian socialism’ and ‘Christian communism’ in Germany, 1844-1850 - Andrew Kloes Chapter 5: James Baird and the Baird Trust: Industrial Philanthropy and Evangelical Activism in Victorian Scotland - Andrew Michael Jones Chapter 6: In Person, Print, and Prayer: The Shared Mission of Scottish and English Ragged Schools in the Nineteenth Century - Laura M. Mair Chapter 7: Mary Magdalene and the ‘Fallen’ Sisters: the Social Gospel of the Magdalene Asylums in Scotland - Jowita A. Thor Chapter 8: ‘Standing in the Gap’: D. L. Moody & Evangelical Social Christianity in Chicago and Scotland, 1860-1900 - Thomas Breimaier Chapter 9: ‘The Saving of the Body’: Sport at Church in England since 1850 - Hugh McLeod Chapter 10: Henry Scott Holland and Social Christianity in the English fin de siècle - Frances Knight Chapter 11: ‘Indignation would arise within you’: Herman Bavinck on Racial Injustice in Europe and North America - James Eglinton Chapter 12: ‘Woodbine Willie’ and the Quest for a Social Christianity after the First World War - Timothy Larsen Chapter 13: Billy Graham, the All Scotland Crusade of 1955 and the Social Gospel - Kenneth Jeffrey Chapter 14: Social Christianity on the Mission Field: Shifting Patterns in British and American Protestant Globalism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Brian Stanley Bibliography of Stewart J. Brown
Andrew Kloes is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a historian in Washington, D.C. He is the author of The German Awakening: Protestant Renewal after the Enlightenment, 1815-1848 (Oxford, 2019) and has contributed articles to the Bavinck Review, Harvard Theological Review, Studies in Church History and Wesley and Methodist Studies. Laura M. Mair is the Mary R. S. Creese Lecturer in Modern Scottish History at the University of Aberdeen and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Divinity. Her seminal book, Religion and Relationships in Ragged Schools: An Intimate History of Educating the Poor (Routledge, 2019) was the first book-length study of the ragged school movement. She has authored a number of articles in journals including Church History, Family & Community, Scottish Church History and the Journal of Victorian Culture.
Reviews for Social Christianity in Scotland and Beyond, 1800-2000: Essays in Honour of Stewart J. Brown
This volume pays fitting tribute to a leading historian of social Christianity by making a major new contribution to the literature in fascinating studies that set the Scottish experience in a rich comparative international perspective. -- John Wolffe, Professor of Religious History, The Open University This volume is an excellent tribute to a highly respected teacher and scholar. Its trans-Atlantic and trans-denominational coverage means that it will be of interest to a wide readership, while also reminding us of Professor Brown’s diverse range of research interests. -- Simon Lewis * Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society * There is a huge amount to be learned in this interesting collection -- W. Hamish Fraser, University of Strathclyde * Journal of Religious History * This is a book filled with scholarly insights. It clearly develops many of the concerns which Brown focused on in his own writings. It is a worthy testimony to the academic prowess which he demonstrates in his own works, and which he instilled in his students, with characteristic rigour, but also with kind encouragement. -- Kenneth B. E. Roxburgh, Samford University * Scottish Church History *
