"The word and the world: evangelicalism in the Victorian city" - David Englander (1988)

Résumé du document

The text under consideration is extracted from the book "Religion in Victorian Britain?, published in 1988. It is called "The Word and the World: Evangelicalism in the Victorian City" and was written by David Englander, a Lecturer in European Humanities at the Faculty of Arts at the Open University. This essay deals with Victorian religion and tackles the thorny issue of the revival and decline of Evangelicalism. The title of the text is relevant in order to understand its overall aim. There is a striking contrast between "the Word", which refers to the word of God, and "the World", with can be related to worldliness. Thus, this essay analyzes the relationship between the temporal and the spiritual during Queen Victoria's reign, paying particular attention to the revival of Evangelicalism.

Extraits

[...] word and the world: evangelicalism in the Victorian city” - David Englander (1988) The text under consideration is extracted from the book Religion in Victorian Britain, published in 1988. It is called Word and the World: Evangelicalism in the Victorian City” and was written by David Englander, a Lecturer in European Humanities at the Faculty of Arts at the Open University. This essay deals with Victorian religion and tackles the thorny issue of the revival and decline of Evangelicalism. First of all, the title of the text is relevant in order to understand its overall aim. [...]

[...] He quotes the work of Booth[3] who believed that Evangelicalism declined because of the “removal of the middle classes and their replacement by a non-church going working class” (p. 35). Moreover some social and economic structural changes can also explain this defeat: the modern world was characterized by a demographic decline in birth rate and a widened cultural gap between churches and the secular world, leaving religion in “peripheral position in mainstream culture” (p. 36). In a more critical approach, the author manages to make his argument very convincing by providing lots of example, details and references to other studies that give authority to his development. [...]

[...] However, and this is the drawback of the fact that the text seems like a story, the reader can sometimes feel lost as the development is not well structured nor very clear. This essay thus requires important background knowledge from the reader as it covers a large period and many different strands of religion. Other major works about the Evangelicalism such as the study of Hylson-Smith[4] are simpler in their explanations of the very complex English religious scene, thanks to well-divided chapters. Finally, this essay brilliantly describes issues in Victorian Britain between Church and society, between the Word and the World. [...]

[...] 36) led to the failure of Evangelicalism in Britain. Bibliography G. Parsons Religion in Victorian Britain (Manchester, 1988) K. Hylson-Smith, The Churches in England from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II, (London, 1997) Volume II: 1869-1833 D. Rosman, The Evolution of the English Churches, 1500-2000 (Cambridge, 2003) Queen's Victoria reigned in Britain from 1837 to 1901. G. Parsons Religion in Victorian Britain (Manchester, 1988), page 7 C. Booth, Life and Labour of the People in London, (Macmillan : 1902), Third Series Vols. [...]

[...] Indeed, it more than a set of doctrines; it was a way of life” (p. 18). Some striking features include otherworldliness, the propagation of the Gospel, the sacrifice of pleasure in a very austere private life, a restricted but needed role of women, sabbatarianism, and the importance of the Gospel and of conversion. All theses attributes represent evidence of how Evangelicalism really transformed the life people lived at that time. A question introduces the third part: what went wrong?” (p. 23). Why was Evangelicalism defeated whereas it had a great “growth-potential” (p. [...]