Blog closed

With many thanks to all those who have read and commented over the past few years, I have taken the decision to close this blog. All posts have been migrated to http://peterwebster.wordpress.com , where I shall continue to blog about Christianity, law and culture, and much more besides.

The last gasp of political Protestantism

I'm very pleased to be able to say that an preview is available of an article that John Maiden and I have had accepted for publication in Parliamentary History. It should appear sometime in 2012/13. This version is that accepted for publication, but before the (minor) amendments made in response to peer review and before copy-editing. Read it in SAS-Space:   'Parliament, the Church of England and the last gasp of political Protestantism, 1963-4.'

It looks at the attempts by evangelicals to prevent the passage through parliament of controversial measures relating to canon law revision in 1963-4. It assesses the interaction between church and legislature, the influence of both evangelical lobbyists and MPs, and the terms by which issues relating to religion and national identity were debated in parliament. It shows that while evangelicals were able to stir up a surprising level of controversy over canon law revision in the 1960s, the influence of political protestantism, and thus a significant long-term theme in British politics, had finally run its course.

National days of prayer in a period of crisis, 1966-74

Dipping one's toe tentatively into the new world of Open Peer Review, a draft paper of mine on archbishop Michael Ramsey is now available for comment and criticism at the History Working Papers Project. The idea is that HWPP can re-create the interchange of a seminar online, with readers commenting on the paper as a whole and on individual paragraphs, with an opportunity for the author to respond, and post revised versions for subsequent rounds of review. More on the HWPP project is available here.

The paper examines the petitions that were made to Michael Ramsey, archbishop of Canterbury, to call a national day of prayer. It considers the grounds upon which the petitions was made, and the Church’s official reactions to them. In doing so, it sheds light from an unaccustomed angle onto attitudes towards petitionary prayer among some of the British public, on understandings of the role of the archbishop as leader of the nation’s religious life, and of the recent providential history of the nation, particularly during the 1939-45 war.

St Paul's and OccupyLSX: towards a web archive

I thought it would be worth beginning to assemble some of the coverage of the OccupyLSX encounter with St Paul's. Once we got past the rather lame 'moneylenders and the Temple' comments, there has been some rather more trenchant and useful comment regarding the incident as an opportunity lost for the Church of England. This is necessarily just a snapshot, and I'd be more than happy to add to it if readers were to suggest.

• Observer editorial, Sunday 30th October and Andrew Rawnsley in the same issue
• Giles Fraser on his reasons for resigning as Canon Chancellor, in the Guardian, October 27.
• George Carey's intervention in the Telegraph, 27 Oct, and that of the local MP, the Conservative Mark Field.
• Peter Stanford on the Church's lost opportunity
• Reactions to the encounter between the Bishop and the Dean with the protesters on Sunday 29th, in the Telegraph , and video from the BBC of Chartres addressing the crowd.
• Graeme Knowles' statement on resigning as Dean, October 31st, along with the reaction of the Bishop of London and of the Chapter. It provoked a characteristically measured and lucid response from Damian Thompson in the Telegraph, and the first statement from Canterbury of the whole episode, which has been followed up with a fuller response to the broader issues on Nov 1st.

The Established Church: new book

I note an interesting new book on The Established Church from Continuum, edited by Mark Chapman, Judith Maltby and William Whyte. The line-up is impressive, and I look forward to reading it.

Religious freedom or discrimination ?

Very interesting article in the latest online edition of Amicus Curiae on the recent case of the gay couple and the Christian guesthouse: the legal implications of Hall and Preddy v Bull by James Hand and Pat Feast.

Ray Pahl

I note a Guardian obituary of sociologist Ray Pahl, of note here for his role in the production of the controversial Faith in the City report of 1985.