Kirjahaku

Religious dissent has been a persistent feature of English and Welsh history for over four hundred years, influencing the economic, cultural, and political history of the two nations as well as their religious life. The Dissenters is the first of a projected three-volume study on the subject, which promises to be the first comprehensive overview of the subject in more than sixty years.

The expansion of Evangelical Nonconformity was one of the most important developments in English and Welsh history in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In eighty years the number of Nonconformist chapels increased ten-fold, and by 1851, nearly one person in five worshipped in such chapels. For millions of people the gospel preached and the religion practised in these chapels determined their choice of marriage partners, conditioned the upbringing of their children, and moulded their family life. Religion pervaded education, shaped morals, controlled leisure, provided music and literature, motivated philanthropy and decided political loyalties. In this, the second of a projected three-volume history of Dissent, Michael Watts argues that while the Quakers constituted an increasingly wealthy but numerically declining community of businessmen, farmers, and retailers, and that in many towns the Unitarians formed a vibrant, progressive, intellectual élite, the appeal of Nonconformity was primarily to the poor, the ill-educated, and the unsophisticated. The working-class adherents of Evangelical Nonconformity vastly outnumbered those of political radicalism, trade unionism, or Chartism, and Dissent was a major factor in making a section of the working class respectable, thus contributing to the social harmony of the 1850s and 1860s. The history of late Georgian and Victorian England and Wales, argues Dr Watts, cannot be understood without a knowledge of Nonconformity.

This third and final volume of Michael Watts's study of dissent examines the turbulent times of Victorian Nonconformity, a period of faith and of doubt. Watts assesses the impacts of the major Dissenting preachers and provides insights into the various movements, such as romanticism and the higher, often German, biblical criticism. He shows that the preaching of hell and eternal damnation was more effective in recruiting to the chapels than the gentler interpretations. A major feature of the volume is a thorough analysis of surviving records of attendance at Nonconformist services. He provides fascinating accounts of Spurgeon and the other key figures of Nonconformity, including of the Salvation Army. Dr Watts also provides a fresh discussion of the contribution which Nonconformity made to the politics of mid- to late-Victorian Britain. He examines such issues of reform as Forster's Education Act of 1871, temperance, and Balfour's Education Act of 1902, and considers Nonconformist interventions in such controversies as the Bulgarian Agitation, Home Rule for Ireland, the Armenian massacres of the mid 1890s, and the Boer War. The volume concludes with the Liberal landslide in the 1906 general election, which saw probably more Nonconformists elected than any time since the era of Oliver Cromwell.

In 1966, Michael R. Watts completed his Oxford dissertation on the life of John Clifford (1836–1923). Although Watts intended for the work to be published, he passed away unexpectedly and the dissertation remained uncirculated. While conducting research in Oxford, Joel C. Gregory discovered Watts' bound carbon-paper copy. Baylor's Truett Theological Seminary and Baylor University Press have partnered to bring this long-hidden manuscript, John Clifford and Radical Nonconformity, to light.A contemporary of distinguished Baptist ministers such as Charles Spurgeon and Alexander Maclaren, John Clifford forged his way as a pastor, national leader, evangelist, and social activist. Clifford's greatest influence on Baptist life flourished in the midst of controversy. His adoption of Christian socialism and his involvement in the Downgrade controversy became landmarks during his career. Clifford's socialism was marked by a deep care for the impoverished lower classes in England, and his role in helping to preserve the Baptist Union following Spurgeon's resignation created an impactful and lasting legacy that is recounted here in Watts' dissertation.While three biographies of Clifford were published during his lifetime and one shortly after his death, the publication of Watts' dissertation provides new insights into Clifford's life and theology and includes contemporaneous material on Clifford from periodicals such as the Freeman, the General Baptist Magazine, and the Westbourne Park Record. Watts advances an account of Clifford's public life from 1858 to 1923, analyzes key works from 1870 to 1883, and surveys the history of Watts' church from 1886 until his death. The resulting work is a comprehensive and fresh recounting of the life of one of the most influential Baptist preachers in the denomination's history.