Dissenters
Volume III: The Crisis and Conscience of Nonconformity
Dissenters
Volume III: The Crisis and Conscience of Nonconformity
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Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198229698
Number of Pages: 512
Published: 19/03/2015
Width: 16.8 cm
Height: 24.1 cm
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.
PART I: 'THE VERY FOUNDATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH': THE CRISIS OF DISSENT; PART II: 'THE HUB AND FOUNT OF SOCIAL LIFE': THE LIBERALIZATION OF DISSENT; PART III: 'WHAT IS MORALLY WRONG CAN NEVER BE POLITICALLY RIGHT': THE CONSCIENCE OF DISSENT
magnificent...The reader is dazzled by the amplitude of the research on which the book is based...This reviewer was gripped * Quaker Studies * Full of truly wonderful things. * Martin Camroux, Journal for the History of Modern Theology 2017 Volume 24 Issue 2. * Watts's work will never be superseded ... [his] comprehensiveness is a marvel ... What will confer permanent value on this trilogy is the author's painstaking exactitude with statistical analysis ... Not only did Watts generate most of this data himself; he even rechecked the results of previous scholars. * Timothy Larsen, Times Literary Supplement * every whit as worthy as its predecessors ... It is excellent ... to have this wide ranging, sophisticated and wholly admirable study of the English and Welsh Dissenters' late Victorian high-noon ... [it] will be indispensable for those who wish to know about the 'enthralling' story of English and Welsh Dissent. * Professor D. Densil Morgan, Reviews in History * The concluding volume of this fine trilogy is comprehensive in scope, persuasive in argument, and charitable in tone. It will be an essential point of departure for all students of nineteenth-century church and society for many years to come. * Martin Wellings, Wesley and Methodist Studies * excellent * Robert Strivens, London Theological Seminary, Churchman * This is a formidably learned book in which Watts shows a masterly knowledge of his subject ... I recommend this work * Clare Thomas, Congregational History Society Magazine *
