Contested Christianity: The Political and Social Contexts of Victorian Theology - Hardcover

Timothy Larsen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0918954932 ISBN 13: 9780918954930

Publisher: Baylor University Press, 2004

Synopsis

This volume explores the cultural, political, and intellectual forces that helped shape and define nineteenth-century British Christianity. Larsen challenges many of the standard assumptions about Victorian era Christians in their attempts to embody their theological commitments. This study brings freshness and verve to the study of religion and the Victorians, bearing fruit in a range of significant, and often counter-intuitive, findings and connections.

About this title

About the Author

Timothy Larsen is Associate Professor of Theology at Wheaton College. Larsen received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Wheaton College and his Ph.D. from the University of Stirling in Scotland. Among other works, Larsen has authored Friends of Religious Equality: Nonconformist Politics in Mid-Victorian England (1999) and Christabel Pankhurst: Fundamentalism and Feminism in Coalition (2002). He is also the editor of the Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals (2003).

Review

Timothy Larsen challenges many stereotypes of Victorian religion in this volume. He shows that Evangelical Nonconformists, far from being uniformly obscurantist or fanatical, could be creative and fair-minded; and he reveals that reflective freethinkers could return to the faith they had once deserted. --David Bebbington, Professor of History, University of Sterling

Contested Christianity argues vividly and persuasively that the religious sensibility of the Victorians was so powerful precisely because it was so varied. Tim Larsen is a wonderful guide--wise and witty, as well as deeply learned--through the intricate maze of Victorian religious culture, with its cast of sex-mad clergy, pious blasphemers, Bible-toting tourists and 57 varieties of Christians arguing passionately about everything. This is the best kind of history, which reminds us both how different and how familiar the inhabitants of the past can be. --Peter Mandler, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Through twelve fascinating case studies, Larsen casts new light on an era that was much more than petticoats and crinolines. He uncovers little known figures that stand at the intersection of the history of ideas and the world of popular unbelief with fascinating results that challenge common assumptions about the Victorian era. --Marion Ann Taylor, Associate Professor of Old Testament, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto

Edition details

• Publisher: Baylor University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0918954932
• ISBN 13: 9780918954930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 234