Religion And Racial Progress In Twentieth Century Britain

This book is the first in-depth analysis of Ernest William Barnes’ Christian-eugenic philosophy: ‘bio-spiritual determinism’. As a testament to the popularity of the movement, mid-twentieth century British eugenics is contextualized within a remarkably diverse selection of discourses including secular and Anglican interpretations of modernism, poverty, population, gender equality, pacifism and racism. This begins to address the scholastic gap on Christian eugenics while highlighting the perseverance of eugenic racism after World War Two.

This book engages with the relationship between religion, evolution and heredity, by bringing together two of its aspects that are frequently discussed separately: Darwinism and eugenics. It also demonstrates that religion has played a greater role in shaping modern debates on evolution and human improvement than current scholarship has previously acknowledged. Drawing on examples provided by Britain, Italy and Portugal across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the present study provides a fresh discussion of seminal topics such as reproduction, parenthood, the control of population and ideas of human improvement based on eugenics and genetics, which intersected and, at times, dominated the much broader debate between science and religion reignited by the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection in the second half of the nineteenth century.

In this book Professor Crook continues his investigation of the intellectual response to a twentieth century that witnessed unprecedented challenges to western culture and identity, horrific world wars, and revolutionary new science such as the theory of relativity which bred both hope and the threat of nuclear annihilation for humanity. Science and massive social changes seemed to have fatally eroded traditional religion. This collection of essays ranges across a wide spectrum of thinkers. They include England’s only prime minister/philosopher Arthur Balfour; eminent scientists such as the astrophysicists Arthur Eddington and James Jeans, endocrinologist Lancelot Hogben, and biologist Julian Huxley; novelists like E. M. Forster, Aldous Huxley, Dorothy Sayers and H. G. Wells (who wept over a world at “the end of its tether”); writers on art and civilisation Charles Bell (of Bloomsbury fame) and Christopher Dawson; and the “Brains Trust” stalwart Cyril Joad. We also look at many religious thinkers from modernist theologians to mystics. They include Hilaire Belloc, William Temple, W. B. Selbie, Charles Raven, Ronald Knox, Evelyn Underhill and, to finish with, the Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin who believed the world was evolving towards a mystical “Omega Point”. We who live in troubled times of pandemics, political extremes and loss of faith might well read our predecessors with profit on crises in their society and culture.

Critically analyses the historical, cultural and political dimensions of white religious rage in America, past and present This book sheds light on the phenomenon of white rage, and maps out the uneasy relationship between white anxiety, religious fervour, American identity and perceived black racial progress. Contributors to the volume examine the sociological construct of the "e;white labourer"e;, whose concerns and beliefs can be understood as religious in foundation, and uncover that white religious fervor correlates to notions of perceived white loss and perceived black progress. In discussions ranging from the Constitution to the Charlottesville riots to the evangelical community's uncritical support for Trump, the authors of this collection argue that it is not economics but religion and race that stand as the primary motivating factors for the rise of white rage and white supremacist sentiment in the United States.

Can science and religion coexist in harmony? Or is conflict inevitable? In this volume an international team of distinguished scholars addresses these enduring yet urgent questions by examining the lives of thirteen eminent twentieth-century scientists whose careers were marked by the interaction of science and religion: Rachel Carson, Charles A. Coulson, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Arthur S. Eddington, Albert Einstein, Ronald A. Fisher, Julian Huxley, Pascual Jordan, Robert A. Millikan, Ivan P. Pavlov, Michael I. Pupin, Abdus Salam, and Edward O. Wilson. The richly empirical studies show a diversity of creative engagements between science and religion that defy efforts to set the two at odds.

The ongoing debates on the morality of artificial birth control sparked a heated public debate in the early twentieth century in an already religiously fragmented United States. Many denominations took part in the deliberations both publicly and privately. In examining the ideas about contraception and birth control at that time, this book considers the cultural environment, religion and its connection to the roots of birth control, the questioning of religious doctrine, the Protestants' view of birth control, the Lambeth conferences of 1930, the influence of conservatives, and the influence of Catholics. Also discussed is the historical context of fundamentalists versus modernists, neo-Malthusianism, eugenics, immigration, the movement for legalization organized by Margaret Sanger, and how the Catholic Church came to lead religious resistance to artificial birth control.

A. T. Moore's thorough commentary on "Love's Sacrifice" is designed to be of use to all kinds of readers, from students of Early Modern drama to specialists in the field. The notes provide full explanations of obscure words and phrases, and offer analyzes of many aspects of staging and interpretation. The text for this edition is based on a fresh study of the quarto of 1633, the only authoritative early text. In his introduction to the play, Moore reappraises the evidence for the play's date of composition. He also looks at the circumstances of the play's genesis, presenting detailed discussions of both the theater where "Love's Sacrifice" was first performed and the acting company for which it was written. Arguing that Ford's adaptation of his source materials is the key to interpreting this remarkably allusive play, Moore provides a wealth of new information about Ford's sources.The introduction also includes a survey of critical responses, an overview of the play, stage history, and a bibliography of relevant secondary material. This new volume in the "Revels Plays" series is the most detailed and comprehensive edition of "Love's Sacrifice" ever published - and the first modern-spelling edition of Ford's tragedy in more than a century. The play's textual history is discussed in an appendix. A second appendix examines possible links between "Love's Sacrifice" and the real-life story of the murdered Italian prince and musician Carlo Gesualdo.

Although much has been written about the vigorous debates over science and religion in the Victorian era, little attention has been paid to their continuing importance in early twentieth-century Britain. Reconciling Science and Religion provides a comprehensive survey of the interplay between British science and religion from the late nineteenth century to World War II. Peter J. Bowler argues that unlike the United States, where a strong fundamentalist opposition to evolutionism developed in the 1920s (most famously expressed in the Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925), in Britain there was a concerted effort to reconcile science and religion. Intellectually conservative scientists championed the reconciliation and were supported by liberal theologians in the Free Churches and the Church of England, especially the Anglican "Modernists." Popular writers such as Julian Huxley and George Bernard Shaw sought to create a non-Christian religion similar in some respects to the Modernist position. Younger scientists and secularists—including Rationalists such as H. G. Wells and the Marxists—tended to oppose these efforts, as did conservative Christians, who saw the liberal position as a betrayal of the true spirit of their religion. With the increased social tensions of the 1930s, as the churches moved toward a neo-orthodoxy unfriendly to natural theology and biologists adopted the "Modern Synthesis" of genetics and evolutionary theory, the proposed reconciliation fell apart. Because the tensions between science and religion—and efforts at reconciling the two—are still very much with us today, Bowler's book will be important for everyone interested in these issues.