Christian Ideals In British Culture

This book is an important contribution to the history of religion in twentieth century Britain which focuses upon the importance of central religious narratives. These narratives are demonstrated to have changed significantly over time but also to have been invested with importance and meaning by religious individuals and organisations, as well as by secular ones.

The book investigates narratives of pilgrimage and the good Samaritan, of conversion, of the idea of the 'just' and 'unjust' war, of the creation of post First World War Remembrance, of sickness and dying and of specific 'moments' and their power to make religion strong again at specific historical junctures.

The last narrative investigated is narrative of religious decline itself and how this convinced the Anglican Church in England to seriously consider the prospect of its own demise. The strength and importance of these different emphases does not follow a pattern of religious decline or of secular triumph as these are regularly recast and renewed.

As such this offers a qualification to conventional versions of the secularization thesis as well as suggesting a new paradigm for thinking about and writing religious history in Britain. Review: '... there is no question, to my mind, but that David Nash opens up a number of fascinating lines of inquiry into the metaphysical and moral reasoning which runs through much modern British culture and history.' - Revd Dr Jeremy Morris, King's College, Cambridge, UK 'David Nash's Christian Ideals in British Culture: Stories of Belief in the Twentieth Century offers away past the increasingly stale secularization debate.

Nash calls for a new agenda for future research, a religious history of highly contextual individual choices. It can only be hoped that historians will take up this challenge and continue to explore religious belief in twentieth-century Britain without relying on problematic metanarratives. This book will serve as a useful starting point in that endeavor.' Stephen Jackson - Journal of British Studies