Christian notions of the social order in Great Britain in reaction to the European Crises of the 1930s and 1940s

• Applicant: Dr. John Carter Wood
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2012 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 218072028

This project considers the conceptions of the social order developed by a Christian intellectual circle initiated and mainly organised within the context of the the Church of England in response to the crises of the 1930s and the Second World War. The circle (closely connected to the ecumenical movement) consisted of conferences, discussion groups, ecclesiastical and lay organisations, and publications through which Christians of different confessions and theological opinions were brought together to engage with secular thinking about social and international order. A range of figures of diverse intellectual backgrounds were represented, including non-Britons, and theological inspirations ranged from the British "liberal" tradition to continental Protestant "neo-orthodoxy", Catholic "neo-Thomism" and American "Christian realism". The first aim of the project is to understand the ideas that emerged from this circle with regard to three inherent tensions 1) between religious and secular ideas, 2) between establishing a common Christian identity for Europe while respecting cultural, religious and national diversity and 3) between the commitment to egalitarianism and the perceived need for a Christian elite to preserve order. A second aim is reconstructing the process through which these concepts were developed. Thirdly, this project examines the interplay between this circle and the British public sphere.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants