The Idea of a Christian social order : aspects of Anglican social thought in England, 1918-1945

Abstract

The theological grounds for Christian concern with the social order were the major preoccupation of Anglican social thinkers in the years between the wars. For most of the period, social theology was world-affirming: it presented society as part of God's creative purpose and man as a social being who should not be treated in isolation from his earthly environment. It was argued that the idea of a Christian social order, once central to the Church's social teaching, had disappeared with the collapse of medieval Christendom. The recovery of that idea, and the formulation of its key principles in terms relevant to modern society, became the self-appointed task of the Christian social movement in the inter-war period. In the late 1930s, Anglican social theology underwent important changes as a result of the influence of nee-orthodox Protestantism. The emphases of crisis theology - God's otherness and man's sinfulness - called into question the assumptions that the pattern of God's creation was still discernible in the modern world and that man could work towards the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. Anglican social theology became increasingly existentialist. Its central theme was the duty of the Christian to obey God’s will in the context of everyday life; and the attempt to draw the outlines of a Christian social order was regarded with increasing suspicion. While earlier social theology had treated the social order as part of the sphere of the Church, crisis theology set the Church and the world in tension. The full Christian message, it was argued, was not strictly applicable to a world governed by secular assumptions; while the conduct of social and political life belonged properly to the State. The Church's legitimate role in social affairs was therefore limited. In a modern, pluralist society, Christian values could only be implemented when Christians fulfilled the normal duties of citizenship in the light of faith - attempting to translate the Christian law of love into terms of justice, its nearest equivalent in a sinful world. This required a sound knowledge of social and economic realities and a clear understanding of alternative courses of action. Christians who worked, with non-Christians, towards the achievement of justice and truth would help to guide society in a more Christian direction.