The Labour Church Movement

This chapter looks more closely at the main organizational expression of the religion of socialism, namely, the Labor Church movement. Previous historians have usually explained the rise of the Labor Church as part of a transfer of religious energy to the political sphere and then explained its demise by reference to the continuing process of secularization. In contrast, it focuses on the religious self-understanding of the Labor Church. It begins by explaining the rise of the movement by reference to the immanentist theology with which so many Victorians and Edwardians responded to the crisis of faith. Thereafter, it appeals to the ideas of the movement in order to explain its appeal, structure, and activities and to suggest that the decline of the movement reflected the weaknesses of its theology as a political theory.

Aesthetics · Appeal · Demise · Economics · Faith · Movement (music) · Order (exchange) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Secularization · Socialism · Sociology · Theology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development

• The Labour Church Movement, 1891–1902

  Open Access•Mark Bevir•Journal of British Studies•1999

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