Stewart Headlam's Radical Anglicanism: The Mass, the Masses, and the Music Hall (Studies in Angelican History) [Hardcover]

John Richard Orens (Author)

Book Description

Series: Studies in Angelican History | Publication Date: June 2003

Standing in stark contrast to the conservative churchmen of Victorian Britain, the Anglican clergyman Stewart Headlam was a passionately progressive reformer, a champion of the working poor - especially women - a defender of the music hall performers his colleagues attacked as licentious, and, in short, a man of God who remained firmly and controversially engaged with the society in which he lived and worked. This book, the first significant study of Headlam since 1928, paints a rich and complex picture of this larger-than-life man of the cloth, charting the trail he blazed across the social, political, and religious landscape of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. Dissatisfied from an early age with his family's Evangelical faith, Headlam became an Anglican curate, but his political views were increasingly radicalized as he befriended working-class atheists and trade union leaders. John Richard Orens details Headlam's repeated conflicts with the establishment figures of his faith over his defense of music hall ballet performers' right to reveal their legs, his role in the early years of the Fabian Society, his anti-puritanism, and his passionate socialism. Headlam was even instrumental in having Oscar Wilde bailed out of prison following the writer's arrest for "homosexual offenses". With this intellectual biography, Orens places Headlam's life, beliefs, and actions in the context of the period, contributing to the ongoing debate about the proper relationship between Christianity, on the one hand, and society, sexuality, and the arts, on the other.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is of immense importance. Since the biography by Bettany in 1928 there has been no serious assessment of Headlam ... 'the most controversial clergyman of the late Victorian age.' ... Behind the eccentricity and outrageous desirte to shock, there was a theological dynamic and focus that shaped the thought and the lives of many Christians less daring than Headlam himself. He pioneered a liberationist tradition within Catholic Anglicanism, a rebellious spirit within a conforming Church, and Orens's study shows that his story is highly relevant to our current crises. This work ought to be read as the first serious intellectual biography of one who can rightly be seen as the father of 'sacramental socialism.' ... Thorough, theologically astute, and entertaining." -- Rev. Kenneth Leech, *Church Times*

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252028244
• ISBN-13: 978-0252028243
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,214,924 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful introduction to the Evolving Political Left, September 29, 2003

By 

Duncan B. MacDonald (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stewart Headlam's Radical Anglicanism: The Mass, the Masses, and the Music Hall (Studies in Angelican History) (Hardcover)

Orens' Stewart Headlam's Radical Anglicanism is not only a fascinating, and long overdue, intellectual biography of Stweart Headlam, the Anglican cleric who worked so diligently to christianize Socialism, but also a very well-told account of the evolving debate on the part of the politiical left in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. A debate which in time was to have an impact on the development of the Social Gopsel in the United States.

Orens is a very capable storyteller, and the reader soon finds himself in the world and thoughts of Headlam, G.B. Shaw and S. Webb. Through their own words the reader is taken along as they strive, and bicker, to find the way to build the New Jerusalem in Britian. along the way, the reader comes to repsect Headlam for the stregnth of his convictions and the depths of hit faith.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in the story of evolving political thought in the nineteenth century, the foundations of a christianized political left, or just a great biography of one of the world's more interesting characters.