Theology

Placing Christianity and Social Order within a wider movement that began with the Malvern Conference in 1941 and continued with a series of mass meetings after it was published, and noting the way its content drew together and promoted various strands of Christian social reflection, this article highlights the ecumenical and collaborative nature of the leadership it provided.

This article sets Christianity and Social Order into the context of William Temple’s contemporaries at Balliol College, with a focus on Beveridge and Tawney, and Arnold Toynbee in a previous generation. It explores who first developed the concept of the ‘welfare state’.

This article gives an overview of the main economic, legal and cultural changes around the role of women, debates about gender identity and patterns of marriage and the family that have taken place over the past 80 years since Christianity and Social Order was first published.

This article explores Temple’s understanding of the ethics of land in Christianity and Social Order. It explores Temple’s engagement with contemporary issues of land in relation to profit, ownership and invasion. It is relevant to the contemporary invasion of Ukraine and environmentalism.

A comparison of attempts by Archbishops William Temple and William Laud to shape values within a society, with a particular focus on Temple’s Christianity and Social Order.

This article moves beyond William Temple’s Christianity and Social Order and gives an outline of its implications for public policy today in the context of religiously inspired terrorism, the global financial crash, COVID-19 and postsecularity.