Social Christianity in Scotland and Beyond, 1800-2000: Essays in Honour of Stewart J. Brown

Social Christianity in Scotland and Beyond explores the multifarious initiatives known variously as ’social Christianity’, ’Christian socialism’, or the ’social gospel’, that spanned countries, continents, decades, and denominations. Building on the scholarship of Stewart J. Brown, to whom this volume is dedicated, fourteen leading and emerging scholars of the history of Christianity consider the varying social policies and initiatives that Christians have pursued in response to industrialisation, urbanisation, expanding global trade networks, and nascent democratic politics.
With a particular focus on religious communities in Scotland, the essays provide comparative lenses with which to view sociological and theological developments through examinations of similar phenomena in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. In adopting an international perspective that extends beyond Britain and the US, this volume encourages a more holistic understanding of social Christianity as part of a multifaceted and fluid belief system that evolved and shifted according to context.

Andrew Kloes is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a historian in Washington, D.C. He is the author of The German Awakening: Protestant Renewal after the Enlightenment, 1815-1848 (Oxford, 2019) and has contributed articles to the Bavinck Review, Harvard Theological Review, Studies in Church History and Wesley and Methodist Studies.

Laura M. Mair is the Mary R. S. Creese Lecturer in Modern Scottish History at the University of Aberdeen and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Divinity. Her seminal book, Religion and Relationships in Ragged Schools: An Intimate History of Educating the Poor (Routledge, 2019) was the first book-length study of the ragged school movement. She has authored a number of articles in journals including Church History, Family & Community, Scottish Church History and the Journal of Victorian Culture.