Christian Radicalism and the Hope of Christian Unity

Abstract

This chapter explores the sudden outbreak of ecumenical enthusiasm that swept over the early-1960s Church of England against the backdrop of superpower confrontation. Radical readings of Christian eschatology suggested that global church reunion would provide the key to world peace. These Christian longings for world unity formed part of a wider Sixties assault on British moral exceptionalism, whose problematization at the dawn of the 1960s paved the way for more radical criticisms of existing British culture in the early- and mid-1960s. The ecumenical movement’s eschatological critique of the existing Christian churches was also a crucial ingredient in the making of Anglican radicalism. By the early 1970s, however, the ecumenical agenda seemed to have failed. This disappointed the initial hopes of many Anglican radicals, prompting them to seek alternative methods of transforming society.