Ecclesiastical McCarthyism: Cold War Repression in the Church of England

Abstract

The fact that Cold War culture was imbued with a religious dimension had a profound impact on the conduct of the churches. While it remains difficult to determine the extent and degree of repression that informed British domestic affairs in the absence of a study like David Caute's The Great Fear, an examination of how the Church of England treated its left-wing priests during the McCarthy era illustrates that there was a British version of McCarthyism. A more insidious phenomenon, it was as able as its American counterpart to impose conformity, destroy objectivity, polarise opinions and damage the lives of dissenters from the Cold War consensus.