Race, Religion and National Identity in Sixties Britain: Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his Encounter with other Faiths

Abstract

The twentieth century saw the opening of wider spaces in which the settled historic Christianity of the UK could encounter other faiths. By the time Michael Ramsey became archbishop of Canterbury in 1961, developments both in England and in the international Anglican Communion made the task more present and more urgent. Ramsey was enabled by the expansion of air travel to visit more of the countries of the former empire in which Anglicans still worshipped, as Geoffrey Fisher before him had begun to do. Added to this was his willingness to intervene in international affairs, whether the war in Vietnam or the apartheid regime in South Africa. As such, there were new opportunities for Ramsey to come into contact with leaders of the other world faiths, and with local conflicts in other nations that had religious elements to them.