Bangor History of Religion – serie

This work offers a modern appraisal of the Welsh Methodist leader and revivalist, Howell Harris. His influence on the development of early Methodism is charted and the period from his conversion in 1735 to his secession with Daniel Rowland is examined.

While the Christian faith has played a major part in the history of both Wales and Scotland, there has been little previous work looking at their histories in a comparative manner. In the light of the establishment of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, this issue is of particular contemporary importance. This collection discusses religion in Scotland and Wales from a historical perspective and examines the contribution of religion to the sense of national identity in the period from the Evangelical Revival to the present day. It suggests that the histories of the two nations are only understood when the religious dimension is taken seriously. The various essays collected here offer new perspectives on particular denominations, from the Scottish Covenanters to Welsh Methodism, as well as discussing individual figures such as Howell Harris, Edward Irving and Arthur Price, in order to examine the complex relationship between language, national identity and religion. Religion and National Identity is an original and timely contribution, not only to the religious histories of Wales and Scotland, but also to the collective history of Great Britain in the modern period.

This study of the religious establishment in Wales and its impact on Welsh society in the three centuries leading up to the disestablishment continues the approach to Welsh church history begun by Sir Glanmor Williams in his 'Welsh Church and the Reformation' and continued in his 'Wales and the Reformation'.

Religion has been a defining characteristic in Welsh national identity from the beginning. This book demonstrates how religion and faith have informed Welsh national identity from the seventeenth century to the present, touching upon the Puritan period, the Older Dissent of the eighteenth century, nineteenth-century Nonconformity and the impact of secularism during the twentieth century. It asks whether religion has been part of the essence of Welshness, and whether that is still the case within the multicultural Wales of the twenty-first century.

This book is based on original research in the archive of the Council of Churches in Wales, housed in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, focusing on the work of the Council of Churches for Wales. Formed in 1956, it ceased to exist in 1990 when its successor body, Cytun: Churches Together in Wales came into being. This book provides a history of the modern ecumenical movement in Wales, a movement which has attempted to foster closer collaboration among the churches and denominations, and has promoted the search for closer union between the churches and has enabled the churches to work in partnership in responding to national and international social, economic and cultural list.

The years between 1906 and 1939 in Europe were characterized by a concern, expressed in political, economic, social and religious terms, about the social conditions which had resulted from more than a century of industrialization. Seeking God’s Kingdom examines the work of Welsh Nonconformity’s four main protagonists of social thinking: David Miall Edwards, Thomas Rees, Herbert Morgan and John Morgan Jones. It explores the ways in which they were influenced by European intellectual and philosophical ideas, showing how religion was reinterpreted by them to promote social improvement, and the book assesses the strengths and weaknesses of their approach. Archetypal theological liberals rather than specifically social gospellers, their conclusions were undermined towards the end of the period by changes and developments in the current of European religious thought. This is a comprehensive and fascinating study of liberal theology’s attempt to come to terms with the demands and challenges of an industrialized society.Contents1. Preface to the Second Edition2. Discovering Jerusalem3. Wales and the Social Gospel4. A Crisis of Faith5. The Question of Context