
The Evangelical Age of Ingenuity in Industrial Britain argues that British evangelicals in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries invented new methods of spreading the gospel, as well as new forms of personal religious practice, by exploiting the era's growth of urbanization, industrialization, consumer goods, technological discoveries, and increasingly mobile populations. While evangelical faith has often been portrayed standing in inherent tension with the transitions of modernity, Joseph Stubenrauch demonstrates that developments in technology, commerce, and infrastructure were fruitfully linked with theological shifts and changing modes of religious life. This volume analyzes a vibrant array of religious consumer and material culture produced during the first half of the nineteenth century. Mass print and cheap mass-produced goods--from tracts and ballad sheets to teapots and needlework mottoes--were harnessed to the evangelical project. By examining ephemera and decorations alongside the strategies of evangelical publishers and benevolent societies, Stubenrauch considers often overlooked sources in order to take the pulse of "vital" religion during an age of upheaval. He explores why and how evangelicals turned to the radical alterations of their era to bolster their faith and why "serious Christianity" flowered in an industrial age that has usually been deemed inhospitable to it.
This book investigates how British evangelicals in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries successfully integrated their religious mission with the rapid technological and commercial advancements of the Industrial Revolution. Joseph Stubenrauch, a scholar of modern British history, utilizes a wide range of material culture and archival ephemera to challenge the traditional assumption that evangelical faith was inherently opposed to modernity. He argues that rather than resisting industrialization, evangelicals actively harnessed new infrastructure, mass production, and consumer habits to expand their influence and redefine personal religious practice.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Historians and scholars of religious studies identify this work as a significant contribution to the understanding of how faith communities adapt to rapid societal change. Readers frequently note the academic rigor and the innovative use of material culture as primary evidence for the author's arguments.
Page Count:
297
Publication Date:
2016-01-01
Publisher:
OUP Oxford
ISBN-10:
0191086134
ISBN-13:
9780191086137
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