Contested Christianity: The Political and Social Contexts of Victorian Theology (review)

In Contested Christianity: The Political and Social Contexts of Victorian Theology, religious historian Timothy Larsen explores a series of forgotten and misrepresented narratives in an attempt to illuminate the vitality and range of religious thought in the Victorian period. Much of the recent work among historians of British nineteenth-century Christianity (such as Arthur Burns, Grayson Carter, and Mark Smith) has, as Larsen reminds us in his introduction, focussed on the Church of England rather than Dissenting Protestants. While Larsen acknowledges the ways in which this work has encouraged our appreciation of Christian plurality and dynamism in the Victorian era, it is hardly surprising that he should insist on greater reference to Nonconformist religion in an effort to recover more fully the diversity of religious perspectives during the period and to break down popular stereotypes.

Larsen aims to introduce "new conversation partners into a variety of discussions" (1) through twelve case studies. Leaving aside the possibility that the number of case studies is a deliberate biblical allusion, attempting to symbolise rather than exhaust the range of Christian experience, it is difficult to comprehend Larsen's structural rationale. On the one hand, the arrangement of several loosely connected snapshots of Victorian theology might be read as a deliberate attempt to avoid the totalising narrative that haunts any book on Victorian religion; on the other, it might be argued that the range of material Larsen includes ultimately lacks cohesion. Neither judgement gives us the complete picture: the book does disrupt simplistic linear narratives of Victorian religion, but it is difficult to overlook entirely the accompanying lack of cohesion. Reference to a Christianity that is "contested" from within and without is too broad, even if it does signal a helpful corrective to univocal readings of Victorian religion, and the three subheadings within the book—"The Social Contexts of a Private Faith," "The Social Contexts of a Contested Faith," and "The Politics of Free Church Polity"—bear limited relation to one another. Although the chapters within each of the sections connect in suggestive and constructive ways, it is hard to see broader connections across them; for instance, one is left to wonder at the link between the account of Thomas Cook's cultivation of spiritual tours to the Holy Land in chapter 3, and the discussion of Thomas Cooper's apologetic technique in chapter 8.

Despite questions about the book's structure, there is much that is important and compelling in the narratives Larsen uncovers. In the strongest (and longest) section of the book, structured around questions concerning biblical criticism and hermeneutics, Larsen corrects a series of misconceptions about some of the debates that took place in the mid-nineteenth century and expands our appreciation of the issues involved. For example, the controversy that followed Bishop Colenso's publication of The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined (1862), coming in the wake of the publication of the more notorious Essays and Reviews (1860), is well known, but few scholars have taken the trouble either to investigate Colenso's motivation or theology, or to read his work carefully. Chapter 5 addresses these shortcomings by showing that Colenso's later book was intended "as a labor on behalf of the cause of 'Truth,' as revealed by scientific investigation" (59). Larsen explains how Colenso's hermeneutic compromise, "based almost entirely upon mathematical calculations derived from the numbers recorded in the Pentateuch" (60), failed to win many admirers: sceptics did not share Colenso's desire to reform the Church, modern biblical critics were embarrassed by the "crass and dubious arguments" (76) Colenso employed, and traditional believers were unconvinced (for reasons of both obstinacy and a more flexible hermeneutic than is often presumed) that the problems identified were as damaging to biblical integrity as Colenso suggested. Larsen observes that "it is very hard to find anyone, particularly anyone influential in the religious world of Victorian Britain, who was willing to give a hearty defense of Colenso's...