TY - JOUR
T1 - The Church of Scotland's special commission on communism, 1949-1954: tackling 'Christianity's most serious competitor'
AU - McFarland, Elaine W.
AU - Johnston, Ronald
N1 - <p>Originally published in: Contemporary British History (2009), 23 (3), pp.337-361.</p>
PY - 2009/9/1
Y1 - 2009/9/1
N2 - This article analyses the origins, aims and impact of the Church of Scotland's Special Commission on Communism, 1949-1954. The case study not only extends our understanding of Christianity's response to the Cold War, but also helps underline organised religion's complex engagement with modern secular society, which communism was believed to represent in an extreme form. Rather than an outburst of crude McCarthyism, the Commission's work actually underlines the limits of clerical anti-communism. The dominant issue for its members was not the political struggle between East and West, or the economic one between capitalism and communism, but a deeper conflict between the Christian and anti-Christian interpretation of life and the human personality. As a result the Commission saw its task as building a constructive Christian alternative to the conditions that had created communism, combining theology with a new 'Christian sociology'.
AB - This article analyses the origins, aims and impact of the Church of Scotland's Special Commission on Communism, 1949-1954. The case study not only extends our understanding of Christianity's response to the Cold War, but also helps underline organised religion's complex engagement with modern secular society, which communism was believed to represent in an extreme form. Rather than an outburst of crude McCarthyism, the Commission's work actually underlines the limits of clerical anti-communism. The dominant issue for its members was not the political struggle between East and West, or the economic one between capitalism and communism, but a deeper conflict between the Christian and anti-Christian interpretation of life and the human personality. As a result the Commission saw its task as building a constructive Christian alternative to the conditions that had created communism, combining theology with a new 'Christian sociology'.
KW - Church of Scotland
KW - communism
KW - 20th century history
U2 - 10.1080/13619460903080176
DO - 10.1080/13619460903080176
M3 - Article
VL - 23
SP - 337
EP - 361
JO - Contemporary British History
JF - Contemporary British History
IS - 3
ER -