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Beyond the Noise of Solemn Assemblies: The Protestant Ethic and the Quest for Social Justice in Canada
Since the 1970s Richard Allen's scholarship on the social gospel has broken new ground in the field of Canadian social and religious history by recovering key aspects of the tradition and its contribution to reform movements and politics. Beyond the Noise of Solemn Assemblies collects and extends many of his classic works to present a comprehensive overview of a major thread in the fabric of the country. Observing the mutual foundations of political and religious traditions in myth and arguing that the sacred and the secular belong together in discussions of public affairs, Allen contests the view that religion is personal and isolated from the public square. He discusses a range of the transition from providential to progressive thought in nineteenth-century Canada; the new spirituality of social solidarity articulated by Winnipeg college students in the 1890s; the role of the social gospel in pioneering urban reform; farmers and workers finding in radical Christianity legitimation for political revolt; Christian intellectuals in the 1930s framing a revolutionary prospectus for Depression-era Canada; the significance of Norman Bethune's religious upbringing for his life and work; strategically focused post-war ecumenical coalitions like Project North and the Latin American Working Group; and the prospects for democratic socialism at the end of the Cold War. Opening with a chapter relating the author's upbringing in a ministerial household dedicated to the Protestant ethic as the spirit of socialism, Beyond the Noise of Solemn Assemblies represents a significant contribution to understanding the social Christian movement in Canada.
412 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 15, 2019
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About the author
Richard Allen
30 books36 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
'Richard Allen' is the name on the front cover of the million-selling Skinhead books. The name was thought of by the editors at the London publishing firm New English Library and given by them to Jim Moffatt, one of a number of hack writers who churned out their books to order.
Born of Irish extraction, Jim Moffatt went to Britain and learnt his trade writing up to six stories a week (thrillers, spies, Westerns) for pulp fiction magazines. He moved on to writing books, and by the mid-seventies reckoned he had produced 250 in the previous 20 years, at a rate of 10,000 words a day when deadlines were approaching. Meanwhile, the managing director of the ailing New English Library imprint was desperate to make inroads into a new audience of younger readers; his editorial board came up with the idea of commissioning a novel set in the emerging skinhead subculture. In six days Moffatt wrote Skinhead. The book was an immediate hit, and many of its youthful readers were convinced that the author was a real hooligan, not a 55-year-old Canadian who always wore a jacket and tie and whose lurid tales of sex and street violence were written from the same seafront cottage in Sidmouth in which he also penned a column for the local paper. Soon after Skinhead Farewell Moffatt's real-life relationship with NEL came to an end.
Moffatt died of cancer in the early nineties, just at the time when the skinhead style was coming back into fashion.
'Richard Allen' is the name on the front cover of the million-selling Skinhead books. The name was thought of by the editors at the London publishing firm New English Library and given by them to Jim Moffatt, one of a number of hack writers who churned out their books to order.
Born of Irish extraction, Jim Moffatt went to Britain and learnt his trade writing up to six stories a week (thrillers, spies, Westerns) for pulp fiction magazines. He moved on to writing books, and by the mid-seventies reckoned he had produced 250 in the previous 20 years, at a rate of 10,000 words a day when deadlines were approaching. Meanwhile, the managing director of the ailing New English Library imprint was desperate to make inroads into a new audience of younger readers; his editorial board came up with the idea of commissioning a novel set in the emerging skinhead subculture. In six days Moffatt wrote Skinhead. The book was an immediate hit, and many of its youthful readers were convinced that the author was a real hooligan, not a 55-year-old Canadian who always wore a jacket and tie and whose lurid tales of sex and street violence were written from the same seafront cottage in Sidmouth in which he also penned a column for the local paper. Soon after Skinhead Farewell Moffatt's real-life relationship with NEL came to an end.
Moffatt died of cancer in the early nineties, just at the time when the skinhead style was coming back into fashion.
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October 28, 2021
I appreciate this collection for bringing together Allen’s lifetime of research on the Christian Left into one book. He details Protestant social movements and their relationship to secular political and legal changes in Canada. Moreover, the book is deeply personal with Allen writing personal introductions for each chapter, as well as a full chapter dedicated to his childhood where the influence of his parents on his research becomes clear. Indeed, Allen presents a hopeful look at social change as spurred by the melding of Protestantism and secular institutions.
Displaying 1 of 1 review