Can a Christian Be a Nationalist? Vladimir Solov'ev's Critique of Nationalism

Slavic Review ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Gaut
Keyword(s):  
Early Career ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
National Question ◽  
Literary Figure ◽  
Moral Critique ◽  
Vladimir Solov'ev ◽  
Christian Nation

If my entire argument could fit under this rubric: Russia is a Christian nation andthereforeshould always act in a Christian way, my opponents’ argument can be expressed in the following formula: The Russian nation…is the only truly Christian nation, butnevertheless,it should act in a pagan way in all of its affairs.—Vladimir Solov'ev, Preface toThe National Question in Russia, Part II(1891)In the 1880s and 1890s, Vladimir Solov'ev worked out a Christian approach to nations and nationality, and a moral critique of nationalism, while waging a polemical battle against the Russian conservative nationalists of his day. His ideas emerged primarily from his own social gospel theology, but they were marked by both the Slavophile romanticism of his early career and the western liberalism of his later years. Solov'ev is most often treated as a philosopher, a mystic, or a literary figure, and as a result, his journalistic writings on nationalism and other topics have often been overlooked by scholars, even though they constitute at least a third of his published output.

scholarly journals SHERWOOD EDDY, THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE, AND THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN INTERNATIONALISM IN 1920S AMERICA

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL G. THOMPSON
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Christian Nation

By tracing the career of influential YMCA missionary Sherwood Eddy, this essay brings to light the origins of Christian internationalism in 1920s America. Far more than mere boosterism for Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations, and far more than mere “pacifism” or Social Gospel “idealism”(reductive categories with which activism in the period is often associated), Christian internationalism in the interwar period was a movement defined by three broad and far-reaching impulses. First, it was characterized by the proliferation of new enterprises such as travelling seminars, conferences and publications devoted to reflection on the ethics of international relations. Second, it comprised a holistic, oppositional and radical political orientation that went beyond legalist internationalism and encompassed agitation against imperialism and racism. Third, the movement was premised on a fundamental critique of the idea of America as a “Christian nation”. Eddy's career highlights the unique importance of the missionary enterprise in giving shape to these impulses in the 1920s and beyond.

The Social Origins and Provenance of the English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II

1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
K. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Early Career ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complete Study ◽  
History Of

During the last twenty or twenty-five years medieval historians have been much interested in the composition of the English episcopate. A number of studies of it have been published on periods ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A further paper might well seem superfluous. My reason for offering one is that most previous writers have concentrated on analysing the professional circles from which the bishops were drawn, and suggesting the influences which their early careers as royal clerks, university masters and students, secular or regular clergy, may have had on their later work as bishops. They have shown comparatively little interest in their social background and provenance, except for those bishops who belonged to magnate families. Some years ago, when working on the political activities of Edward II's bishops, it seemed to me that social origins, family connexions and provenance might in a number of cases have had at least as much influence on a bishop's attitude to politics as his early career. I there fore collected information about the origins and provenance of these bishops. I now think that a rather more careful and complete study of this subject might throw further light not only on the political history of the reign, but on other problems connected with the character and work of the English episcopate. There is a general impression that in England in the later middle ages the bishops' ties with their dioceses were becoming less close, and that they were normally spending less time in diocesan work than their predecessors in the thirteenth century.

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