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What was the role of religion during the Victorian era
Role in religion in the Victorian period
Religion in victorian times
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Victorian Era Religion The Victorian Era was a very Christian and prudish time. Through the 19th century, England was an all Christian country. Their established church was “The Church of England.”
During this time, Judaism was the only other considerable religion. The amount of Jews rocketed from 60,000 to 300,000 in the time range of 34 years, 1880 to 1934, mostly because of migrants escaping oppression in Russia and eastern Europe. The Church of England was referred to as a reformed catholic church. In the reformed catholic religion, they believe that God “partners with humanity to bring healing and justice.” (Victorians: Religion) They believe he is beyond gender, goes past the limit of language, and is the creator of all.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus came across North America accidentally during his voyage to the East Indies. Columbus’s discovery marked the beginning of a new era; with it the Europeans became aware of the opportunities the New World offered. This encouraged others to set out and explore the North and South America in the 1500s. Although colonial America was governed under the British rule, it developed differently than Britain. Since Colonial America was diversified, it offered new opportunities, different religions, and different political views than Britain.
Many new changes came to Victorian England as a result of the age of industrialization. Where there were once small country parishes, manufacturing towns were springing up. One change resulting from industrialization was the shortage of clergy to fill the new parishes in these towns. These new parishes reflect the demographic changes of the English countryside. Rural villages grew into booming towns. Where a single parish was once sufficient, there was now a need for multiple parishes. The Church of England went about meeting these demands for new clergy in two major ways, actively recruiting men to the clergy and restructuring theological facilities and changing the requirements for ordination. These factors show us some of the upheaval and reconstruction that was going on in the Anglican Church in Victorian England. This was a direct result of the need to train a large number of clergy in a relatively short period of time.
The Church of England was not a good religion during the sixteenth century, the puritans want to practice their own religion but the Church of England would not allow them. People didn’t want to obey the churches authority anymore. The Puritans it particular did not want to follow the Church of England. Over time, “the church of England began to crack down on those who refused to bow to their authority” (www3.gettysburg.edu) this caused the Puritans to leave England. The puritans left England and went on a dangerous journey to be free from the church. It was so bad that, “it got to the point where the puritans decided to face the dangerous journey to the New World rather than be persecuted for their religion” (www3.gettysburg.edu) these people would rather put their lives and families in danger than to be put down by the Church of England. There were ranks inside the church and women were at the bottom.
Religion and government in England had always gone hand in hand, and if one group’s ideas did not coincide with England’s laws controlling the practice of religion they would be denied. The unification of church and state within European countries led to many wars, resulting in massive debt. As England declared themselves a Catholic country, Protestants who did not hold the same beliefs needed a new homeland where they could be free to worship in their own way. This new homeland was America, and it allowed Protestants, now calling themselves Puritans, to practice Christianity without government interference. While original settlers came to America to create a Christian homeland where they could practice their faith how they wanted, America quickly became a homeland for religious freedom through a mixing pot of differing religions, cultures, and ethnicities, enough open land for them to exist together, and the key idea of the separation of Church and State.
In the New England colonies, where the Puritans were, the church was the center of everything. The clergy was in complete political control.
In 1534, King Henry VIII formally instigated the English Reformation. He therefore passed the Act of Supremacy, which outlawed the Catholic Church and made him “the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England” (Roark, 68). Puritans were looking for a more Protestant church and received what they wanted. Along with it, came the King’s total control over the Church. This is what the Puritans didn’t want. Puritans believed that ordinary Christians, not a church hierarchy, should control religious life. They wanted a distinct line between government and the Church of England. Puritans also wanted to eliminate the customs of Catholic worship and instead focus on an individual’s relationship with God developed through Bible study, prayer, and introspection (Roark, 68).
In 16TH AND 17TH century, Puritans were a group of people “dissidents”. The English Reformed Protestants were in verge to “purify”, the Church of England from
The History of Anglicanism is a very fascinating part of English history, and often a misunderstood part as well. Many believe erroneously that Anglicanism came about purely as a result of King Henry VIII desiring a new wife, and creating a new religion was the only way to do so. The truth is a good deal more complicated. There is also the fascinating shift from Anglicanism being essentially Catholic, just with a different head of church, to be being one of Catholicism’s greatest opponents in European politics.
The Christian religious groups had a major influential role in the British colonies around the time of 1600 and 1776. They attempted to start the religion through the government and the town rules. They would make laws that would make everyone attend a house of worship and pay taxes that funded the salaries of ministers, eight of the thirteen British colonies of established churches and practices a different version of a non-Christian faith. The religion inspired both good and bad with many religious leaders. Many of the outpourings from this period are either supported or not supported at all by the enlightenment.
The Anglican Church, or the Church if England, was the official church of England after the separation from the Roman Catholic Church in 1530. ( Black, XLVIII) The Anglican Church “from the time of the Elizabethan settlement on” (The Victorian Web), attempted to serve as a distinctive middle way between Catholicism and Puritanism, with varying degrees of success. (The Victorian Web) However, under Charles II, Puritans were purged from the church and non-Anglicans were, in the years to come, barred from holding position in Parliament as well as receiving degrees from Oxford and Cambridge.
... atheism and refinement of scientific thought. He indicates that dogmatic doctrine to the Victorians "was not only natural (given the climate of opinion) - it was attractive. They liked it. One might even say they asked for it. The prophets who put on the mantle of infallibility did so as much from public demand as from a personal sense of fitness" (154). Intellectual dogmatism, in a sense, became the "new religion" for many during the Victorian age. Houghton's examination of Victorian intellectual dogmatism reveals it to be not so much a striking contrast to Romantic revolution in poetry, for example, but rather, the next step, how ever more pronounced, of that same dogmatism that was practiced by the Romantics and their predecessors.
The Victorian Era in English history was a period of rapid change. One would be hard-pressed to find an aspect of English life in the 19th century that wasn’t subject to some turmoil. Industrialization was transforming the citizens into a working class population and as a result, it was creating new urban societies centered on the factories. Great Britain enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity at home and thus was extending its global reach in an era of New Imperialism. Even in the home, the long held beliefs were coming into conflict.
precedent to go by for a woman to be in power. So Henry wanted to
Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin and William Thackeray are among the Victorian thinkers to earn the title of “sage.” To some degree, the Victorian sages were respected and enjoyed by people from all social classes. They were certainly considered intellectuals and trailblazers of alternative viewpoints. They passed their message through public speaking, periodic columns in newspapers, poetry, and in novel-form. It is a difficult task to describe them as a group because they were each so unique in their style and beliefs. Yet, their focus and aims had much in common.
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair” (Dickens n. pag.). These words by Charles Dickens, one of the most famous writers of the Victorian Period, were intended to show the connections between the French Revolution and the decline of Dickens’s own time, the Victorian Era (“About” n.pag.). Dickens wanted to show how the trends of his time were following a tragic path that had already played out and not ended well in France. According to an article about this historical period, the Victorian Era was “a time of change, a time of great upheaval, but also a time of great literature” (“Victorian” n.pag.). The Victorian Period reflects the great changes in the social, political, and economical shifts of the time.