This month we have a special edition! We are hosting The Hibbert Trust's podcast of an interesting article by Unitarian historian Alan Ruston. In it, Alan surveys the diverse attitudes to war at the time, with some surprising results.
In this episode, Alan reads his article ‘Unitarian Attitudes
towards World War 1’, which was first published by the Unitarian Historical
Society. Alan was editor of the Transactions of the Unitarian Historical
Society for 25 years and has twice been the President of the Society. He has a
particular interest in writing about the story of liberal religion in Britain
in the 20th century.
You can read the original article on Faith and Freedom website as part
of the Great War project, where the full list of references used can be seen
(http://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/GWarticles.htm).
A further article, also by Alan Ruston, on Unitarians and WW1 can be
seen in the The Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society in the 1993
issue. This article is about the two Unitarian ministers who volunteered for the
army, even though they were exempt, and were killed. At the end of the article,
the names and details of all Unitarian ministers who served in WW1 in one
capacity or another (such as in the ambulance service, YMCA etc) are listed.
For a wider treatment of church attitudes to WW1, Alan Ruston has
written the appropriate chapter in Protestant Nonconformity in the
20th century (published by Paternoster Press) on attitude of
Congregationalists, Baptists and others as well as Unitarians to the War.
You can find more information
about contemporary issues in liberal religion, just visit www.thehibberttrust.org.uk
