{"id":148606,"date":"2026-11-06T07:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T12:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=148606"},"modified":"2026-11-06T18:30:38","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T23:30:38","slug":"peter-townley-on-william-temples-feast-day-the-value-of-temples-vision-in-a-cynical-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=148606","title":{"rendered":"Peter Townley on William Temple&#8217;s Feast Day&#8211;The value of Temple\u2019s vision in a cynical world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/comment\/register\/article\/credo-the-value-of-william-temples-vision-in-a-cynical-world-7vhpdsfp6wv\">here<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Working with his Rugby contemporary R. H. Tawney, the seminal Labour thinker, and William Beveridge, the architect of the welfare reforms which sought to banish the five giants of want, idleness, squalor, ignorance and disease, Temple\u2019s book Christianity and Social Order, published in 1942, provided a challenging theological gloss to this vision: \u201c. . . there is no hope of establishing a more Christian social order except through the labour and sacrifice of those in whom the Spirit of Christ is active, and that the first necessity for progress is more and better Christians taking full responsibility as citizens for the political, social and economic system under which they and their fellows live.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After Temple\u2019s death at the age of 63 after being Archbishop of Canterbury for only 30 months, Bishop Barry of Southwell asked angrily in The Spectator: \u201cIs the Church so rich in prophets that it can afford to squander the gifts of God?\u201d A contrasting view, expressed by Hensley Henson, was that he died just in time \u201cfor he had passed away while the streams of opinion in Church and State, of which he became the outstanding symbol and exponent, were at flood, and escaped the experience of their inevitable ebb\u201d\u009d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although a much different world than that of 60 years ago, the weight of Temple\u2019s greatness is still felt. Once described as \u201ca man so broad, to some he seem\u2019d to be Not one, but all Mankind in Effigy&#8221;, his wide informed vision checks our growing narrowness and self-obsession, his realism our Utopian perfectionism, his generosity of heart a worthy riposte to the mood of cynicism and anger epitomising the age and his statesmanship a powerful reminder of what it is to serve as the national church.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From here: Working with his Rugby contemporary R. H. Tawney, the seminal Labour thinker, and William Beveridge, the architect of the welfare reforms which sought to banish the five giants of want, idleness, squalor, ignorance and disease, Temple\u2019s book Christianity<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=148606\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,186,324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archbishop-of-canterbury","category-church-history","category-church-of-england"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=148606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148607,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148606\/revisions\/148607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=148606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=148606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=148606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}