In the anxious second half of 1940 certain developments took place which cardinal Heenan, the late archbishop of Westminster, was to describe, somewhat grandly, as ‘the opening chapter of the modern history of religion in Great Britain’. He was referring to an unprecedented series of events which led up to and flowed from a letter to the Times in December extolling the five peace points of pope Pius XII. The letter was signed not only by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster, cardinal Hinsley, but also by the two Anglican primates and the moderator of the Free Church council. Such a public manifestation of religious harmony reflected the national unity of the hour and was further reinforced a few months later by two joint meetings which were each addressed by both catholic and protestant leaders. But the pressures for national and religious cohesion which were at their height in 1940–41 were to decline with the passing of the immediate threat and to be effectively countered by the resurgence of older and more powerful denominational suspicions and susceptibilities. What might have been an ‘opening chapter’ turned instead into little more than an isolated essay in inter-church relations. As such it would hardly justify closer scrutiny but the episode is more significant because it throws light on several problems which arise when religion has to function in a modern society at a time of crisis. More particularly it draws attention to the pressures and constraints involved in the mobilization of religious commitments in the national interest and to the strategic considerations which impelled church leaders to opt for a particular course of action when confronted by a complex web of national needs, institutional inhibitions and popular sentiment. This paper does not attempt a comprehensive analysis of the various facets of the situation but concentrates on those aspects which relate to the Roman Catholic church in England.

‘How are your healing groups going?’ the present archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, enquired rhetorically in a charge to service chaplains in 1979. ‘The renewal of the Church’s ministry of healing’ the bishop of Selby has even more recently written, ‘is one hard obstinate fact that future historians will be unable to ignore when examining the Christian scene in the present century.’ The bishop, who is co-chairman of the Churches’ Council for Health and Healing, particularly singled out for praise the pioneers of this renewal: ‘individuals like James Moore Hickson, George Bennett and Dorothy Kerin’ as well as such later contributors as Leslie Weatherhead from the free churches, and more recently Cameron Peddie in Scotland and the American Dominican, Francis MacNutt. The bishop has further argued that ‘these powerful initiatives given to the healing movement by individual leaders were matched by the leadership of the Churches’, an assertion which is backed by citing the discussions devoted to the subject at the Lambeth conferences of 1908, 1920, 1930 and 1958. The first two of these conferences were presided over by archbishop Randall Davidson, who in the bishop of Selby’s book is presented as a crypto-champion of spiritual healing.

Religion and national identity' was the theme of two gatherings of the Ecclesiastical History Society which met under the presidency of Professor Keith Robbins. All the papers included in this volume were read either at a summer conference at the University of Nottingham or at a winter meeting at King's College, London. They were selected for inclusion after the usual consultations, by Mr. Derek Baker, then the Society's editor, who asked my assistance in the early stages of preparing the typescript for publication. When he was compelled by the pressures of new duties to relinquish the editorship, the committee of the Society entrusted me with full responsibility for the completion of the volume. Nevertheless I wish to record that even after his resignation, Mr Baker continued to take an interest in the project and made an invaluable contribution at the sub-editing stage. Generous financial assistance has once again been received from the British Academy, for which the Society wishes to express its gratitude.

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