5 - The rise of anticlericalism

Summary

The vaguely anti-church attitudes of the worker combined with neutrality towards religion. He did not identify churches, which he might attack or scorn, with religion which he might well respect even though he shrank from practising its rites.

What begins to look as though it matters is the politics of the situation. Where you have anyone like Jenny Geddes, the throwing of a stool at the preacher, and especially the accurate aiming of a stool, causes stances to alter; a party to form; a party marked by attitudes to religion as well as politics, indeed a party where the attitude towards the religion is near the heart of the political attitude. A religious protest is taken up into politics and becomes a party cry, and then is found to gather broad support because it stands for a secular political objective and not only for the particular religious protest. Men in the mass live by simple objectives, and public repute or ill repute is one of the most transforming of political forces. Not the stool, but the politics which surrounded the stool, shifted in time the religious outlook of a people. We are not to despise mere politics in our problem. The social scientists look for social statistics. Intellectual historians look for bumps in philosophy. Let us consider whether mere politics has anything to say to us.