The Birth of the Social Gospel in the Church of England: Charles Mansfield and the Christian Socialist Brotherhood 1848 - 1855

As readers will see there are far too many parallels between the divided Britain of 'Two Nations' of rich and poor and plenty and want when Christian Socialism was born in the 1840s and the divided society in crisis that is Britain today in 2016. May we remember and learn from the life-giving Social Gospel of Charles Mansfield and the early Christian Socialists working for the common good against poverty, misery and oppression and the worship of money, privilege and private profit in an age when the Church served only the ruling classes and the poor often faced a stark choice between starvation, the workhouse or emigration.