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THE BOURNEMOUTH WILLIAM TEMPLE ASSOCIATION

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Bibliography

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BOOKS
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (ed. F L Cross, OUP)

William Temple: His Life and Letters (F A Iremonger, OUP 1948)

Christian Faith and Life: talks to students in 1921 and 1925, reissued 1962 (SCM Paperback)

Daily Readings from William Temple compiled by Hugh C Warner (Mowbray ISBN 0 264 66804 9)

The following information has also been supplied to us by a member. If you would like to supply more informaiton please send it to webmaster@williamtemple.org.uk
Other books are
Mens Creatrix (1917); Christus Veritas (1924); Nature, Man and God (1934)
Readings in St John's Gospel, first series 1939, second series 1940 and complete edition 1945. All these published by Macmillan.

Christianity and the Social Order [still of quite some interest] Original publication 1942 by Penguin and as a Pelican in 1956. Reissued by Shepheard-Walwin 1976. The 1987 reprint is ISBN 0 85683 025 9

William Temple chaired a committee appointed in 1922 which produced Doctrine in the Church of England, a report published by SPCK in 1938 reprinted in 1950. It bears the strong traces of his influence, probably he wrote a lot of it. Still of interest.

This answer was received to the question on the Home Page:
  • I have always assumed that it was William Temple, but don't know the exact source. There were two main writings of his which could possible have been the source. Let me quote: "Temple was concerned with secularism and pluralism by the time of his death" (1944). In his final year he wrote 'What Christians Stand for in the Secular World'. "
    His other main work was "Christianity and Social Order". Temple argues that people are formed by society, and therefore it matters what the nature of that society is. Temple's principles operate as fundamental judgements on society, since he did not feel that society embodied these principles to any true degree.
    I take this from an article on Temple in The Modern Theologians edited by David Ford, but there is no specific mention of your quote.
    I've also had a look at Iremonger's biography of him. Again I cannot find the quote, but I note that the Social Order book was associated with the Malvern Conference on the ordering of a new society and 'how Christian thought can be shaped to play a leading part in the reconstruction after the war is over.'
    One interesting para on the first page of the book: "Few people read much history. In an age when it is tacitly assumed that the Church is concerned with another world than this, and in this with nothing but individual conduct as bearing on prospects in that world, hardly any one reads the history of the Church in its exercise of political influence. It is assumed that the Church exercises little influence and ought to exercise none; it is further assumed that this assumption is self-evident and has always been made by reasonable men. As a matter of fact it is entirely modern and extremely questionable."

    You can send additional answers to webmaster@williamtemple.org.uk