Title Religious reformers in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century: the visits of Abdul Baha Author(s) McNamara, Brendan Publication date 2017 Original citation McNamara, B. 2017. Religious reformers in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century: the visits of Abdul Baha. PhD Thesis, University College Cork. Type of publication Doctoral thesis Rights © 2017, Brendan McNamara. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Embargo information No embargo required Item downloaded http://hdl.handle.net/10468/4915 from Downloaded on 2018-08-23T19:20:01Z Religious Reformers in Britain at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: The Visits of Abdul Baha. Brendan Mc Namara - Student No. 103183238 PhD Arts - National University of Ireland, Cork Study of Religions Department Submitted - June, 2017 Head of Department - Dr. Lidia Guzy Supervisors - Professor Oliver Scharbrodt (External) - Dr. James Kapalo (UCC) 1 Abstract The central theme of this work is an examination of the contribution made by home-grown reformers to the construction of new religious frameworks in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century. I focus on the evolution of a worldview oriented towards Asia and key individuals that sought interaction with religious ideas from the ‘East’. I will take as a case study the reception in Britain of the head of the Bahai religion, Abdul Baha, who visited in 1911 and again in late 1912. Through an analysis of the discourses he was invited to engage with, and the reasons his British hosts pursued these encounters, I recover lost aspects of what was a vibrant and multidimensional religious ‘field’. This will necessitate a review of why and how scholars of the new ‘science of religion’, ‘Celticists’, leading Protestant reformers and others expended much energy in supporting the Bahai leader’s public programme as he progressed through Britain. These interactions and their prominent promoters, significant in the context of the history of religions in Europe, are now mostly ‘forgotten’ or are ‘remembered’ in a particular fashion. Endeavouring to answer why these events are consigned as a footnote in history exposes a complex nexus of factors bearing on agency, myopic interpretation and the manner in which this history has been captured and interpreted. A key factor is the effect of the catastrophic conflagration which beset the world in 1914 on universalist worldviews. The figures analysed in this thesis were exponents of ideas and philosophies that are familiar in the present. Consideration of their experience illuminates similar contemporary discursive trends and leads me to posit the aetiology of such religious journeying as occurring long before it is generally thought such ideas were prevalent. Notwithstanding their eclectic interests, an important component in the construction of this discursive environment was the operation of a particular ‘filter’, one which still favoured Christianity as a pleroma. 2 Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 2 Declaration ......................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 1 – Introduction ..................................................................................................... 6 “East Comes West" .................................................................................................................. 7 Abdul Baha and Bahai ............................................................................................................ 10 Documenting Missionary Travels ........................................................................................... 12 Protestant Discourse .............................................................................................................. 16 Primary and Secondary Sources ............................................................................................. 17 Method and Theory ............................................................................................................... 19 ‘Forgetting’ the Past ............................................................................................................... 23 A Cultural Turntable ............................................................................................................... 26 A ‘Field of Religious Enquiry’ .................................................................................................. 27 Chapter Outline ...................................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 2 – The ‘Science of Religion’; Religious and Intellectual Milieu............................... 33 ‘Comparative’ Religion ........................................................................................................... 37 Public Discourse ..................................................................................................................... 40 Carpenter ............................................................................................................................... 42 Political and Cultural Resonance ............................................................................................ 45 The Cult of Omar .................................................................................................................... 48 Narratives Subjoined .............................................................................................................. 51 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 52 Chapter 3 – Establishing Parameters for ‘East-West’ Encounters; Chicago and Oxford ......... 57 Filter and Grid ........................................................................................................................ 58 Third International Congress for the History of Religion ....................................................... 61 Oxford .................................................................................................................................... 67 Cheyne’s Cosmology .............................................................................................................. 69 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 74 Chapter 4 – The ‘Curious’; The ‘Celtic’ Dimension to Pre-First World War Religious Discourse ........................................................................................................................................ 77 Deans Yard ............................................................................................................................. 78 Tudor Pole’s Quest ................................................................................................................. 82 3 The Celtic Revival ................................................................................................................... 86 Discovering Abdul Baha ......................................................................................................... 90 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 93 Chapter 5 –New Protestant Theodocies; R.J. Campbell, “The Disturber of our Comfortable Peace” ............................................................................................................................. 97 The New Theology .................................................................................................................. 99 One of the Great ‘Let Downs of the World’ ......................................................................... 103 Uncharted Dimensions of Early 20th Century Protestant Discourse .................................... 105 Implications for the Religious Field ...................................................................................... 109 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 113 Chapter 6 – Abdul Baha in Britain; ‘East’ comes ‘West’ .................................................... 117 What Was Understood ......................................................................................................... 119 In London ............................................................................................................................. 123 At Westminster .................................................................................................................... 128 Indirect Admonishment ....................................................................................................... 130 Missionary Reaction ............................................................................................................. 134 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 136 Chapter 7- The Elision of Memory; Forgetting Aspects of Early Twentieth Century Discourse ...................................................................................................................................... 139 ‘Now Time’ and ‘Afterlife’ .................................................................................................... 140 Mnemohistory