“Economic Doctrine” in the Church of England since the Reformation

Until the mid-twentieth century, the Church of England maintained its age-old function of teaching and monitoring economic rights and duties. And after 1815 an ideological alliance of Christian theology and political economy promoted private property rights and the market economy. Victorian radical critics attacked this alliance, and many bishops and theologians became socialists. “Christian Socialism” remained the preferred economic doctrine for Anglo-Catholics until the mid-twentieth century. In 1942, Archbishop William Temple provided the classic statement of Anglican economic doctrine: a realistic “Christian Socialism” that recognized the achievements of capitalism and the validity of self-interest as an incentive.