Divine Imperialism: The British in Palestine, 1753–1842

Abstract

Religion was, for many centuries, a central part of British identity. Reformed Christianity, through its establishment and its dissenters, influenced and developed Britain’s society, economy and politics in profound ways that are perhaps difficult for a largely non-religious twenty-first century audience to comprehend. Even more difficult to appreciate are the less tangible elements of religious belief — that is, the ‘religious mind’. The blurred boundaries between the temporal and spiritual realms produced a particularly deterministic outlook on how the universe functioned. For many, daily events, from the rise of a mighty empire to the failure of a farmer’s crops, was part of an intricate and often unfathomable divine plan for the world. It would be problematic to argue for a homogenous mentalité common to all eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British Christians, yet for many there was a fundamental understanding that God was not simply a celestial observer but a constantly active force in every aspect of life on Earth. The writings produced by theologians, preachers, pamphleteers, self-proclaimed prophets and missionaries all sought, via interpretation of revealed scripture, to understand, examine and explain the various elements of these divine workings and thus discover the fate of humanity.