When first published by SCM Press in 1986, Alan Wilkinson’s Dissent or Conform? was clearly complementary to his rather more focused The Church of England and the First World War of 1978. In Dissent he considered first the response of English non-conformity to the First World War and then broadened his horizons for the period to 1945, concentrating on the Church of England while not ignoring other denominations. The consequential result is what the preface recognizes is more a series of case studies than a comprehensive account.
Without doubt, the earlier book is seen as a seminal work, alongside Albert Marrin’s The Last Crusade. That is not to say that his conclusions have not been challenged, and rather more nuanced analyses of some of the key figures have been written. But many of his judgments have stood the test of time in the face of the stream of books and papers on the First World War and religion of the last decade.
Dissent or Conform?, perhaps because of its more diverse subject area, seems not to have achieved that status. Arguably there is less to say about non-conformity and WW1 than about the established Church in that conflict. Certainly less has been written. Similarly, in the interface of the study of war and religion, the First World War continues to attract rather more scholarly endeavour than the Second. Furthermore, what has been published in the subject areas of Dissent or Conform?, for example Michael Hughes’ Conscience and Conflict: Methodism, Peace and War in the Twentieth Century, has generally had a narrower focus than did Wilkinson.
Nevertheless, the republication of Dissent or Conform? by Lutterworth Press is welcome. Apart from a single-page ‘additional bibliography’ listing some 16 books or articles, this is simply a corrected reprint of the 1986 edition, complete with a foreword by Robert Runcie. At the time, the furore over the appropriate liturgical response to the end of the Falklands conflict was still well-remembered, having renewed the debate about the Churches’ response to military conflicts. A quarter of a century later, we have a new perspective from which to review the Churches’ often hesitant, frequently confused and sometimes contradictory responses to war.
