To understand the culture of municipal politics in the Birmingham of the late Victorian period it is necessary to examine the preaching of George Dawson, the intellectual driving-force of the ‘Civic Gospel’ and its most recognised proponent. Dawson, who had received a secular and unorthodox education from Aberdeen and Glasgow universities, settled at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1844. He was initially regarded with scepticism from fellow Baptist ministers because of his divergent theology. They particularly viewed the emphasis he placed on the liberty of creed, and the ensuing theological constraints this placed upon his own adherence to the evangelical ‘scheme of salvation’, with deep suspicion. Dawson took his chance to break with Mount Zion completely in 1847 and, having become one of the most popular preachers in the area, his sermons adopting a more conversational tone than the ponderous rhetoric employed by his peers, established his own church: The Church of Saviour.7 It was from his ‘preacher’s platform’, in place of a pulpit, that Dawson ‘inculcated great principles... needful to the people’s wellbeing’ amongst his diverse and large audiences.8 In his first sermon, ‘The Demands of the Age on the Church’,9 Dawson set out his belief in the value of churchmen engaging with the world rather than retreating into narrow and quixotic theological debate. To Dawson, the value of an individual’s confessional life lay not in a developed understanding of the esoteric complexities of theology but instead should be ‘judged by its effects on practical conduct’.10 The importance therefore placed on social interventionism and practical idealism was in contrast to those evangelicals who, Dawson considered, ‘became perverted and enfeebled about what constituted ‘worldliness’ when they should have been involved in matters of importance to the world’.11 Dawson consistently preached to his congregation an exalted vision of municipal government which empowered councillors and citizens to do God’s work in elevating the populace. However, salvation would not merely be achieved by the meeting of the physiological needs of the people but through an emphasis on a
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU1Nzc=