John Clifford and God’s Greater Britain

ABSTRACT This short article is an engagement with John Clifford’s book God’s Greater Britain and other writings with regard to his thoughts on the British Empire. The article seeks to make a contribution to a small growing exploration of Baptists and imperialism. It concludes by asking how we view Clifford’s imperialism in the context of his time and the present day.

Britain11 made 'a lasting impression upon an educated reading public.' 12Dilke believed that there was an 'uniqueness of the English peoples' and they were a 'superior civilisation.' 13  Andrew Thompson argues, that 'imperial beliefs were both widespread and deeply embedded in British society' 14 and Keith Clements suggests that for most Free Church ministers at the beginning of the twentieth century 'the acceptance of empire was a given fact', but, he says, it was 'conditional on humane behaviour.' 15This was reflected by Dilke too, who, Carey notes, was aware of the 'moral cost of colonisation' and 'subjected [British] treatment of native people in America and Australia to harsh criticism.' 16This was a moral imperialism that understood the British Empire as a largely benevolent project.Gordon Heath claims that 'by the end of the nineteenth century there was [a] potent mix of theological, racial, and imperial assumptions among Baptists within the empire.More specifically, assumptions regarding God's providence, Anglo-Saxon superiority, the benevolence of the empire, and the advance of missions under the Union Jack . ..' 17 An example of this can be found in Baptist hymnody.The Baptist Church Hymnal was published in 1900 and Clifford was a member of the Committee.There is section on National Hymns, which includes Isaac Watt's 'Shine, mighty God, on Britain shine', W. E. Hickson's 'God bless our native land!', A. C. Coxe's 'Now pray we for our country', and the National Anthem, 'God save our gracious King.'These are imperial hymns. 18The last verse of the Coxe hymn says 'And she shall be the giver / Of peace and liberty; / And all the world shall bless her, / The jewel of the sea.'As Willie James Jenning's argues, 'British land, British hearts and tongues all announce British election by God.' 19 Andrew Walls claims that an similar examination of sermons delivered to British missionary bodies in the 1880-1920 period would demonstrate that preachers 'took the empire and its essential beneficence for granted.' 20 Walls says that 'from the 1880s onwards, ideas of British chosenness inevitably have to do with empire.' 21An example can be found in the writings of Robert Hall Jr, who could already claim in 1813 that 'our acquisition of power has been so rapid, so extensive, and so disproportionate to the limits of our native empire, that there are few events in which the interposition of Providence may be more distinctly traced.' 22 The context in which Clifford wrote was also against the backdrop of a 'debate over the potential union of the United Kingdom with its so-called settler colonies.' 23Bell writes that 'the early 1870s saw a surge in proposals for an imperial federal system; during the 1880s this turned into a flood.' 24 While there were a variety of proposals and a variety of understanding of Greater Britain, what was overlapping was an understanding that it meant 'an Anglo-Saxon political space, a racial polity.' 25 So J. R. Seeley, in his important book The Expansion of England, could write 'If Greater Britain in the full sense of the phrase really existed, Canada and Australia would be to us as Kent and Cornwall.' 26

Reading God's Greater Britain
From the beginning of the first letter that Clifford writes, he views the British empire in a wholly positive light: The achievements of our British race under the various and different conditions offer in Australasia and Canada are so gigantic and solid, their capabilities of expansion are so indescribably vast, their perils are so subtle and numerous, and their dominant ideas so Christlike and prophetic. 27 the end of the same letter he goes on to speak of The greatness of those patient and heroic men who had gone forth as the pioneers and martyrs of our widening Empire.They are the true makers of God's Greater Britain in this century.They cleared away the 'bush' and built the city, constructed the roads, fought the roaring rivers, and opening the gates of the world for the entrance of civilisation. 28ere is no mention of any first nation peoples.It is as if the land was belonging to no one (terra nullius) when the British arrived. 29There appears to be little distinction between mission and politics or between church and empire.Is God's Greater Britain the same as the political concept of Greater Britain?While martyrs is a Christian word, Clifford does not speak of church or the kingdom of God, but the arrival of 'civilisation.' In the second letter, Clifford begins by identifying what he sees as a 'loyalty to the "Mother Country", which is evident even 'in the majority of Australians who are "native born."'30Does native born refer to Aboriginal people or those born to colonial families? 31Here we should note that Clifford's world tour coincided with Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and so there was a particular patriotic emphasis in Britain and in the colonies, with which Clifford was supportive. 32Clifford writes of the 'glorious tradition we have inherited as colonisers' and the particular role that he defines as 'custodians of the principles of liberty of conscience, justice between man and man, and the sovereignty of the spiritual in the life of the world.' 33 The 'we' is a reference to British, or broader Anglo-Saxon, people.Clifford displays a clear sense of the divine mandate of Great Britain and Greater Britain, which is made more evident later, when he states: Ours is a single aim, a single task, the regeneration of Man.Our place is in the ranks of the great Anglo-Saxon missionary race, to whom is given the grace of preaching amongst all the peoples the unsearchable riches of Christ . . . the blending of all tribes and peoples is being accomplished under the civilising influence of the Anglo-Saxon world. 34e wording 'Anglo-Saxon' was a growing phrase in nineteenth century Britain; it combined a 'stress on race, language, custom and culture.' 35 This is to say that it came with an ideology with imperialist connotations.Clifford sees a vision of five federationsthe United Kingdom, the Dominion of Canada, United Australasia, United South Africa and, 'let us hope', United Hindostanall joined together as 'the Federation of Greater Britain.'He even hopes for a larger union that would include 'all the English-speaking States of the world.'He argues it is 'our duty to nourish in every possible way the sentiment of unity which binds us together' for the aim of 'it shall help men "to do justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly with God."' 36 This federal vision is tied for Clifford to God.He writes in his third letter, the evolution of the colonies of Great Britain is not only the most wonderful development of all the centuries of human growth; but it is also the most sustained attempt ever made to apply the Christian idea of the unspeakable value of each man, as a man, to the methods of ruling the life of a community. 37lthough once again there is a silence about the colonists relationship to those who lived on the land before they arrived.He speaks of democracy without recognising that in Australia the Aboriginal people were outside of that democracy.Ann Curthoys argues, from 1900 onwards as democracy was extended for white Australians, for example, by extending the vote to women, it was withheld for many decades from Indigenous peoples.For them, there was a system of totalitarian or near-totalitarian control. 38 his history of Australia Baptists, Ken Manley argues that 'Baptist interest in the situation of Aborigines was spasmodic.' 39In Manley's biography of Samuel Pearce Carey, he mentions in passing that 'Carey clearly knew little of the struggles of the Aboriginal peoples.' 40 This is significant because Carey was a significant English pastor in Melbourne between 1900 and 1908 and known as the 'Dr Clifford of Australia', because he shared with Clifford a similar theological and social outlook. 41A critique of British imperialism in Australia with regards treatment of indigenous people from Clifford and friends like Carey was non-existent. 42lifford understood the election of Britain as God's means of maintaining 'the progress of mankind' through what he called 'the five great principles': (1) Liberty of conscience; (2) intellectual reverence for truth; (3) moral reverence for justice; (4) Divine compassion for the criminal and the ignorant, the poor and the lost; and (5) unflinching maintenance of a sturdy independence, and resolute insistence upon self-government as the inherent right of all organised sections of the Empire. 43These principles 'are Divine . . .eternal and universal.' 44e nation that marches with them marches with God, and must come into possession of the earth. 45his alliance is based on both nations being 'defenders of the cause of universal freedom.' 49

Clifford and the South African War
As mentioned earlier with regard to Dilke, Clifford's moral imperialism meant he was content to be critical of British actions.In 1889, the same year God's Greater Britain was published, war broke out (again) between Britain and the Boers in South Africa. 50Clifford spoke out against the war.Writing in the Baptist Times, in the July before the war started, he said the real foes were a 'lust for revenge . . .unworthy of a country that professes to be Christian', capitalist greed for gold, and a jingoism that sought to make all of South Africa British. 51Clifford's desire was a response that made possible.
the blending together of these two races, the harmonising of these two people, so that they should march together with the rest of the civilised folk towards an area of justice, of liberty, of righteousness, and of universal well-being.
Six months later, he would write 'that England should fall so low.'For Clifford, it was evidence of a 'deterioration of moral fibre, a depraving of the conscience, a blinding of the judgment, that must lead to further disaster.' 52More than the war in general, Clifford's 'indignation' was the 'cruelty of the concentration camps created by the British to imprison Boer civilians.' 53With W. T. Stead, Clifford and others created a Stop the War movement seeking to advocate for peace and justice. 54This, and other actions, represented what Greg Cuthbertson calls the 'conscience of imperialism.' 55Byrt presents Clifford as one who 'would not allow his pronounced patriotism to confuse his honesty.' 56 Clifford addressed the Baptist Assembly in April 1900 and said: We shall be patriotic for the sake of humanity; and never for the sake of the mother country against the colony, or for a class of the colony or the mother country against the world.A selfish patriotism is unchristian. 57rt argues that while Clifford was an idealist, in this period he was very much a realist.To this end, Clifford 'eventually convinced himself that all parties in South Africa, especially the natives, would gain immeasurably if British rule replaced the Dutch regime.' 58 What also becomes part of Clifford's vocabulary in this period is the word 'humanitarian.' 'Patriotism will become humanitarian' he says to the Baptist Assembly in 1899. 59'Humanitarian' was another new word that was beginning to be used in the latter half of the nineteenth century. 60'The extension of empire' he argues will be for the purposes of equality in power.Joining the language of humanitarianism is that of brotherhood: 'mankind is really a brotherhood and not a gathering of wild beasts.' 61 Here to fully understand Clifford is to recognise his belief that Christianity is social.To him, politics is religious, and the gospel is social, arguing that Jesus 'begins and ends with' the Kingdom of God, 62 not the church.His theology was one focused on the individual and society, so that he could state that 'man, in his sharply defined and selfish individualism, is being superseded by mankind in cooperative and mutual beneficence.' 63And this did not mean merely within the church, but within the nation and even among the nations.Clifford, as Thompson discusses, was part of a wider theological and sociological shift taking place where the new view being pressed was that 'the individual is part of a wider society, and indeed a wider environment which society itself shapes.' 64 This moral imperialism of Clifford sits beside an accepted Anglo-Saxon racism.So Clifford could write 'it is the law of human progress that the inferior race has either to assimilate itself with, or succumb to, the superior.' 65Clifford understood the British to be superior to the Boer, who is superior to the 'Kaffir'the term that was used to describe black Africans.Nigel Biggar defends the language of 'superiority' if it is used to describe some societies and cultures as being more advanced in the likes of science, medicine, commerce, etc., and not being used in terms of biology. 66If we are to be fair to Clifford this seems to reflect his use of the term.He ended his 1900 New Year's Address with Stand by the imperialism that rests on a sense of personal responsibility; that would shrink from taking up the burdens of the Empire were it not assured that there is no 59 John Clifford, The Christ of the Coming Century (London: Baptist Union, 1899), 35. 60For a discussion of humanitarianism as a form of political theology, see Luke Bretherton duty so incumbent upon as the protection of the weak against the strong, and the development in the 'sullen peoples, half devil and half child,' 67 of the image of God.
Welcome the Imperialism … that regards Empire as service, the service of the stronger to the weaker, of the forward to the backward races; the Imperialism that is based on, and acts only to promote universal brotherhood. 68ifford displayed a heavy paternalism within his view of the British empire. 69n a sermon published in 1906, Clifford said 'the African is [God's] child, as well as the Anglo-Saxon, and it is not his will that he should perish, but that he should come to a knowledge of the truth.' 70This was a challenge to some forms of racism; Clifford's concern was for the growth of Christianity: 'Not the "the great white race," but the great Christian race.'And yet he could describe the 'great white race' as follows: 'with its splendid enterprise and indomitable pluck, its marvellous science, and world-ruling statesmanship, widening commerce, and growing command of the resources of the earth.' 71 The sermon ends with a call to 'young men' to take part in 'the Christ-given mission to the whole English-speaking community to the rest of mankind' which Clifford tied to 'the leadership of the moral and religious life of the world.' 72

Clifford and Internationalism
The beginnings of the twentieth century saw a new internationalism in which Clifford was involved.Clifford's 1920 New Year's address was titled 'The International Mind.' 73 Greenlee and Johnston have suggested that among missionaries between 1899 and 1914 there was 'a broad if gradual shift from imperialism to ecumenism.' 74While this is not specifically true of Clifford, he did find himself in new international roles.In 1905 the Baptist World Alliance was formed and Clifford was elected its first President 75 and in 1919 he was elected President of the World Brotherhood Movement. 76Clifford was also a member of the international peace conference which met at Constance, Switzerland in August 1914. 77n 1911 he addressed the second Baptist World Congress: Moulded under different conditions, dwelling under different flags, trained in different climes and by different teachers with different methods, we come together rejoicing that in the new nature we have received through the grace of God there is neither Greek nor Jew, Englishman nor American, black nor white, bond or free, but that all are one in Christ and Christ is all in each and in all. 78ere are hints here of a more international rather than imperial outlook.In his work, The Gospel of World Brotherhood According to Jesus 79 (1920), Clifford  wrote   we have begun to think in terms of internationalism.The war has opened our eyes to the dangers and limitations of our inherited patriotism.Patriotism has wrought great things and produced some beneficent results, but its day is over.It is parochial.It fosters narrowness, bigotry, selfishness, greed and hatred. 80is view was supported by this reference to Jesus: The most surprising characteristic of Jesus our Master is His intense passion for universal Brotherhood; for brotherhood without any restrictions whatever, local or national, geographical or temporal; entirely universal. 81 this period the language of brotherhood increasingly becomes prevalent, obviously because of his involvement in the movement of this name.Brotherhood moves away from a referent to Anglo-Saxon peoples to a more universal meaning: No people is the divinely predestined ruler of the world, and dowered with the right to be lord over all … No nation has a monopoly of gifts.God never makes a monopolist. 82n 1944, John Henry Rushbrooke wrote of Clifford: 'he was English, intensely patriotic; read his book, God's Greater Britain . . .He gloried in the nobler elements of British life, but he did not deify his nation or his race.' 83 How Do We View Today Clifford's Vision of God's Greater Britain?
There is apparent in the thought of Clifford, what Luke Bretherton calls, a 'clear loss of tension between being a Christian and being a citizen.' 84 Clifford is an example of what Alan Wilkinson argues, with regards to British imperialism, was 'the way in which Free Churchmen felt more and more able to assent to, rather, dissent from, the norms of British society.' 85 The quote from Bretherton is from a chapter on Anglican political theology and much of it finds overlap with Clifford's imperialism, and so also supporting Wilkinson's argument.Any account of Clifford's life would recognise that at times he remained a clear dissenter, this is apparent in his response to the South African War and even more evident in his work on education, 86 especially with regard to the 1903 Education Bill. 87Yet, with regard to Britain's imperialism, he, and of course he was not alone, failed to see any inherent problems, theologically, with empire.Willie James Jennings has argued that this Christian imperalism is rooted in a Christian 'diseased social imagination' that was produced by colonial modernity. 88Jennings traces the history of those who travelled to the 'New World' and sought to 'bring order' to the world they found and 'maturity' to the peoples who lived there.This order and maturity they called civilisation and for many this was tied to their Christian faith and understood as God's providence.The language Clifford used in God's Greater Britain of dominating ideas, civilising influence, and possession is reflective of the theological problem Jennings names.Its origins predate Clifford, but like his contemporaries, he was unable to think outside of this assumption of what Jennings and others claim is best termed whiteness.Jennings states that by 'whiteness' he does not mean 'people of European descent but to a way of being in the world and seeing the world that forms cognitive and affective structures able to seduce people into its habitation and its meaning making' 89 The disease for Jennings is that this whiteness gets 'parasitically joined' to Christianity. 90It is reflected in the lack of engagement by British theology with our British imperialist past. 91Theologically, the problem, Jennings names, is supersessionism.Embedded in Christian imperialism as it grew in colonial modernity as already named, was an imagining by Britain (and also by other European nations) as being the new Israel. 92srael was replaced by Britain as a nation.Britain becomes 'the preferred people of God' and the object of blessing and chosenness, as we saw in terms of church hymnody.If theologically the problem is supersessionism, doctrinally, the problem is with providence.Matt Jantzen argues that.
'the wound to which Christian theology must respond is the suffering of non-European humanity, suffering that for hundreds of years did not seem to pose a significant obstacle to Christian belief in providence and was, furthermore, justified and rendered intelligible precisely though appeals to divine providence. 93ovidence and progress get tied together.Clifford was almost relentlessly positive about God's election of Britain: 94 God chose us His colonisers and missionaries, for He had given us the stewardship of the five great principles on whose maintenance the progress of mankind depends … the nation that marches with them marches with God, and must come into possession of the earth. 95ternationalism is the next stage divinely ordered for the world's life . . .The world is becoming one with a swiftness and completeness few of us recognise.The European races have now gained possession and sovereignty over nearly the whole earth. 96o much is claimed of God's election and providence.David Fergusson argues, with regards providence, that 'our discernment must always be partial and often reserved amid the shadows and imperfections of the world.' 97 He presents the need for a more 'chastened and deflationary doctrine' 98 and one which avoids 'claim[ing] too much for [particular groups or nation-states] often at the expense of others.' 99 While Clifford is not uncritical of aspects of British imperialism, he is broadly supportive of it and for Christian reasons.The world in which we inhabit is not the same as Clifford's.As Clements says, 'this imperial frame of reference is no longer available to us' 100 and, as Brian Stanley notes, for many today 'the Christian rhetoric of empire is widely perceived as a hollow sham.' 101 It is certainly more contested.We are more aware of its violent legacy. 102For this reason, to us today, Clifford does appear somewhat optimistic or 'overconfident', 103 and even perhaps naïve, in speaking of God's Greater Britain.There is a failure to see the 'wound' of British imperialism in the places it ruled.However, Clifford's vision for a universal liberty and brotherhood should counter or at least temper some of the criticism we would now make of him.This is clearer in his final book, The Gospel of World Brotherhood, with its more international outlook, which begins to push beyond a British imperialism that sees Christianity almost tied to an Anglo-Saxonism.
To attend to the past, to the life of Clifford and others, is to recognise 'our embeddedness in history and . . . to our temporality.' 104It is to see that 'our character and capacities reflect histories that long preceded us.' 105 To read Clifford is to be 'awaken [ed] to the way history lives in [us], the way we inhabit history and history inhabits us.' 106 It is to acknowledge that our present will be history and will suffer the judgment of future historiansthose who judge will one day be judged ourselves!Here then is the necessity for a careful on-going engagement and reckoning with our past and the vital work of history as a task for the church today.

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Christ and the Common Life: Political Theology and the Case for Democracy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020), 51-81. 61Clifford, Demands of the Twentieth Century, 23. 62 John Clifford, The Christian Conception of Society, address to the Baptist Assembly in 1891 cited in David M. Thompson, 'John Clifford's Social Gospel', Baptist Quarterly 31.5 (January 1986), 214. 63John Clifford, 'The New City of God: Or the Primitive Faith as a Social Gospel' cited in David M. Thompson, 'The Christian Socialist Revival in Britain: A Reappraisal' in Revival and Religion since 1700: Essays for John Walsh edited by Jane Garnett and Colin Matthew (London: Hambledon Press, 1993), 287. 64Thompson, 'The Christian Socialist Revival in Britain', 294.See also, David M. Thompson, 'The Emergence of the Nonconformist Social Gospel in England' in Protestant Evangelicalism Britain, Ireland, Germany and America, c.1750-c.1950 edited by Keith Robbins, Studies in Church History, Subsidia 7 (1990): 255-80 and Thompson, 'John Clifford's Social Gospel.' 65 John Clifford, Brotherhood and War in South Africa (London, 1900), 9.
66Biggar, Colonialism, 68-71.Helpful here is Samuel Well's argument that each person's life is both 'rich' and 'poor' in A Nazareth Manifesto (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), 298-303.The use of 'superiority' does not recognise how the other is superior in other ways.This is part of the argument Jennings wants to make in terms of a doctrine of creation, see Willie James Jennings, 'Reframing the World: Towards an Actual Doctrine of Creation', International Journal of Systematic Theology 21.4 (October 2019), 388-407.