God in the Landscape: Studies in the Literary History of Australian Protestant Dissent

Description

This book shows how creative writing gives voice to the drama and nuance of religious experience in a way that is rarely captured by sermons, reports, and the minutes of church meetings. The author explores the history of religious dissent and Evangelicalism in Australia through a variety of literary responses to landscape, from both men and women, lay and ordained. The book unravels trans-national themes, along with themes of migration and travel across the Australian continent. The author gives an insight into the colonial literature of Dissent, concerned as it is with travel, belonging, and the intersection of national and religious identity. Much of the writing is situated on the road: a soldier returning from the Great War, a child on a lone adventure, a night-time journey through urban slums, and all of these are in some way dependent on the theme of “walking with Jesus”, as the Holy Land travelogues make explicit. God in the Landscape draws the links between landscape, literature, and spirituality with imagination and insight and is an important contribution to the historical study of religion and the environment. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright Dedication Contents Figures Preface Acknowledgments Map 1 Looking Out Across the Terrain 2 Landscape of Dissent: Dissent’s British Origins and Colonial Australian Experience 3 Landscape of Skepticism and Belief: Churches of Christ Travel Literature from the Holy Land to Australia, 1889–96 4 Landscape of Urban Transformation: Salvation Army Publicity and Performance in the Parish of the Streets, 1890–1909 5 Landscape of Here and Elsewhere: Congregational Poetry at Home in War and Peace, 1914–30 6 Landscape of Adventure: Methodist Novels and Imagination on the Mission Fields, 1910–48 7 Landscape of Timeless Beauty: Quaker Essays on Beauty in Art and the Painting of Nature, 1922–63 8 God in the Landscape Notes Preface 1 Looking Out Across the Terrain 2 Landscape of Dissent: Dissent’s British Origins and Colonial Australian Experience 3 Landscape of Skepticism and Belief: Churches of Christ Travel Literature from the Holy Land to Australia, 1889–96 4 Landscape of Urban Transformation: Salvation Army Publicity and Performance in the Parish of the Streets, 1890–1909 5 Landscape of Here and Elsewhere: Congregationa lPoetry at Home in War and Peace, 1914–30 6 Landscape of Adventure: Methodist Novels and Imagination on the Mission Fields, 1910–48 7 Landscape of Timeless Beauty: Quaker Essays on Beauty in Art and the Painting of Nature, 1922–63 8 God in the Landscape Bibliography Index