MODULE D ESCRIPTION
Sections 1 – 7 are key module details which once validated cannot be changed without revalidation
1. Module Title: The Spirit of Dissent
2. Credits:
CATS 15
ECTS 7.5
Level: 6
3. Programme: BA (Hons) Practical Theology
Module
Code: PT3901
Status:
Current,
Status:
Mandatory
Type: blended learning
4. Pre-requisites:
Co-requisites:
5.
Learning Outcomes for the module.
By the conclusion of this module, a student will be expected to be able to :
a) Identify and analyse the contribution which religious dissent, especially Congregationalism, has
made to the culture of this country and the wider English speaking world.
b) Discern and evaluate dissenting characteristics and those which derive from establishment and
more conventional approaches.
c) Appraise and comment upon insightful research into dissenting culture which stems from a living
tradition: conversely also to understand those which question dissent’s continuing vibrancy.
d) Assess and apprehend the differing approaches of those studying dissent through the eye of living
faith and those writing from a secular perspective.
e) Demonstrate the ability to analyse and interpret sources and those people they describe from the
history of dissent.
6. Catalogue Summary
This module aims to set dissent and Congregationalism in a broad cultural context, highlighting
their considerable, if often overlooked, contributions to society in England, Scotland and Wales.
The spirit of dissent has informed the culture of this country for at least 450 years and deserves
respect and recognition. Students will study history, art, poetry, architecture, the development of
education (especially the dissenting academies, their tutors, students and changes to the national
curriculum), literature and political and civic life. The module aims to embrace dissenting history
and culture and see how its responses to the Holy Spirit transformed society in the past and have
continuing application and value in the modern world. Students will be encouraged to identify the
contribution of dissent to their own localities and to gain an understanding of how the spirit of
dissent has informed the mainstream of society.
7. Assessment Pattern
Essay (2000 words)
Essay (2000 words)
Weight %
50
50
Pass Req
Agg
Comments
8. Indicative Tutorial Team
Rev Dr Alan Argent
9. Indicative Learning and Teaching Activities
Activity Type
HESA Category
Lecture
Scheduled
Seminar
Tutorial
Practical classes and workshops
Supervised time in studio/workshop
Fieldwork
External visits
Work-based learning
Project supervision
Demonstration
Sub-Total
Placement
Placement
Year abroad
Sub-Total
Guided independent study
Independent
15 credits x 10 notional hours = 150 hours
Total Hours
Hours
3
3
3
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
9
0
0
0
141
150
10. Sample Assignments
2 assignments of 2000 words each choosing from a range of questions
1. How do the academies contribute to the culture of society from the 1660s to 1800 and what
evidence exists for continuing influence today?
2. Emerging from intense religious turmoil, how creative were dissenters in the late 17th and 18th
centuries?
3. How potent in British churches today is the spirit of dissent? Suggest ways in which the spirit of
dissent may be applied to contemporary issues
4. From your studies outline and analyse the influence of Dissent on the lives and careers of 2 or 3
from the following: Andrew Marvell, Philip, Lord Wharton, Philip Doddridge, John and Charles
Wesley, Howell Harris, C H Spurgeon, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Elizabeth Fry, James
Montgomery, James Cubitt, W T Stead, Leslie Weatherhead. How does their influence continue
today within and beyond dissent?
5. How did the spirit of dissent affect Bunyan/Milton/Blake?
11. Indicative Outline Content
Unit 1: The Holy Spirit in their faith and experience spurred the Separatists to set up their gathered
churches outside the establishment.
Unit 2: Driven into non-conformity, were dissenters to be passive or creative? – George Fox, Margaret
Fell, John Bunyan, John Milton, Andrew Marvell, Richard Baxter.
Unit 3: The academies enabled men like Isaac Watts, Philip Doddridge (assisted by his wife Mercy) to
develop their genius. In poetry, theology, philosophy etc. The influence of Selina,
Countess of Huntingdon and the poet and devotional writer, Elizabeth Rowe, will be
covered.
Unit 4: Architecture, art and music.
Unit 5: 19th Century ambition – mainly political.
Unit 6: Decline and changing appreciation of dissent affected its own understanding of its distinctive
spirit.
Sessions
Session 1: Introduction to the direct influence of the Holy Spirit on the creation and sustenance of
dissenting communities.
Session 2: Art and Architecture – the straight lines of classical design and the vision and morality of Blake
and Hogarth and the simplicity and beauty of Mozart’s harmonies testify to their concordant
Christianity at which they aimed.
Session 3: Education, ‘dissenting’ academies, simple worship
Session 4: Spirit of conformity and the loss of the spirit of dissent.
12. Indicative Reading
Please note that resources, including course notes/presentations, papers and discussions, as well as
access to online journals, are available through the University of Winchester Learning Network:
www.winchester.ac.uk.
Course Text
Nuttall, G. F. The Puritan Spirit (London: Epworth Press 1967)
Shaw, J. and A. Kreider (eds) Culture and the Nonconformist tradition (Cardiff: University of Wales, 1999)
General
Binfield, J. C. G. So Down to Prayers (Dent 1977)
Keeble, Neil, Richard Baxter: Puritan Man of Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982)
Keeble, Neil, The Literary Culture of Nonconformity in later seventeenth-century England (Leicester:
Leicester University Press 1987)
Keeble, Neil, The Restoration: England in the 1660s (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002)
Keeble, Neil (ed) John Bunyan: Conventicle and Parnassus – tercentenary essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1988)
Keeble, Neil (ed) John Bunyan: Reading Dissenting Writing (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2002)
Keeble, Neil (ed) Autobiography of Richard Baxter (London: Dent 1985)
Keeble, Neil (ed) Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan (Oxford : Oxford University Press 1984)
Keeble, Neil and others (ed) The prose works of Andrew Marvell 2 vols (New Haven: Yale University Press
2003)
Munson, J. The Nonconformists (London: SPCK, 1991)
Nuttall, G. F. Visible Saints (Weston Rhyn, Shropshire: Quinta Press, 2001)
Nuttall, G. F. The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago 1992)
Nuttall, G. F. Introduction to: The Journal Of George Fox - Nickalls Edition (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
1997)
Nuttall, G. F. Studies in English Dissent (Weston Rhyn, Shropshire: Quinta Press, 2002)
Nuttall, G. F. Early Quaker Studies and the Divine Presence (Weston Rhyn, Shropshire: Quinta Press, 2003)
Sharrock, R. John Bunyan (London: Macmillan, 1968)
Reference Works
Worship and Theology in England H Davies (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996)
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005)
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004)
Binfield, J. C. G. and J. Taylor (eds) Who they Were (Donington: Shaun Tyas for the United Reformed
Church History Society, 2007)
Matthews, A. G. Calamy Revised (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)
The Dictionary of Welsh Biography (London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion 1959)
Websites
Welsh biography online http://wbo.llgc.org.uk/en/index.html
Google scholar http://scholar.google.co.uk/