theologywhich is the study of this work. One too often forgets that Kingsley was not, in the first instance, a social and political reformer. As a preacher, and as a writer, he was pre-eminently a teachera theologian, yes, but more importantly, a Christian didactician. He was not an evangelical preacher, yet the Christian gospel was at the heart of his teachings and his moral exhortations. This work attempts to look at the Christian message that was the inspiration behind his socio-religious gospel. Writing at the time of Charles Darwin, Kingsley saw no reason to lose his sound Christian faith with the emergence of Darwin's theory of evolution. Instead, he could accept it as a means to a divine end, another example of how Providence might bring about the Kingdom of God on earth. |