Christian Social Union (UK)

The Christian Social Union (CSU) was a social gospel membership organisation associated with the Church of England. The group was established in 1889 and dedicated itself to the study of contemporary social conditions and the remedying of poverty and other forms of social injustice through public mobilisation to alleviate the same. The organisation was terminated by merger in 1919, becoming part of the Industrial Christian Fellowship (ICF).

The Archbishop of Canterbury Edward Benson helped set the stage for the Christian Social Union. In his Christ and His Times (1886), Benson had written that "there is much in 'socialism,' as we now understand it, which honestly searches for some beneficial remedy—much of which is purely religious and Christian." Furthermore, Benson said that all clergy should have "some knowledge" of socialism and that they should "prepare and suggest and promote the wisest social measures."

In the spirit of the archbishop's admonitions, in 1889, Henry Scott Holland, Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford called together a group, which evolved into the Christian Social Union.

From that meeting, the Christian Social Union (CSU) was established at Oxford, England, on 16 November 1889. Within a year, it had 77 members. A London branch of the organisation was established the next year. It had 124 members in 1891.

Its rules were that it would consist of "members of the Church of England" who agreed:

The group's origins lay in the writings of Frederick Denison Maurice (once a professor of theology at London University), Charles Kingsley, and John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow.

It avoided "hard and fast lines", allowing differing parties to work together in different ways in the same organisation. The Oxford and London branches of the CSU had very different orientations. The Oxford branch was concerned mostly with the accumulation and analysis of economic facts, with a view to helping to understand the nature and magnitude of contemporary social problems and developing potential solutions for such issues.

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