المستخلص: |
This article seeks to explore the contradictions of the Methodist Church and the Clapham sects as ideological apparatuses. Our major argument is that the Methodist and Clapham sects were established at the end of the eighteenth century in order to contain the poor and the labouring poor in the sphere of poverty by preaching to them subordination, hard work, discipline and thrift. However, contrary to the black-and-white picture often drawn by many scholars of the Methodist Church and Clapham sects, we also argue that they unintentionally fostered among the poor the skills of organisation and discipline, and contributed to the rise of the "condition-of-England debate" among industrial and parliamentary reformers, a debate that ultimately resulted in the labour and parliamentary reforms in the first half of the nineteenth century.
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