In August 1939, the Anglican missionary and author J. H. Oldham wrote a letter proposing the creation of ‘an order of Christian laymen’. Recipients of his letter included T. S. Eliot, the critic John Middleton Murry, and Hungarian-born sociologist Karl Mannheim. They were all members of the Moot, a discussion group convened by Oldham, a prominent missionary and pioneer of ecumenism. Oldham's suggestion of the creation of a sort of Christian élite started a debate among Moot members. This chapter argues that the Moot is an interesting case study for students of civil society in Britain because it shows the resurgence in 20th-century political thought of a medieval concept of civil society.
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History
