2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the first ordination of women to the priesthood in The Episcopal Church (USA), an opportune time for a panel devoted to Agnes Maude Royden: one of the most famous and influential women in the English-speaking world in the first half of the twentieth century. A leader in the suffrage movement, she became the first woman to hold a full-time preaching position in England and the first woman to preach from John Calvin’s pulpit. During W.W.I Royden was an outspoken pacifist. A lifelong Anglican, Royden worked tirelessly for the ordination of women. The panel’s papers explore significant aspects of Royden’s life and work that have received little attention: her travels to, sermons, and publications about Palestine and India, ways she incorporated psychology into her writings about sex, and Royden’s various contributions to and innovations in worship and missions that foreshadow recent trends.
Growing international tensions in the late 1930s tested Maude Royden’s deep pacifist convictions. Concerned about Nazi Germany’s expansion, Royden also focused on Palestine. She toured the region in spring 1938 to witness members of her Peace Army offering welfare support to both Arabs and Jews. Public talks and written statements followed, including a book titled The Problem of Palestine, published in the spring of 1939. A recognized public theologian, Royden’s calls for peace in the region reflected her vision for interfaith understanding and reconciliation. She argued that a Jewish state, while necessary, should not be built at the expense of the Arabs, and the British government should put aside imperial concerns and meet the needs of all inhabitants of the region. In 1946, when invited to testify to the Anglo-American commission (on Palestine), she warned that the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine would bring more conflict.
Maude Royden was one of the best-known woman preachers in early-twentieth-century Britain; from 1917 she preached at the Nonconformist City Temple in London, famous for its liberal theology. Royden’s popular books and articles advocated a distinctively “modern” Christian sexual ethic and in successive editions of her best-selling Sex and Common-Sense (first published in 1921 and revised and reissued in 1947) we can trace the complex dialogue between Royden’s modernist theology and new psychological and psychoanalytic approaches to sex. By 1947, Royden was far from orthodox in her Christianity: she portrayed St. Paul as suffering from a “sex complex” and argued that Freud, like Christ (now dubbed “the greatest psychologist in history”), had played a key role in freeing humanity from the bondage of sin. In Royden’s account, Christianity and psychoanalysis converged to underwrite new justifications for chastity and heterosexual monogamy which would, she argued, work together to renew western civilization.
This paper address Royden’s travels to, interactions with, and publications about colonized India, all intriguing facets of her legacy. Widely recognized for her leadership in the Suffragist movement, as a preacher, and pacifist, her engagement with India remains a relatively obscure aspect of her life. Royden's 1934-1935 visit to India was a pivotal juncture, providing her with firsthand exposure to the resilience and fortitude of Indian women. In her writings, Royden eloquently articulates her encounters with individuals from colonized India, transcending the confines of colonial language and embracing a discourse rooted in mutual respect and genuine affection. Her narrative challenges the traditional dichotomy of colonizer and colonized, emphasizing the intrinsic humanity and dignity shared by individuals irrespective of their colonial affiliations. Her recognition of India's pivotal contributions during critical junctures, such as W.W. II, serves as a testament to the depth of India's significance beyond the confines of colonial subjugation.
In 2004, the Church of England published Mission-shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context. This report both summarized and influenced the growth of innovative or “fresh” expressions of worship based on missional theology. These expressions and their theology were presaged by the Guildhouse, an experimental religious community co-led by Maude Royden in London in the 1920s and 30s. Like the millennial Fresh Expressions movement, the Guildhouse conceived of mission not as the imperialist saving of souls but as cooperating with others in God’s on-going restoration of the world through justice and peace: “mission at home.” These others included Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Schweitzer, who both lectured and preached at the Guildhouse. The Guildhouse also anticipated Fresh Expressions in its experimental liturgies and cell groups. This paper explores the Guildhouse’s liturgical and spiritual practices as expressions of Royden’s missional theology and a feminist church renewal.