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Travel Preperation

Preparing to Leave

christadelphian-largeHello Everyone:

Finals are done and over with here at Vanderbilt, and I am working on getting ready to leave for the trip.  As the time grows closer and closer to departing, I am finding more and more things that I could research while I’m in Ireland and the United Kingdom.  A colleague from the U.K. recently emailed me a short reading list on the Churches of Christ in the U.K.  I am not surprised that there is some literature, but even the short list that he sent me was substantially more than I had assumed existed.

I wrote a paper this term on the prison experiences of conscientious objectors during World War I.  During my research for this paper, I came across the memoirs of a British C.O. who was a member of the Old Paths Churches of Christ, as well as the memoirs of a Canadian C.O. who was a Christadelphian. Using that source, I was able to locate a book full of primary sources on pacifism within the Christadelphians during World War I. Whats more, while researching a paper for Sociology of Religion, I came across an ethnography of the Christadelphians in the United Kingdom, where the author analyzed the group in terms of Church-Sect typology.  While I have had an interest in the Christadelphians for some time, these resources are sparking a greater interest.

Unfortunately, I only have a short period of time in the country to do research.  After learning more about the rich history of the Stone-Campbell Movement and its off-shoots in the U.K. and Ireland, I am realizing that this will simply need to be the first of several research trips to the area.

Please stay tuned to the blog as we draw closer to May 7.  Once the trip starts, I will be posting updates at least once a day, and hopefully more often. I encourage you to follow me on my journey!  I would love to hear your thoughts about what you read, the pictures I take, and the finds that I come across while I am in the U.K.

Josh