Henry Scott Holland

Canon of Christ Church, Oxford
Academic background
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
Influences	T. H. Green[1] Arnold Toynbee[2]
Academic work
Discipline	Theology
School or tradition	Christian socialism[3] liberal Anglo-Catholicism[4]
Institutions	Christ Church, Oxford
Influenced	Tubby Clayton[5] Philip Napier Waggett[6]

Henry Scott Holland (27 January 1847–17 March 1918) was

are held in his memory.

Family and education

Holland was born on 27 January 1847 at

Religious and political activity

After graduation, he was elected as a

canon

.

He was keenly interested in social justice and formed PESEK (Politics, Economics, Socialism, Ethics and Christianity) which blamed capitalist exploitation for contemporary urban poverty. In 1889, he formed the Christian Social Union.^[9]

In 1910, he was appointed

While at St Paul's Cathedral Holland delivered a

, titled Death the King of Terrors, in which he explores the natural but seemingly contradictory responses to death: the fear of the unexplained and the belief in continuity. It is from his discussion of the latter that perhaps his best-known writing, Death is nothing at all, is drawn:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

The frequent use of this passage has provoked some criticism that it fails to accurately reflect either Holland's theology as a whole, or the focus of the sermon in particular.^[11] What has not provoked as much criticism is the affinity of Holland's passage to Augustine of Hippo's thoughts in his fourth-century letter 263 to Sapida, in which he writes that Sapida's brother and their love, although he has died, still are there, like gold that still is yours even if you save it in some locker.

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

• Bradstock, Andrew;
  ISBN 978-0-631-22249-1
  .
• Burgess, Marolyn Joy (2017). A Study of the Origins, History, Essence and Legacy of Toc H, a Christian, Voluntary, Social Welfare Services Organisation in Twentieth Century Britain (MA thesis). Birmingham: University of Birmingham. Retrieved 2 November 2020.
• Drew, Mary (1924). Acton, Gladstone and Others. London: Lisbet & Co. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
• Grimley, Matthew (2004). Citizenship, Community, and the Church of England: Liberal Anglican Theories of the State Between the Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-19-927089-7
  .
• Jones, Peter d'Alroy (1968). The Christian Socialist Revival, 1877–1914: Religion, Class, and Social Conscience in Late-Victorian England. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press (published 2016).
  JSTOR j.ctt183pj8c
  .
• doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/96304
  .
• McIntosh, John A. (2018). Anglican Evangelicalism in Sydney, 1897 to 1953: Nathaniel Jones, D. J. Davies and T. C. Hammond. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock.
  ISBN 978-1-5326-4307-1
  .
• S2CID 144625553
  .

Further reading

• OCLC 1050819087
  . Retrieved 1 November 2020.
• Wilkinson, Alan (1998). Christian Socialism: Scott Holland to Tony Blair. London: SCM Press.
  ISBN 978-0-334-02749-2
  .

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Henry Scott Holland.

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Henry Scott Holland

• Works by Henry Scott Holland at Faded Page (Canada)
• Henry S. Holland (at Spartacus Educational)
• Works by or about Henry Scott Holland at Internet Archive
• Works by Henry Scott Holland at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

Academic offices
Preceded by William Ince	Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford 1911–1918	Succeeded by Arthur Headlam