In this episode of Since Attlee & Churchill, Richard takes us through the extraordinary life of Donald Soper, the Methodist preacher, Christian socialist and pacifist who became one of the most familiar Christian men in post-war Britain, but is now largely forgotten. A lifelong Methodist, Soper devoted seven decades to preaching, engaging hecklers at Tower Hill and Hyde Park, broadcasting on radio and television and championing both Christianity and the causes of the Labour left. He became a trusted confidant of Harold Wilson and even took a seat in the House of Lords. But Soper’s uncompromising Christian pacifism meant he had opposed British rearmament in the face of Nazi aggression, condemned the Allied war effort and made deeply controversial claims about the Holocaust. So was he a courageous man of principle, or had his commitment to his principles led him into not just eccentric but indefensible territory?

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Since Attlee & Churchill is a podcast about post-war British politics - since Attlee & Churchill - and is hosted by Lee David Evans, an historian of the Conservative Party, and Richard Johnson, an historian of the Labour Party.

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