V. A. Demant

Demant was born on 8 November 1893 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.{{sfn|Markham|Faulstich|2018|p=3}} He was educated in Newcastle, England and Tournan, France.{{sfn|"Demant, Rev. Vigo Auguste"|2014}}{{cite web |last=Boyd |first=Therese |title=Vigo Auguste Demant|url=http://www.giffordlectures.org/lecturers/vigo-auguste-demant |website=Gifford Lectures |date=18 August 2014 |access-date=6 March 2017}} He studied engineering at Armstrong College, Durham.{{sfn|Markham|Faulstich|2018|p=3}}{{cite news|title=Rev Dr V. A. Demant.|work=The Times|issue=61474|date=7 March 1983|page=10}} He then studied theology at Manchester College, Oxford.{{sfn|"Demant, Rev. Vigo Auguste"|2014}}[https://history.prm.ox.ac.uk/students.php-all.html Oxford University website, Diploma students in Anthropology, University of Oxford 1907-1945]

Demant had originally intended to become a Unitarian minister, but became attracted to Catholicism while studying at the University of Oxford and was received into the Church of England in 1918.{{sfn|Markham|Faulstich|2018|p=3}} He trained for Holy Orders at Ely Theological College, an Anglo-Catholic theological college in Ely, Cambridgeshire.{{sfn|"Demant, Rev. Vigo Auguste"|2014}}

Demant was ordained as a deacon in 1919 and as a priest in 1920.{{sfnm |1a1=Brown |1y=1979 |1p=511 |2a1=Markham |2a2=Faulstich |2y=2018 |2p=3}} He served curacies at St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford; St Michael and All Angels Church, Summertown, Oxford; St Nicholas' Church, Plumstead, London; and All Saints' Church, Highgate, London.{{sfnm |1a1=Brown |1y=1979 |1p=511 |2a1=Markham |2a2=Faulstich |2y=2018 |2p=4}} From 1929 to 1933, he was an assistant priest at St Silas Church, Kentish Town.{{cite web |title=Priests of S. Silas |url=http://www.saintsilas.org.uk/section/105 |location=London |publisher=Saint Silas Church, Kentish Town |access-date=9 October 2018}}

Demant became Vicar of St John the Divine, Richmond, in 1933 and nine years later he became a canon of St Paul's Cathedral.{{sfnm |1a1=Brown |1y=1979 |1p=511 |2a1=Markham |2a2=Faulstich |2y=2018 |2pp=4–5}} He served as canon chancellor of the cathedral from 1942 to 1948 and as canon treasurer from 1948 to 1949.{{sfn|Markham|Faulstich|2018|p=4}} He was a canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford from 1949 to 1971.{{sfn|"Demant, Rev. Vigo Auguste"|2014}}

Demant served on the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution.{{sfnm |1a1=Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution |1y=1957 |1pp=1–2 |2a1=Grimley |2y=2009 |2pp=727, 732}} The committee's report, known as the Wolfenden report[https://www.thewolfendenreport.com/about/the-wolfenden-report The Wolfenden Report website][https://www.humandignitytrust.org/resources/wolfenden-report-report-of-the-departmental-committee-on-homosexual-offences-and-prostitution-in-great-britain/ Human Dignity Trust website, Wolfenden Report] was published in September 1957 and recommended that "homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence."{{sfn|Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution|1957|p=25}}

Demant was a regular broadcaster on the BBC's Third Programme in the 1950s.{{cite magazine |year=1950 |title=Religion: Will Civilization Survive? |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,805503,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110131082827/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,805503,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 31, 2011 |url-access=subscription |magazine=Time |volume=56 |issue=2 |location=New York |page=62 |issn=0040-781X |access-date=20 January 2013}} He supported Maurice Reckitt in founding the Christendom Trust to encourage and fund research into the application of Christian social thought.

Demant retired from his post at Oxford to a cottage in Headington, Oxfordshire, in 1971.{{sfn|Markham|Faulstich|2018|p=7}} He died there on 3 March 1983 at the age of 89.{{sfn|Markham|Faulstich|2018|pp=3, 7}}

• The Just Price (1930)
• This Unemployment: Disaster or Opportunity? (1932)
• God, Man and Society: An Introduction to Christian Sociology (1933)
• Christian Polity (1936)[https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/1804372.Vigo_Auguste_Demant Good Reads website, ''Vigo Auguste Demant']
• The Religious Prospect (1939)[https://www.amazon.co.uk/RELIGIOUS-PROSPECT-V-Demant/dp/B000WVKG38 Amazon website, retrieved 2023-12-19]
• Theology of Society: More Essays in Christian Polity (1947)
• Our Culture: Its Christian Roots and Present Crisis (1947)[https://wipfandstock.com/author/v-a-demant/ Wipf and Stock website, V A Demant]
• The Responsibility and Scope of Pastoral Theology To-Day (1950)
• Religion and the Decline of Capitalism (1952)
• The Elements of Christianity (1955)
• A Two-Way Religion (1957)
• Christian Sex Ethics (1963)
• The Idea of a Natural Order (1966)
• Why the Christian Priesthood Is Male (1972)

{{Portal|Biography|Christianity}}

• David Nicholls (theologian)
• Maurice Reckitt

{{reflist|22em}}

{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}

• {{cite book

|last=Brewett-Taylor

|first=Sam

|year=2018

|title=Christian Radicalism in the Church of England and the Invention of the British Sixties, 1957–1970: The Hope of a World Transformed

|location=Oxford

|publisher=Oxford University Press

|doi=10.1093/oso/9780198827009.001.0001

|isbn=978-0-19-882700-9

}}

• {{cite thesis

|last=Brown

|first=Margaret Kay

|year=1979

|title=The Idea of a Christian Social Order: Aspects of Anglican Social Thought in England, 1918–1945

|degree=PhD

|location=Canberra

|publisher=Australian National University

|hdl=1885/10002

|hdl-access=free

}}

• {{cite book

|author=Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution

|author-link=Wolfenden report

|year=1957

|title=Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution

|url=http://www.humandignitytrust.org/uploaded/Library/Other_Reports_and_Analysis/Wolfenden_Report_1957.pdf

|location=London

|publisher=Her Majesty's Stationery Office

|id=Cmnd 247

|access-date=9 October 2018

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Crowe

|first=Ian

|year=2018

|chapter=Edmund Burke's Peerage

|editor1-last=Avramenko

|editor1-first=Richard

|editor2-last=Alexander-Davey

|editor2-first=Ethan

|title=Aristocratic Souls in Democratic Times

|location=Lanham, Maryland

|publisher=Lexington Books

|pages=199–221

|isbn=978-1-4985-5327-8

}}

• {{cite encyclopedia

|year=2014

|title=Demant, Rev. Vigo Auguste

|encyclopedia=Who Was Who

|publisher=Oxford University Press

|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U163518

|ref={{sfnref|"Demant, Rev. Vigo Auguste"|2014}}

}}

• {{cite journal

|last=Grimley

|first=Matthew

|year=2009

|title=Law, Morality and Secularisation: The Church of England and the Wolfenden Report, 1954–1967

|journal=The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

|volume=60

|issue=4

|pages=725–741

|doi=10.1017/S0022046908005952

|s2cid=145311290

|issn=1469-7637

}}

• {{cite book

|contributor1-last=Markham

|contributor1-first=Ian S.

|contributor1-link=Ian Markham

|contributor2-last=Faulstich

|contributor2-first=Christine

|contribution=Setting V. A. Demant in Context

|last=Demant

|first=V. A.

|year=2018

|editor1-last=Markham

|editor1-first=Ian S.

|editor1-link=Ian Markham

|editor2-last=Faulstich

|editor2-first=Christine

|title=The Penumbra of Ethics: The Gifford Lectures of V. A. Demant with Critical Commentary and Assessment

|location=Eugene, Oregon

|publisher=Cascade Books

|pages=3–19

|isbn=978-1-4982-9779-0

}}

{{refend}}

{{s-start}}

{{s-aca}}

{{s-bef|before=Robert Mortimer}}

{{s-ttl|title=Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology|years=1949–1971}}

{{s-aft|after=Peter Baelz}}

{{s-other}}

{{s-bef|before=Maurice Reckitt}}

{{s-ttl|title=Scott Holland Memorial Lecturer|years=1949}}

{{s-aft|after=Donald M. MacKinnon}}

{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Demant, Vigo Auguste}}

Category:1893 births

Category:1983 deaths

Category:20th-century English Anglican priests

Category:20th-century English theologians

Category:Alumni of Armstrong College, Durham

Category:Alumni of Ely Theological College

Category:Alumni of Harris Manchester College, Oxford

Category:LGBTQ and Anglicanism

Category:Anglo-Catholic clergy

Category:Anglo-Catholic socialists

Category:Anglo-Catholic theologians

Category:British social crediters

Category:Christian socialist theologians

Category:English Anglican theologians

Category:English Anglo-Catholics

Category:English Christian socialists

Category:Regius Professors of Moral and Pastoral Theology