Parliament,the Church of England and the Last Gasp of Political Protestantism, 1963–4

Political protestantism has been an enduring theme in parliamentary and ecclesiastical politics and has had considerable influence on modern Church and state relations. Since the mid 19th century, evangelicals have sought to apply external and internal pressure on parliament to maintain the ‘protestant identity’ of the national Church, and as late as 1928, the house of commons rejected anglican proposals for the revision of the prayer book. This article examines the attempts by evangelicals to prevent the passage through parliament of controversial measures relating to canon law revision in 1963–4. It assesses the interaction between Church and legislature, the influence of both evangelical lobbyists and MPs, and the terms in which issues relating to religion and national identity were debated in parliament. It shows that while evangelicals were able to stir up a surprising level of controversy over canon law revision – enough for the Conservative Party chief whip, Selwyn Lloyd, to attempt to persuade Archbishop Ramsey to delay introducing the vesture of ministers measure to parliament until after the 1964 general election – the influence of political protestantism, and thus a significant long‐term theme in British politics, had finally run its course.     

Anglican High Churchmen and the Expansion of Empire*

Postcolonial history has taken a great deal of interest in the missionary endeavours of the church throughout the Empire, especially the work of Protestant/evangelical mission societies. Apart from attention to organisations like the Universities Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) and to some extent the work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), the work of Anglican High Churchmen has sometimes been overlooked. 1 In fact, High Churchmen were very concerned about the role of the Church of England in the expanding empire during the mid‐nineteenth century. They were keen to bring the extension of the church under institutional control and to co‐operate with the imperial parliament as closely as possible. The activity of the SPG and the foundation of the Colonial Bishoprics Fund (CBF), which provided clergy, schoolmasters, catechists, and bishops as agents of Anglicanism and Englishness, can be seen as part of this strategy.     

Anglican Evangelical Theology,c. 1820–1850: The Case of Edward Bickersteth

The period between the 1780s and the 1830s is widely acknowledged to be a formative one for Anglican Evangelical identity. It was the age of Simeon, Wilberforce, and the Clapham Sect, a time when polite culture became imbued with moral seriousness, and when pious causes came to the centre of the political stage. Yet while it is equally well known that the late 1820s witnessed a significant change in mood and direction, prompted by the passing of an earlier generation of leaders, missionary failure and theological fragmentation, the Anglican Evangelical movement in the second quarter of the nineteenth century has received comparatively little attention. Evangelicals appear frequently in work on the Oxford Movement and Broad Church, but often only as two‐dimensional reactionaries ripe for the protagonists to trample. Edward Bickersteth (1786–1850) is therefore a particularly interesting figure, having risen to prominence in the 1810s and 1820s but in the 1830s and 1840s becoming one of the movement's acknowledged leaders. By showing how the coming man of the earlier period negotiated rockier territory later on, this article seeks to explore not just the changes but also the striking continuities in Evangelical thought. For even if, as Grayson Carter has argued in an excellent recent study, the ecclesiastical changes of the 1820s and 1830s forced Anglican Evangelicals, like others, to reconsider their place in the Church of England, Bickersteth was among the most prominent of the majority who, while unhappy with developments in politics and theology, remained loyal to their Church.     

Medieval memories and the reformation of religious identity: Catholic and Anglican interactions with parish church sites in County Limerick,Ireland

SUMMARY: This paper examines parish church sites in County Limerick and their evolving meanings as a result of Ireland’s unsuccessful Protestant Reformation. Unusually for Europe, most Irish parish churches fell into ruin from 1550 to 1700. Conquest, loss of patronage and the Anglican Church of Ireland’s failure to convert most native Catholics ensured this eventuality. Nevertheless, local memories continued to draw people to these sites. There is evidence for Catholic burial in the 18th and 19th centuries, conversion of chancels into burial plots and, sometimes, church maintenance or construction by Anglicans. These activities all reveal contemporary concerns with history, identity and legitimacy.     

The Elusiveness of Protestantism: The Last Expatriations for “Apostasy” from the Church of Sweden (1858) in a European Perspective*

By studying the responses to the last expulsion for “apostasy” from the Swedish National Church in 1858, this article examines how an international Protestant identity was constructed in mid‐nineteenth‐century Europe. It is the argument of this study that a comprehensive identity — including both evangelicals and theological progressives — could be built around the notion of religious liberty. The advocacy of religious freedom became a line of demarcation that separated this group from the Roman Catholic Church, as well as from those Protestants that were firmly attached to an exclusivist position. In order to manufacture this unity, strategies that had been used to fortify the Catholic–Protestant divide were now also used to establish distinctions between different forms of Protestant belief. It is the argument of this article that this unity definitely broke with the theological disputes of the 1860s.     

Anglicanism and Nationalism in Australia,1901–1962

In recent years Australian nationalism has attracted considerable attention from historians, but most of the literature has been written from a secular standpoint. The present paper focuses on the contribution of the Anglican Church to the development of nationalism in the period between the coming of Federation and the attainment by the church of a new constitution that gave it autonomy. The first part of the paper examines the English character of the church and its attitudes towards empire, monarchy and "White Australia." The second part explores the emergence of a more distinctively Australian identity within the church. Although importannt, this was not strong enough greatly to influence the church whose presence helped perpetuate the hold of British cultural values in ways and to an extent not hitherto fully appreciated.     

Evangelicals and the Oxford Movement Centenary

The first centenary of the Oxford Movement was celebrated throughout the Anglican Communion in July 1933. Within the Church of England, the commemoration was officially sanctioned by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, a sign of growing rapprochement between the episcopate and the Anglo‐Catholic movement. The triumphant Anglo‐Catholic Congress organized exuberant demonstrations, but amongst the beleaguered Evangelical minority the birthday party caused widespread consternation and protest. The occasion became a battleground between rival interpretations of Anglican identity and competing visions for the future of the Church of England. This article examines Evangelical responses to the 1933 celebrations in England, focusing upon Evangelical contributions to Oxford Movement historiography. In particular, it explores Evangelical answers to two of the key questions concerning Tractarian origins: did the Oxford Movement rescue the Church of England, and did the Oxford Movement complement the Evangelical revival?     

Balancing and Limiting Episcopal Power: Bishop Thomas Barlow’s Use of Common Law in Disputes with Arminian Anglican Clerics

Thomas Barlow was a Reformed theologian simultaneously fighting on three fronts against Catholic, Dissenting Protestant and Arminian Anglican opponents. The first two of these groups threatened the Church of England from the outside, while the last group was transforming Anglican doctrine through its domination of the most important posts in the episcopal hierarchy. Barlow could not argue directly against the power of bishops without assisting the external opponents, yet he had to find a way to prevent other bishops from interfering in his continued support for Reformed theology. In order to reduce their power within the Church of England, Barlow had to look outside the institution for ways to limit his superior’s power. This essay examines two arguments in which Barlow ventured into polemics about the secular law of England in an effort to maintain limits on his Anglican opponents’ exercise of power.     

Divine Healing in Australian Protestantism, 1870–1940

The topic of divine healing was not at the forefront of the Protestant movement during its first three centuries as it reacted to what was seen as an exaggerated and often fallacious miraculous supernaturalism in Roman Catholicism. By the middle of the nineteenth century the Protestant churches in Britain, America, Europe and Australia had to consider divine healing in light of a newly emerging holiness movement. This article examines the developments in practice and theological perspective of the Protestant churches in Australia, particularly as they responded to the clear claims of the growing Pentecostal movement in the nation and the sacramental perspective on healing supported by the High Anglican sector of the Australian Church of England.     

Mormon Masculinity: Changing Gender Expectations in the Era of Transition from Polygamy to Monogamy, 1890–1920

During the period from 1890 to 1920, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐day Saints (LDS) perceived a crisis in the lives of their boys. Like their Protestant contemporaries, Latter‐day Saints spent much time attempting to find a solution. At the same time, the LDS church was experiencing its own unique set of upheavals. In 1890, one of the central tenets of Mormonism – polygamy – had to be replaced with sexual practices that aligned the LDS with wider American society. It was during this transitional period that members and authorities of the LDS church sought to gain respectability in American culture by emphasising the morality and value systems they shared with their middle‐class Protestant contemporaries. As Mormons restructured marriage around the practice of monogamy, they placed the burden of the refashioned religious identity almost exclusively upon men and their bodies. The new Mormon man ushered the LDS church into the American mainstream while maintaining an acceptable difference from that mainstream culture.     

Ordained Ministry in Maori Christianity, 1853–1900

From 1853 an ordained clergy emerged in the Protestant (but not the Catholic) churches founded by missionary organisations in New Zealand in the first half of the nineteenth century. Ordained indigenous ministers succeeded and largely superseded an earlier large force of lay "teachers." Although the Maori churches might in other circumstances have been seen as progressing towards self–reliance and autonomy, the colonial context of the second half of the nineteenth century confined them and their clergy to a restricted place in the ecclesiastical life of New Zealand. The transition from "teachers" to "ministers" in the Church Missionary Society (Anglican) and Wesleyan missions is examined, and a study is made of the place of indigenous ministers in the Maori Anglican and Wesleyan churches, the Mormon church, and the Maori religious movements such as Ringatu.     

‘Set in the silver sea’: English national identity and European integration

ABSTRACT. Although many short‐term reasons for a specifically English Euro‐scepticism have been proposed, a long‐term perspective is required to provide a fuller and more rounded treatment of this important and topical political issue. It needs to be grasped in terms of cultural, political and religious factors in English history, specifically, the antiquity and political character of a sense of English national identity, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the nature and impact of Protestant covenantalism. Among the factors that have shaped a sense of English national identity are its insular, geopolitical situation, the early development of a centralised English state, and the concomitant growth of a unified English legal system. To the existing sense of national identity under the Tudors was added a strong current of religious separatism, manifested first through Henry VIII's break with Rome and his vindication of monarchical supremacy in a national church, and second through the Puritan return to the idea of election modelled on the Old Testament narrative of the Exodus and Covenant of the Israelites. These currents have lent to the sense of English national identity a strong oppositional character, in contrast to the transterritorialism of Christendom characteristic of the leading Roman Catholic powers. This can be seen both by comparing English with French historical trajectories, and more recently, in terms of the separate, but allied, position of England in relation to European integration.     

Quaker Schoolmasters, Toleration and the Law, 1689–1714

The 1689 Toleration Act allowed Protestant dissenters freedom to worship in public, but it was only a limited toleration and dissenters continued to suffer discrimination. This article examines the experience of Quakers in one important area, the Anglican monopoly in teaching. Although the prosecution of unlicensed teachers was patchy, localised, and dependent upon the hostility and zeal of particular individuals, few dissenters escaped harassment. Moreover, Friends appear to have suffered more severely because of the particular dislike that they still provoked and their unwillingness to compromise which often led to imprisonment. The growth in High Church feeling during Anne's reign led to a more rigorous enforcement of the existing statutes and the passing of the Schism Act (1714). The consequences of an Anglican educational monopoly have not been properly considered by historians largely from the assumption that the Schism Act was fatally compromised by the death of Queen Anne, and because little attention has been paid to the continued harassment of dissenters after toleration who attempted to teach. The Schism Act was repealed in 1719, but freedom for Quakers and other dissenters to teach had already been achieved largely through the courts.     

A Vision of Mount Holyoke in the Ottoman Balkans: American Cultural Transfer,Bulgarian Nation‐Building and Women's Educational Reform, 1858–1870

American missionaries introduced a project of female educational reform among Bulgarian Orthodox Christians in their attempt to promote a Protestant reformation in the Ottoman Balkans. This case study of American‐Bulgarian interactions in the town of Eski Zaǧora (Stara Zagora) illuminates a hitherto unexplored projection of American culture abroad and highlights the connections between women's education, religion, and national identity. In the face of Ottoman secular reform and American religious reform, Bulgarian women appropriated American educational ideals to demand improved schooling for Orthodox girls in the name of national progress. Ironically, by promoting female education, missionaries ensured the failure of their Protestant reformation and inadvertently contributed to shaping a Bulgarian national discourse during a period of increasing Balkan nationalism.     

Keeping the Spiritual Home Fires Burning: Religious Belonging in Britain during the First World War

The religious impact of the First World War on the home front in Britain is assessed in terms of churchgoing and church membership and affiliation. Church attendance rose briefly at the start of the war but fell away thereafter in the Protestant tradition, accelerating a pre-existing trend, which was not reversed after 1918. The disruption caused by the war to the everyday life of organized religion probably accounts for the decrease, rather more than loss of faith. Church membership also declined during the war in the Anglican and mainstream Free Churches, albeit not for other denominations and faiths, but it temporarily revived after the war. This was not the case for non-member adherents and Sunday scholars whose reduction was more continuous.     

Reviews

Book reviews in this Article: Martin Noth : The Laws in the Pentateuch and Other Studies W. Ullmann : The Relevance of Medieval Ecclesiastical History: An Inaugral Lecture. Margaret Aston : Thomas Arundel: A Study of Church Life in the Reign of Richard II. Robert M. Kingdon : Genea and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 1564–1572. John F. H. New : Anglican and Puritan. The Basis of their Opposition, 1558–1640. G. F. Trevallyn Jones : Saw-pit Wharton. The Political Career from 1640 to 1691 of Philip, fourth Lord Wharton. E. G. W. Bill (Ed.): Anglican Initiatives in Christian University Unity. Lectures delivered in Lambeth Palace Library 1966 John Mc Manners John M. Ward : Empire in the Antipodes. The British in Australasia: 1840–1860.     

Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and the Eucharist: Review and Prospects

This article reviews the history of the important dialogue on the Eucharist by the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) underway since the second half of the twentieth century and continuing into the present. Agreed statements from the commission addressing the Eucharist and comments from various bodies of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church are critically reviewed. Prospects for future dialogue are assessed and suggestions made about areas that may be the subject of future dialogue.     

A Vision of an Anglican Imperialism: The Annual Sermons of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 1701–1714

This article examines the first two decades of the oldest continuing Anglican missionary society, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded in 1710. It argues that, contrary to the prevailing historiography of the British missionary movement, this early eighteenth‐century society was genuinely evangelistic and marks the real beginning of that movement. The society also marks the beginning of a formal, institutional engagement by the Church of England with the British Empire. In the Society's annual anniversary sermons, and influenced by the reports sent by its ordained missionaries in North America, the Church of England's metropolitan leadership in England constructed an Anglican discourse of empire. In this discourse the Church of England began to fashion the identities of colonial populations of Indigenous peoples, white colonists, and Black slaves through a theological Enlightenment understanding.     

Between the devil and the deep blue sea: nationality,power and symbolic trade‐offs among evangelical Protestants in contemporary Northern Ireland1

ABSTRACT. National identity is a symbolically complex configuration, with shifts of emphasis and reprioritisations of content negotiated in contexts of power. This paper shows how they occur in one post‐conflict situation – Northern Ireland – among some of the most extreme of national actors – evangelical Protestants. In‐depth interviews reveal quite radical shifts in the content of their British identity and in their understanding of and relation to the Irish state, with implications for their future politics. The implications for understanding ethno‐religious nationalism, nationality shifts and the future of Northern Ireland are drawn out.     

Craven and the Elizabethan Settlement: Diverging Confessional Identities, 1580–1603*

During the second half of Elizabeth's reign the imposition of the Settlement and its compliance within the Craven region of the West Riding of Yorkshire gave rise to increasingly divergent religious identities. Initially, recusant numbers increased despite the introduction of more draconian measures to combat Catholicism after 1580. Catholicism became clandestine. Craven's location next to conservative Lancashire facilitated the movement of itinerant priests to serve the separate Catholic community of interrelated lower gentry and their households. Concurrently evangelical clerics, planted to encourage the acceptance of the Settlement, opposed the hierarchical Elizabethan Church, objecting to its retention of clerical dress and sacramental rituals. This Puritan dissent gave rise to nonconformity and a more radical interpretation of the Reformed Church of England. However, by 1603 the majority in Craven had conformed to the Settlement, but continuing Protestant dissent would culminate in sectarianism in the next century.