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?
In the immediate aftermath of defeat for the Anglican-Methodist Unity Scheme in the Church of England's Convocations in July 1969, Archbishop Ramsey famously spoke out in despair: 'Let the minorities, who disagree among themselves, tell us what their scheme is. But they won't, they won't, they wont'. The Scheme's evangelical and catholic opponents had frustrated ecumenical hopes, but without offering a viable alternative. Responding to the archbishop's cri de coeur, four leading dissentients (Colin Buchanan, Graham Leonard, Eric Mascall and J.I. Packer) published Growing into Union (1970), one of the most controversial ecumenical tracts in recent decades. This paper examines the background to their pioneering catholic-evangelical alliance and the reactions which Growing into Union provoked, especially amongst ecumenical thinkers.
Anglicanism’s multiple identities are often explained in terms of ‘church parties’, perhaps ‘high church’ and ‘low church’; ‘conservative’ and ‘radical’; or ‘evangelical’, ‘anglo-catholic’ and ‘liberal’. Such descriptions are frequently heard in accounts of the origins and contemporary character of the Anglican movement. However, there are many pitfalls in this interpretative approach, as this chapter reveals. The flourishing literature on Anglican identities is often deeply misleading. In particular, a church party framework can be guilty of imposing a model of conflict upon the historical record; of pigeon-holing Anglicans with simplistic stereotypes; and of being used as a rhetorical tool to bolster intra-Anglican polemics. This chapter cautions against the dangers, to which all students of Anglicanism must be alert.
The Martyrs' Memorial at Oxford is usually interpreted as an anti-Tractarian statement provoked by the publication of R. H. Froude's notorious Remains. This paper argues, however, that the monument's anti-Catholic nature has been overlooked, largely as a result of interpreting the scheme in the light of subsequent developments. Much of the original polemic surrounding the project was directed exclusively against Roman Catholicism and it won support from a wide theological spectrum within the Church of England. The heated debate over the wording of the inscription is examined, as is the question of whether the memorial should take the form of a Martyrs' Church or a Martyrs' Monument.
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