Oxford Movement (religious movement)

Motto: "All for love or the world well lost"

Formation: 1833

Founders: John Henry Newman, Edward Pusey, Richard Hurrell Froude, William Palmer, and John Keble

The Oxford Movement was a Catholic revival of the Church of England in the 1830s. It was a revival of faith in and loyalty to the major doctrines of Roman Catholicism, such as the Incarnation, the Atonement, baptism, and Holy Communion. This High Church movement arose at a time when there was increased secularization and liberalism in the Anglican Church. This period also marked the start of both a growing liberalization in the policies of as well as religious toleration in Parliament. This development was brought about by new legislation that enabled members of Parliament to be faithful to a religious minority (rather than to the Anglican Church). There was also concern in the movement that Parliament was more liberal because the middle class, which had just received expanded voting rights, was supportive of religious diversity. The movement was also reinforced by a restored faith in the Church of England as an essential part of the Roman Catholic Church, which remained in opposition to the Anglican Church.

Through their close study and interpretation of the doctrines, which had many critics, some leaders of the movement, such as John Henry Newman, moved closer to Roman Catholicism and left the Anglican Church. Others remained devout Anglicans, even when the movement declined, or they joined other movements or groups.

History

The Oxford Movement originated at Oxford University in England. Leaders of the movement, who were known as Tracterians because of a set of works they published by a similar name, were mainly connected to the university as clergymen and lecturers of theology and poetry. In addition to Newman, they included Edward Pusey, Richard Hurrell Froude, John Keble, and William Palmer. The movement influenced the entire Church of England, mostly through the work and writings of Pusey and Keble.

The date on which the Oxford Movement was founded varies. Some date the origin of the movement to the publication in 1827 of Keble’s The Christian Year, a work that included hymns praising the Anglican Church and Communion. But many, including leader John Henry Newman, point to July 14, 1833, as the day on which the movement officially began. It was on this day that John Keble delivered a sermon called the Assize Sermon in Oxford. The sermon was published under the title "National Apostasy," and it attacked Parliament’s legislation during the 1820s that had enabled dissenters of the Anglican Church to join with Roman Catholics to serve as members of Parliament. The movement that arose in the wake of Keble’s sermon was most likely centered in Oxford rather than at other prominent universities in England because the Tracterian ideas were generally conservative. Many of the leaders of the movement were considered High Church; High Church members believed in the rituals, liturgy, theology, and sacraments of the Anglican Church that derived from practices that originated in the Roman Catholic Church. With a more religiously diverse group within Parliament, the leaders of the movement feared that those ecclesiastical matters dealt with by Parliament would be affected. Newman and others who shared this thinking worried about the power of the state in Anglican Church matters. Furthermore, in 1832 Parliament passed the Reform Act that expanded the voting rights of the liberal middle class, a development that worried movement leaders.

Even though there is disagreement among some scholars about the timing of the demise of the movement, it is generally believed to have come to an end around October 1845, when the then-prominent leader of the movement, John Henry Newman, was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Newman eventually became a cardinal in the Catholic Church. By October 1845 the movement had largely left Oxford, where it had begun. Keble, who had delivered the sermon that started the movement in the first place, remained a faithful adherent, but the movement never retained its momentum after Newman’s departure.

Beliefs and Practices

As clergy and lecturers at Oxford University, the early leaders of the Oxford Movement realized that certain rituals were lacking in the Anglican Church when they were reading the Book of Common Prayer. Their response to this recognition was a set of pamphlets and treatises called "Tracts for the Times," or "The Oxford Tracts." There were ninety pamphlets, or tracts, that the leaders wrote between 1833 and 1841. Ideas from these tracts were spread and put into practice across parishes throughout England.

Although the intentions of the movement leaders were to make the Church of England holier and to reiterate the doctrinal connections to the Roman Catholic Church, the movement’s champions stirred controversy. When Pusey made assertions about the Eucharist in a sermon in 1843, he was suspended from his preaching duties for two years. Many of the leaders of the movement were called papist. Tensions between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church were strong and increased greatly after Newman published the ninetieth tract in February 1841, an event that caused major changes within the movement. In this work Newman closely examined the Anglican Church’s 39 Articles, which included the liturgy and doctrine of the Church. In essence Newman suggested that the Articles could be interpreted through Roman Catholicism, where Anglicanism had its origins. The tract was very controversial and sold more than two thousand copies within its first few weeks after publication. Soon after, Newman left the movement and the Anglican Church.

The effects of the Oxford Movement included improvements in the education of the Church’s clergy and more use of ceremony and ritual during worship. Another effect was an increase in awareness of the needy and working class; this awareness led to a call to action to help and provide spiritual guidance to these groups, which had expanded into various industrialized and industrializing parts of England. When the movement waned, some supporters continued as ritualists, a group that focused on helping the poor in Great Britain’s urban areas.

Bibliography

Brown, Steward J., and Peter B. Nockles, eds. The Oxford Movement: Europe and the Wider World, 1830–1930. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2012. Print.

Connolly, John R. John Henry Newman: A View of Faith for the New Millennium. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. Print.

Faught, C. Brad. The Oxford Movement: A Thematic History of the Tracterians and Their Times. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2010. Print.

Herring, George. What Was the Oxford Movement? London: Continuum, 2010. Print.

Newman, John Henry. Frank M. Turner, ed. Apologia Pro Vita Sua & Six Sermons. New Haven: Yale UP, 2008. Print.

Nockles, Peter. "Alexander Knox: Neglected Progenitor of the Oxford Movement." Ecclesiology, 12 July 2021, brill.com/view/journals/ecso/17/2/article-p271‗271.xml. Accessed 28 Oct. 2024.

Parker, Kenneth L. Authority, Dogma, and History: The Role of the Oxford Movement Converts in the Papal Infallibility Debates. Palo Alto: Academica, 2009. Print.

Strong, Rowan, and Carl Engelhardt Herringer, eds. Edward Bouverie Pusey and the Oxford Movement. London: Anthem, 2014. Print.