THE PROTESTATION PROTESTED, 1641 AND 1642

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID CRESSY
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Religious Involvement ◽  
The Political ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church

Parliament's Protestation of May 1641 pledged subscribers to defend the protestant doctrine of the Church of England against all popery and popish innovations, while upholding the honour of the king, the privileges of parliament, and the liberties of the subject. The following twelve months saw contentious debate about the ambiguity of these phrases and the conflicting obligations they entailed. Leaders of the political nation subscribed the Protestation voluntarily in the summer of 1641, emulated in some places by ordinary parishioners. In the more polarized political circumstances of early 1642, parliament ordered the Protestation to be taken nationwide by all men aged eighteen and above. Women, too, occasionally subscribed. This article traces the tendering and reception of the Protestation on both occasions, and examines some of its local consequences. The circulation of the Protestation significantly widened the arena for political and religious involvement in the opening stages of the English revolution.

The Evangelical Discovery of History

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 330-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Bebbington
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Churches Of Christ ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Evangelical Protestantism ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Church

‘From some modern perspectives’, wrote James Belich, a leading historian of New Zealand, in 1996, ‘the evangelicals are hard to like. They dressed like crows; seemed joyless, humourless and sometimes hypocritical; [and] they embalmed the evidence poor historians need to read in tedious preaching’. Similar views have often been expressed in the historiography of Evangelical Protestantism, the subject of this essay. It will cover such disapproving appraisals of the Evangelical past, but because a high proportion of the writing about the movement was by insiders it will have more to say about studies by Evangelicals of their own history. Evangelicals are taken to be those who have placed particular stress on the value of the Bible, the doctrine of the cross, an experience of conversion and a responsibility for activism. They were to be found in the Church of England and its sister provinces of the Anglican communion, forming an Evangelical party that rivalled the high church and broad church tendencies, and also in the denominations that stemmed from Nonconformity in England and Wales, as well as in the Protestant churches of Scotland. Evangelicals were strong, often overwhelmingly so, within Methodism and Congregationalism and among the Baptists and the Presbyterians. Some bodies that arose later on, including the (so-called Plymouth) Brethren, the Churches of Christ and the Pentecostals (the last two primarily American in origin), joined the Evangelical coalition.

Preambles: “But One Use”

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-86
Author(s):  
Charles Hefling
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
The Political ◽  
Book Of Common Prayer ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
Common Prayer ◽  
The Church

This chapter examines the Prayer Book’s self-presentation in its preliminary, nonliturgical prose: the two Acts of Uniformity (1559 and 1662) that define the constitution of the text and regulate its use in the Church of England; and the three prefatory essays, two of which were written by Thomas Cranmer for the original, 1549 Book of Common Prayer, and have been retained ever since. These texts are themselves primary sources that provide a preliminary context in which to understand the origins and purpose of the liturgies they precede. They outline the successive revisions of the Prayer Book, and indicate both the political and the theological dimensions of its contents.

Evelyn Underhill and the Christian Social Movement

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-200
Author(s):  
Jessica L. Malay
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Anglican Church ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Social Agenda ◽  
The Church

AbstractEvelyn Underhill is mainly known for her work in mysticism and spirituality. This article explores the political dimension of her work and argues her early work in mysticism and later work in spiritual direction and retreat work underpinned her engagement with leading figures in the interwar Anglican church and their social agenda. During this period Underhill worked closely with William Temple, Charles Raven, Walter Frere and Lucy Gardner among others. In the interwar years she contributed in important ways to the Church of England Congresses, and the Conference on Christian Politics, Employment and Citizenship (COPEC) initiative. She challenged what she called the anthropocentric tendency in the Christian Social movement and insisted on the centrality of the spiritual life for any effective social reform. Underhill worked to engage the general public, as well as Christian communities, in a spiritual life that she saw as essential to the efforts of individuals and organizations seeking to alleviate contemporary social harms.

Discrimination and the Church of England: To What Extent does the Equality Act 2010 Adequately Protect Church of England Clergy?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Grout*
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Eligibility Criteria ◽  
Sensitive Question ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

Abstract The extent to which members of the clergy are considered ‘employees’ for the purposes of secular employment and equality legislation has been the subject of much discussion, but essentially remains a fact sensitive question. The Equality Act 2010 (‘the 2010 Act’) seeks to prevent discrimination on the basis of nine ‘protected characteristics’. While recognizing that the application of the 2010 Act to the variety of clergy offices is ‘not straightforward’, the Church of England (‘the Church’) has opined that an equitable approach to clergy appointments is to proceed as if they were subject to the provisions of the 2010 Act. What follows is in`tended to be a thorough review of the eligibility criteria for clergy appointment in the Church to assess their compatibility with the requirements of the 2010 Act. In addition, particular consideration will be given to Schedule 9(2) to the 2010 Act which makes specific provision relating to religious requirements concerning the protected characteristics of sex, sexual orientation, and marriage and civil partnership. In short, where the employment is for the purposes of an organized religion, such as the Church, requirements which relate to these protected characteristics will not constitute discrimination where they engage the ‘compliance or non-conflict principle’. What these principles mean and how they might operate in practice is discussed below, taking into account the likely canonical and theological justifications for discriminating against certain individuals. Whether the law strikes the right balance between, on the one hand protecting clergy and, on the other, providing the Church with the autonomy to act in accordance with its established doctrine, will be explored in the final analysis.

‘The Difficulties of Protestantism’: Bishop Milner, John Fletcher and Catholic Apologetic against the Church of England in the era from the First Relief Act to Emancipation, 1778–1830

1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-236
Author(s):  
Peter B. Nockles
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
John Fletcher ◽  
Oxford Movement ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Catholic Religion ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Church

‘It is an old theory of ours, that there are very few of the positions assumed by the antagonists of the Catholic church, which may not be turned against each other, with far more effect than they carry against the common adversary whom they all seek to assail. A skilful use of the weapons employed against each other by various sects of Protestantism, in their internecine warfare, would supply one of the most curious, and we will venture to say, one of the most solid and convincing arguments of the truth of the Catholic religion to be found in the whole range of polemical literature’.(Dublin Review, 1855).Anti-Catholicism, represented in the era of the eve of Emancipation by a rich genre of polemical literature focusing on the supposed ‘difficulties of Romanism’, has been the subject of much recent study; notably for the eighteenth century by Colin Haydon, and for the nineteenth, by Walter Amstein, Edward Norman, D. G. Paz, Walter Ralls, F. M. Wallis and John Wolffe. In contrast, English Catholic controversial writing against the Church of England, focusing on what one Catholic writer (in a conscious reversal of the stock Anglican polemical title) called the ‘difficulties of Protestantism’, with notable exceptions such as Sheridan Gilley, Leo Gooch and Brian Carter, 5 has been comparatively neglected for the half century prior to the dawn of the Oxford Movement in 1833.

The Ministry—A Renewed Quest

1967 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-311
Author(s):  
William Nicholls
Keyword(s):  
World Conference ◽  
Fourth World ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Theological Study ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
Work Done ◽  
The Church

The Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order, meeting at Montreal in July 1963, recommended the renewal of the study of the Ministry, within a new programme of theological study to be initiated by the Faith and Order Commission. As was noted at Montreal, the Ministry had not been the subject of Faith and Order study for twenty-five years. There were good reasons for this. While the Ministry continued to be the thorniest of the practical problems facing union negotiators, it was widely agreed that theologically it had failed and would continue to fail to yield to a head-on treatment. Only in the light of the doctrine of the Church, considered in its christological and eschatological dimensions, would the Ministry appear in a form that could draw Christians together in church union. So, without altogether losing sight of the hope that something helpful could be said about the Ministry, Faith and Order turned, first to the doctrine of the Church, and then, in the period after Lund, to a study of Christ and the Church. Now the time has come to return to the Ministry, in the light of the work done at these deeper levels of Christian doctrine.

From Diversity to Sectarianism: the Definition of Anglican Identity in Nineteenth-Century England

1996 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 377-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Knight
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Church

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the subject of Anglican identity in the period from about 1800 to about 1870. This is a complex topic, and it will be possible here only to highlight a few themes. It will be suggested that the understanding of who was and who was not a ‘real’ Anglican underwent several important shifts during the period, until by the 1870s the definition had become increasingly narrow and exclusive. The result was not unity, but an atmosphere of increasingly narrow sectarianism, which had the effect of repelling those who were on the fringes of Anglican allegiance, and thus narrowing the base of lay support for the Church of England in the country at large.

The Revival of Spiritual Healing in the Church of England 1920–26

1982 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 299-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Mews
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Spiritual Healing ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Health And Healing ◽  
A Charge ◽  
The Church

‘How are your healing groups going?’ the present archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, enquired rhetorically in a charge to service chaplains in 1979. ‘The renewal of the Church’s ministry of healing’ the bishop of Selby has even more recently written, ‘is one hard obstinate fact that future historians will be unable to ignore when examining the Christian scene in the present century.’ The bishop, who is co-chairman of the Churches’ Council for Health and Healing, particularly singled out for praise the pioneers of this renewal: ‘individuals like James Moore Hickson, George Bennett and Dorothy Kerin’ as well as such later contributors as Leslie Weatherhead from the free churches, and more recently Cameron Peddie in Scotland and the American Dominican, Francis MacNutt. The bishop has further argued that ‘these powerful initiatives given to the healing movement by individual leaders were matched by the leadership of the Churches’, an assertion which is backed by citing the discussions devoted to the subject at the Lambeth conferences of 1908, 1920, 1930 and 1958. The first two of these conferences were presided over by archbishop Randall Davidson, who in the bishop of Selby’s book is presented as a crypto-champion of spiritual healing.

William Warburton and the Alliance of Church and State

1992 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

In January 1736 an anonymous pamphlet appeared under the title,The Alliance between Church and State, or the Necessity of an Established Religion, and a Test Law demonstrated. Its author was William Warburton, a well-to-do but still comparatively obscure country clergyman. Although this was only his second publication in the field of divinity, he was already revealing the taste for controversy which was to characterise his literary career. TheAllianceappeared at the height of the campaign by the Protestant dissenters to repeal the Test Act of 1673, and only weeks before the defeat, on 12 March 1736, of a motion for its repeal in the House of Commons. Clearly intending his work as a contribution to this debate Warburton was concerned less with giving an account of the relationship between Church and State than with providing a coherent and forceful justification both of the establishment of the Church of England and of the defence of that establishment by the Test Act. In the preface he claimed to treat the subject ‘abstractedly’.

‘A finite universe?’ Riemannian geometry and the Modernist theology of Ernest William Barnes

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. G. VALENTE
Keyword(s):  
Riemannian Geometry ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Mathematical Research ◽  
Evolutionary Theories ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church

As one of the most tireless advocates of Modernism in the Church of England, Ernest William Barnes (1874–1953) was the subject of both veneration and scorn. The position Barnes adopted on evolution during the inter-war years, the period during which he was installed as the Bishop of Birmingham, has been the focus of recent scholarship. In particular, his spiritual agenda departed from those of most Modernists in that it encouraged the faithful to accept the precepts of evolution and Mendelism while it repudiated Lamarckian progressivism. Indeed, his unadulterated appreciation of neo-evolutionary theories makes it easier to understand his willingness to promote eugenic principles.Another unusual aspect of Barnes's Modernist theology, however, remains to be examined in any detail – namely its mathematical underpinnings. Before rising to his bishopric, Barnes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on the strength of his mathematical research. Further, his reputation as one knowledgeable in both modern mathematical and biological investigations provided an authoritative legitimacy that was meant to enhance his efforts at reconciliation, including his Gifford Lectures of 1927 to 1929. This paper examines Barnes's promotion of Riemannian geometry, especially as it relates to the consolation he found in the concept of a finite universe. Ultimately it asserts that mathematics made essential contributions to a cosmological perspective integral to his Modernism.

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