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Chapter Eighteen |
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The British Experience 19th Century |
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| I. | Introduction: With Britain's defeat of Napoleon in 1815 A.D., they emerged as the first world power in Europe. They held a huge navy and in spite of the loss of the thirteen colonies in America she held vast empires of land throughout the world. She was rich because of the Industrial Revolution and remained in that position up to the first World War. | |||
| A. | The Fortunes of Church Establishments | |||
| 1. | The Anglican Church--was firmly established in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. The Presbyterians held Scotland and the Catholics held Southern Ireland. | |||
| a. | The Church of England faces change--still reeling from the Methodist schism of the Church they entrenched and became very defensive. The governments of England viewed the Anglican Church as the great defender of the faith against the revolutionary mind-set of France and in 1818 A.D. granted the Church one million pounds to build new churches in urban and industrial areas. This was the first time for over a century the English state financially supported the Church and it would be the last. Within a few years Church hierarchy would come to see the government as more of a threat than a means of support. | |||
| b. | State Measures--in 1828 A.D. Parliament repealed any laws against any other Protestant religion in the country and in the following year granted all Catholics the same privileges thus placing them all on equal footing with the Church of England. This move totally destroyed the common bond between the Anglicans (The Church of England) and the government. As news laws and reforming activity continued to pressure the Church of England into a defensive mode of existence and this lead to one of the most important movements in the nineteenth century: The Oxford Movement. | |||
| 2. | Evangelicalism and the birth of the Oxford Movement--the Evangelical Movement stayed within the church structure during the 18th century and because Charles Simeon, a churchman who trained seminarians at Cambridge and Oxford, placed in church pulpits a great many graduates in the Church of England. This changed the face of Anglicanism and those who sat in Parliament. They, the Evangelicals, succeeded in abolishing slave trade in 1807 A.D. in England. | |||
| See handout #231 | ||||
| a. | Keble's Assize Sermon--the high church officials of the previous era had lost much of their prestige during this period of time. High Anglicanism was very low keyed in its ritual and practice of its faith. The reforms from the government seemed to challenge everything they stood for and John Keble sent the cause of the High Anglican church into a new phase of dynamism. Keble thought the British government had abandoned everything the High Church of England stood for and he preached a sermon at Oxford Assize on July 14, 1833. This sermon was to become famous as the beginning of the Oxford Movement, so called, because most of the High Church officials were Oxford grads. This sermon tapped into a deep uneasiness among Anglicans. The appeal aims straight for the corporate structure life of the Church: a Catholic emphasis on bishop, priest, and deacon. They were looking back at the good ole days of the seventeenth century, very conservative and very High Church. | |||
| See handout #232 | ||||
| See handout #233 | ||||
| 3. | The Oxford Movement: crisis and growth--the movement was destined to suffer from the very beginning. Many of its highest leaders moved over into Catholicism since they Catholic in every sense of the word. Most notable of these converts was the prominent John Henry Newman. He wrote a tract interpreting the doctrinal formularies of the Church of England as in basic agreement with the Council of Trent. The hostile reaction he received from his own peer group convinced him that he had to leave his beloved Anglicanism and become Catholic. | |||
| a. | Influence on Anglican worship--with departures of Newman and other notable High Church figures the return to the Old High Church of England wavered, but did not fall. More determined than ever many younger priests studied the ancient ritual books of the old church and began employing them back into Sunday services. The Eucharist became the center of the service once again and they began building new churches with the same architecture of the ancient churches. The preferred to be called Anglo-Catholic rather than Anglicans and brought back to the Protestant church the style and dignity of formal worship. | |||
| b. | Revival of monastic Orders--with the rise in the Anglo-Catholic churches came the renewal of the call to religious life in religious orders. Monasticism had never been condemned by the English reformers. Although the men and women of these orders had never had the popularity or success as the Catholic orders they nonetheless had an impact on the spirituality of Protestantism in general. They helped to restore an awareness of the value of community life and contemplation to those areas of the world where the people bad rejected Catholic traditions after the Reformation. | |||
| See handout #234 | ||||
| c. | Conflict--the Oxford Movement brought the Evangelicals and the Anglicans into continual conflict. The Evangelicals eventually beaten down in the Church of England until the 1960's lost all influence on how the Church was to be run. The Anglo-Catholic stance of the Church of England broadened its vision and this time began looking outward and away from itself to those less fortunate than they. Social justice issues became important in the slums, in the areas of working conditions and those who were down and out in England. | |||
| 4. | The Church in Scotland--the established Presbyterian Church of Scotland was entirely different from the Church of England. Four events made this happen: (1) the medieval church of Mary Queen of Scots in 1560 A.D. was overthrown; (2) the Solemn league and Covenant were revolts against the Scot politicians of 1638 A.D.; (3) the declaration of Presbyterianism and Calvinistic orthodoxy made in 1646 A.D. during the British Civil Wars; (4) finally, the overthrow of King James II in 1690 A.D. firmly implanted Presbyterianism in Scotland. | |||
| See handout #235 | ||||
| a. | Founding of the Free Church of Scotland--all of this resulted in a fiercely independent Scottish church. This fierce independence also led to its own problems within this church. In the eighteenth century and culminating in the nineteenth century was the issue of private patronage; i.e., the right of private individuals to exercise choice in appointments to pastoral offices. This offended the basic structure of Presbyterians and laws were passed against those who wanted to abolish private patronage. This interference of the Scottish government into the church's affairs went against another strong tenet of the Church, i.e., the church had the absolute right to govern its own affairs. This led to a schism and one third of the Presbyterian church split off to found the Free Church of Scotland. Their aim was to create an entirely new church not bound to private patronage and they succeeded. They built new churches, gave ministers stipends and houses to live in, supported foreign missions all with money from their newly found wealth in industrialization. | |||
| b. |
Reunion--the result of this schism claimed two major religious forces in Scotland doing parallel work and it seemed absurd when in 1874 a law was passed that abolished private patronage entirely in Scotland and there was no need for two separate churches any longer. Their reuniting did not occur until 1929 A.D. |
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| c. | Catholic presence-- throughout the Reformation the Catholic Church's presence remained in Scotland. With the split in Presbyterianism and the weakened Anglican Church Catholic missionaries returned to Scotland and had great successes. The Catholic Irish immigrated to Scotland for work in the suddenly prosperous industrial Scotland. Bishops were again placed in Sees in Scotland much to the horror of the Protestants, both Presbyterians and Anglicans. | |||
| See handout #236 | ||||
| See handout #237 | ||||
| d. | Episcopalian Revival-- in the nineteenth century underwent a terrible blow in Scotland because of the Presbyterian laws being passed because of their stubborn loyalty to the English Stuart dynasty. The Scottish Episcopalians (Church of England or Anglicans) finally let go of a lost cause and reconnected with the English Anglicans and then they began ordaining bishops to go to America. So American Episcopalians have their origins in Scottish roots through their succession of Scottish bishops. | |||
| II. | English Churches beyond the Establishment | |||
| A. | The Free Churches-- with the formation of the Free Churches the Protestants continued to break into various branches of Quakers, Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, and Congregationalists. | |||
| 1. | Freedom for Dissenters-- during the nineteenth century this growth in various Protestant religions opened up whole new paths of life. English universities now admitted anyone and they could participate in all forms of national political life. Fierce battlegrounds over the control over education took place which in turn raised the conscious levels of politicians to institute laws against those things that offended the various groups; i.e., alcohol trade. | |||
| 2. | Confidence and energy-- with renew vigor these various religious groups became more exuberant in their demands and forms of worship. The Church of England conducted a religious poll in 1851 and were shocked to discover that only a minority of church goers were Anglicans. The majority were Free Churches and Catholics. The Free Churches built huge churches, preached long sermons and sent missionaries out into the rest of the world. Always suspicious of the centralized control of Anglicanism and Catholicism they soon discovered the need for such control as they diversified into various ministries. | |||
| 3. | Growth in Wales- here the greatest growth in the Free Church of Calvinistic Methodism occurred. Now calling itself the Welsh Presbyterian in 1811A.D. The Welch wanted the Anglican church removed from Welch lands and thereby forming their own country and with the disestablishment of the Anglican church in 1920 A.D. there came an irony. The Free Church was in decline and the Anglican Church was becoming more representative of the Welsh religious constituency. | |||
| 4. | Methodist Schisms-- disagreements came about over how the church would be governed and an unbelievable number of new Methodist churches came into being. The largest was the Primitive Methodist Connection founded in 1811. It took over another 100 years for the tempers to cool and the British Methodist churches to reunite in 1932. The off shoot of Methodism that remained vibrant was the Salvation Army. A denomination that used techniques of revivalism and outreach to the poor and homeless. In spite of their strict discipline of officers and activists they remain a church with no sacramental life. | |||
| B. | The Catholic Church, a new role in England | |||
| 1. | Emancipation-- in the nineteenth century the Catholic Church in England underwent a remarkable change both in numbers and status. Catholicism was emancipated in 1829 A.D. by the British government and recognized as the largest dominant church in Ireland. In order to woo the Catholics in politics the privileged status of the Anglican Church of Ireland was ended in 1869 A.D. Because of the Irish famine in the 1840's Irish immigration to England and the United States moved Catholicism in large masses. | |||
| 2. | Catholic Reorganization-- with increased Catholics in England a system of bishoprics, carefully avoiding the Church of England's bishoprics became a necessity. The Protestant outcry of Papal Aggression was heard throughout the land and unexpectantly this was the last anti-Catholic feeling to prevail in England from then to now. No longer could Catholicism be considered as a minor and specialized form of English dissent. Catholicism was under the dominant control of priests and lay people in control as in the past was no more. This explains why Anglican priests were denied ordained status by Catholics as the Church was into total hierarchial control of its clergy. | |||
| III. | A New Outlook to Face | |||
| A. | Basic Social Change-- to concentrate exclusively on the institutional changes in British religion would give a very misleading picture of what was happening to the churches in the nineteenth century. The church people faced an age of rapidly changing lifestyles. Britain was the first industrialized nation and with that advance came wealth and invention. The steam engine first and then the combustion engine soon followed. Bicycles were invented and mobility of all people became the norm. Improvements in sea, rail and road transportation gave this population the first chances to become a mobile people and the tribe mentality began to lose its place in society. | |||
| 1. |
A Revolution in communications-- with increased communications now possible with distant lands and the growing wealth of the standard of living people now had the possibility of leisure time. With an increase in leisure time more and more people viewed religion as just one more thing they could spend their leisure at or not. |
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| 2. | Secularism-- in the 1880's churches were still being built, but the population was growing faster. Religious indifference took hold and people began to view church and religion with an attitude of "I couldn't care less", very unlike the previous hostilities shown towards one another. | |||
| B. | intellectual revolutions: geology and biblical criticism-- the study of geology, the study of the earth, began to cause questioning about the role of biblical history as being the only history of the world. The call to re-read the Bible as an historical document came under the scrutiny by scholars including its limitations and its shortcomings. | |||
| See handout #238 | ||||
| 1. | Darwin and evolution-- geological explorations discovered that the earth was far more older than the biblical accounts. Charles Darwin (1809-82 A.D.) wrote his famous book Origin of Species in 1859 A.D. In it he claimed that through selective breeding of the strongest and most adaptable did all forms of life evolve, including man from ape. His premise was that all life started from the simplest forms of life. He claimed that instead of a benevolent divine providence lying behind this process, there was an impersonal struggle for survival which determined which species would be successful in evolution. This challenged biblical records and that fight continues to this day. | |||
| 2. | Historical-biblical criticism-- all biblical works were coming under the scrutiny using the historical method. French and German monks studied the Bible from a whole new perspective. They would read scripture with a critical eye looking at the possibility of its historical record being correct or fabricated. When they applied this new study to the Old Testament they discovered that the Pentateuch had not been written by Moses, but was a compilation of several authors. When they applied this same technique to Jesus Christ in the New Testament they discovered that the picture painted by the Church was a construct that distorted the reality of the man Jesus. This new field of theological study destroyed the faith of many theologians. The old adage of study God and lose your faith still holds today. | |||
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Handouts |
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| 231 | Evangelicals and the poor. Accused of elitism in their theology. | |||
| See Full Text | ||||
| 232 | Tractarian Thought--Keble (evangelical minister) laments tolerance for others. | |||
| See Full Text | ||||
| 233 | Cardinal Newman's tract 90-- the Cardinal's attack on Evangelicals. | |||
| See Full Text | ||||
| 234 | Ritualism, popery and the opposition. Walter Walsh criticizes Catholicism. | |||
| See Full Text | ||||
| 235 | The Scottish disruption. A protest against civil interference with Church affairs. | |||
| See Full Text | ||||
| 236 | Catholic emancipation. England frees Catholics and their practice of religion. | |||
| See Full Text | ||||
| 237 | The 'Papal aggression". Catholics re-organize dioceses in England and meet opposition. | |||
| See Full Text | ||||
| 238 | Geology and faith. Darwin defends his theory of evolution in the face of controversy. | |||
| See Full Text | ||||
