The Spirit of the Oxford Movement: Tractarian Essays

Description

In this collection of new and revised essays Owen Chadwick, perhaps the most distinguished living historian of religion, writes on various aspects of the Oxford Movement and the English Church in the Victorian era. Along with studies of Newman, Liddon, Edward King and Henri Bremond are included more general essays surveying the reaction of the Established Church and on the nature of Catholicism. In particular, the revision of the long-unobtainable introductory essay, The Mind of the Oxford Movement, illustrates once again the profound contribution Owen Chadwick has made to our understanding of religion in Britain in the nineteenth century.

'It is part of Owen Chadwick's genius ... that he is in the deepest sense of the term a devotional writer at the same time as he is a scholar of sensitivity, precision and learning. The mysteriousness and reality of the grace of God transforming human lives is what gives power to so many of these studies ... This collection of essays, such a joy and delight to read, has the capacity not only to inform the mind but to nurture the soul - and rightly so, for the Oxford Movement was not only about campaigns and dusty ideas dug up from the Christian past, but about the renewal of the Church in prayer and holiness and so in its true identity.' Geoffrey Rowell, The Church Times 'There is an enchantment on this volume, as of the light that never was on sea or land. Professor Owen Chadwick disputes with his brother Henry the claim to be the most eminent ecclesiastical historian of his generation ... He is, moreover, supremely a scholar whose writings are popular in their immediate accessibility to the educated general reader through a lightness of tone and a breathtaking charm which turn everything to gold.' Sheridan Gilley, The Tablet