THE Oxford or Tractarian Movement is usually described as an essentially clerical movement. It was, after all, led by a group of High Church Oxford clergy, including John Henry Newman, Edward Pusey, and John Keble. The theology of the movement emphasised the apostolic succession of the ministry. The movement’s sacramental theology and its understanding of authority put ordination and priestly action at the very centre of its understanding of the Church. The laity, it seems, were there merely to follow, to support, and to obey.
Not so, according to Ben King. Not only did the laity, after all, constitute almost all of a church’s congregation, but they were understood as active supporters, even co-operators, in the work of renewing the Church according to the severe standards enjoined by Tractarian clergy. In a work of formidable scholarship, King shows how influential laity (mostly, but not exclusively, laymen) helped to drive forward the Oxford Movement’s goals at local as well as national level.
They also represented a significant theme in the ecclesiology of the Tractarians, as they sought to understand and then to embody a conception of the Church in which the whole body of the faithful were united around the altar, in obedience to the precepts of the gospel, mutually supporting one another as they set out to further the mission of the Church.
King highlights the part played by a cluster of Tractarian politicians and elite laity whose financial support, political lobbying, and social influence progressed the Tractarian programme, including Gladstone, Beresford Hope, Roundell Palmer, the Cecils, and the Lytteltons. These men exercised ecclesiastical patronage, raised money, sponsored ecclesiastical legislation, and provided public credibility, all in support of Tractarian opinion and causes. Their influence was paralleled at local level, though here, I admit, King does not do much more than point to a phenomenon that, already partly explored through local studies, really needs much more research.
But his book is mainly a study of Tractarian theology, and of the place of the laity in the developing ecclesiology and commentary of the Tractarians. Two particular matters stand out. One is the uncomfortable fact of Tractarian ambivalence about the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. Although not mostly defenders of slavery as such, many of the Tractarians, lay as well as clerical, were at best reluctant supporters of abolitionism. In contrast to the crusading zeal of the Wilberforce circle on the matter, Tractarians were much more likely to emphasise the part to be played by divine providence rather than human action: God would end slavery in his own good time, and human action could be premature and presumptuous. There was — to modern eyes — an uncomfortable knock-on, with affinities with the Southern states during the American Civil War.
The other matter was the quite mixed reactions that Tractarians displayed to the possibility of lay involvement in the early forms of church representative government. Led particularly by the example of the Early Church, most Tractarians did not rule out some formal consultation of the laity, especially in practical matters such as organisation and finance. Many were outspoken advocates of the formation of diocesan conferences. They were queasy, however, about giving the laity a formal part in doctrinal and liturgical consideration, even if their understanding of the consensus fidelium did acknowledge that doctrine had to be recognised and professed by the whole Church.
With this outstanding monograph, Ben King, who has already published extensively on Newman, effectively establishes himself as one of the leading modern scholars of Tractarianism. His mastery of the source material is impressive. The range and depth of his scholarship are astonishing. His book is alive not just to the history of Tractarianism in England, but also to the vital part played in its evolution by the colonial and American Churches.
As he shows, it is not really possible to understand the history of the Oxford Movement in England without also appreciating its history in the colonies, and without grasping the attraction of the American example to churchmen sceptical of the Church-State link. This is, admittedly, scholarship for the specialist reader — hence the price. It is a clear but demanding read, buttressed by a huge bibliography. But it transforms our understanding of the context in which Tractarian ideas of ministry and authority have to be seen.
The Revd Dr Jeremy Morris is a former Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
The Oxford Movement and the People of God. Enslavement, Education, and Empire
Benjamin J. King
OUP £99
(978-0-19-873956-2)
Church Times Bookshop £89.10
