What was the Oxford Movement?

John Baiamonte, Ph.D.

Grace Memorial Parishioner, Vestry Member, and Christian Education Leader

The Oxford Movement was a theological movement of high church members of the Church of England. It began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. So why should we know anything about it? We know it affected Grace Memorial and the Hammond community.

The original organizers of the movement were mostly associated with the University of Oxford, hence the name, the Oxford Movement. ​The movement, known as Anglo-Catholicism, called for the reinstatement of some older Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into the Anglican liturgy and theology. They argued that Anglicanism was one of the three branches (Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodox) of the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” Christian Church.

The movement sprang from serious unrest in England and was formally known as Tractarianism, named after a series of publications, called Tracts for the Times written from approximately 1833-1841. The tracts were written to promote the philosophy of the movement. Many in the Church of England, particularly those in high office, were liberal. However, most of the clergy in the parishes were conservative evangelicals being led by John Wesley (1703-1791). The universities of England became the breeding ground for the movement to restore liturgical and devotional customs before the English Reformation. The movement also wanted to restore some traditions from contemporary Roman Catholicism.

Apparently, the movement arose when a secular court overruled an ecclesiastical court decision over a priest with unorthodox views on the efficacy of infant baptism. In response to this ruling, high ranking members of the Church of England, John Keble, Edward Pusey, John Henry Newman, and others published in the Tracts for the Times a series that argued that the Church of England needed to affirm that its authority did not come from the state, but from God. The Tractarians claimed that the Church of England could claim the loyalty of Englishmen because the Church rested on divine authority and the principle of apostolic succession. The tracts had a wide distribution and cost very little and succeeded in drawing attention to its doctrine and overall approach.

The Tractarians advocated the “Branch Theory”: Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism were the three branches of the historic pre-schism Catholic Church. They argued for the inclusions of the traditional aspects of liturgy found in medieval religious practice. In other words, the Tractarians maintained the Church of England had become too “plain.” Newman maintained that the Council of Trent (1545-1563) doctrines, known as the Counter-Reformation, were compatible with the Thirty-Nine Articles of the 1563 Church of England. The council validated the seven sacraments, established the canon of scripture, and addressed the issues on the sale of indulgences, affirmed the Nicene Creed, and revoked many of the abuses that motivated the Protestant Reformation. Newman was basically correct in that the Thirty-Nine Articles, compiled by
Thomas Cranmer and Joseph Ridley, served as a bridge between the Roman Catholic traditions and the Protestant Reformation doctrine.

The Oxford Movement was heavily criticized as too “Romanizing.” Its critics charged it with being secretive and collusive. Nevertheless, the movement influenced the theory and practice of Anglicanism and helped spread its doctrine to all the major cities in England. Like other Christian churches, the Church of England was influenced by the liturgical movement in the Roman Catholic Church which sought to promote informed lay participation, reordering church architecture, recovering elements of early Christian liturgy, and clarifying the structure and language of worship. The movement was so widespread that the eucharist gradually became more central to worship in the Anglican churches.

Many Tractarian priests began working in the slums of England partly because bishops refused to provide living wages and partly due to concern for the poor. The ministries of the Tractarians fostered British social policy both locally and nationally. This movement continues today and the Episcopal Church is part of it. A number of bishops joined the Christian Social Union to address issues such as a just wage, renting property, infant mortality and industrial conditions.

The Oxford Movement moved to the United States and influenced the Episcopal Church in Wisconsin where the Nashotah House Theological Seminary was founded in 1842 by three young deacons under the patronage of Missionary Bishop Jackson Kemper, who were followers of the Oxford Movement. Nashotah would become a center for Anglo-Catholic theology and America’s first monastic-style Anglican community.

So how did the Oxford Movement affect Grace Memorial? Vestments, candles, singing with choirs, and the practice of all sacraments were Oxford Movement features. It reintroduced the restoration of devotion by encouraging the use of a Marian devotion like the “Angelus” which had been largely neglected after the Reformation. The Angelus is to be recited at morning, noon, and evening prayer:

V. The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary,
R. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you;
blessed are you among women,
​and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Photo prise de John Henry Newman à la fin de sa vie {{PD-US}}

As one can see, the Angelus sounds like parts of the Roman Catholic rosary. Since I am the only officiant for Morning and Evening prayer at Grace, I pray the Angelus before each service. I must admit that in the past, one of my fellow officiants refused to use the Angelus because “it was too Catholic.” Knowing the roots of the Angelus from the Oxford Movement, Father Paul Bailey, our previous rector, brought the Angelus from his association with the Society of St. John the Evangelist, which was one of the monastic orders derived from the Oxford Movement. This has been one of the “high church” features at Grace for for over 20 years.

One other liturgical practice from the Oxford Movement was the rare use of burning incense. According to Father Paul, we do not have a thurible to burn incense. So, on a few occasions, Father Paul would put incense in a small bowl and burn it for compline or Choral Evensong as a sign of our prayers ascending to God.

You might ask how did the Oxford Movement affected Hammond. Well, one of the Tractarians, John Henry Newman and many other Anglican priests, left the Church of England to become Roman Catholic. In 1879, Pope Leo XIII appointed him a cardinal. In the 1960s, the New Orleans Archdiocese built a Roman Catholic Center at Southeastern Louisiana University and named the dormitory Cardinal Newman Hall. I doubt if anyone in Hammond knew that Cardinal Newman was a former Anglican priest and a major leader of the Oxford Movement.

The Oxford Movement affected the historical terms of “High Church” versus “Low Church.” This is a highly debated issue within Anglicanism, and I am not going down that “rabbit hole” with this issue of the blog. I will save it for another time.

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