175 Today

After a Book of Common Prayer Eucharist commemorating John Keble we kept the hour of silent prayer here at Dulverton Chapel.

175th AnniversaryAssize Sermon
14th July 1833-2008

Magazine Article by Robert Beaken

175th ANNIVERSARY OF THE OXFORD MOVEMENT
14 July 2008

In 1833 the Church of England was startled by the Oxford Movement. The spark which ignited this powerful religious reawakening was the proposal of the Whig government to suppress half the Anglican bishoprics in Ireland and to re-dispose their incomes, without first consulting the Church. A group of clerical dons at Oxford, of whom John Keble, John Henry Newman, Richard Hurrell Froude and Edward Bouverie Pusey are the most well-known, took grave exception to the Whigs’ proposals. They believed that the Church is a divinely-founded society, with Jesus Christ at its head, and that its reform was nothing to do with a secular Parliament. Their campaign of opposition was inaugurated with an assize sermon preached by Keble in the university church of St Mary in Oxford on 14 July 1833, in which he called Whig government’s planned legislation ‘National Apostasy.’ The Oxford dons next wrote a series of Tracts for the Times, examining aspects of the theological crisis created by the government’s action, which they had delivered to every parsonage in England.

The Church of England, they taught, has passed through the Reformation, but it is not simply of the Reformation. It is not a Protestant Church (the word Protestant never appears in the Prayer Book, nor in any Anglican formularies), but it is a reformed catholic Church, a subtle but significant difference. The Church of England is the historic catholic and apostolic Church of this land. It is part of the wider Church of Christ – a claim made on the title page of the 1662 Prayer Book – cleansed of medieval abuses and unscriptural accretions in the sixteenth century, but in all other respects in continuity with what went before. They pointed out that the Church of England has retained the historic three-fold ministry of bishop, priest and deacon; her bishops are part of the Apostolic Succession; her priests by their episcopal ordination are identifiable with Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox priests, and exercise the same priesthood; through them, her faithful are assured of a valid sacramental ministry.

The leaders of the Oxford Movement were highly intellectual and very serious men. They believed the Church of England to be under threat, and they sought to raise the whole tone of her life and witness. For them, what mattered above all else was personal and corporate holiness; and, because holiness may only grow upon a foundation of truth, they were especially concerned with doctrinal purity and theological orthodoxy.

The Oxford Movement teaches us that all truth ultimately comes from God: Jesus Christ himself said “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Christian truth does not depend for its validity upon the opinions of individual Christians at any one time. Something is true simply because God makes it true and reveals it to us, and for no other reason. If all Christians decided to reject some aspect of Christianity, this aspect would not thereby become untrue because of their rejection of it. Nor, if all Christians decided to believe in something new or decided to amend some old aspect of Christianity, would it therefore suddenly become true because of their new belief. God does not – indeed, He cannot – contradict Himself. Christian doctrine and moral teaching that were true in 33 A.D. and 1833 A.D., remain true in 2008 A.D. They cannot have become false by by reason of their contradicting current values and ideas, and because some people find them difficult.

The Oxford Movement did not go unchallenged, but it proved to be the most important religious reawakening in England during the nineteenth century. The renaissance of spirituality, theology, scholarship, liturgy, music, art, architecture, and the revival of religious orders and communities (monks and nuns), which the Oxford Movement began in the Church of England goes under the name of the Catholic Revival. To this day in the early twenty-first century, there is not a parish church in the Anglican Communion that has not been affected by it in some way or other.

On 14 July 2008, the 175th anniversary of John Keble’s Assize sermon, Anglicans throughout the world will observe an hour of silent prayer. We will give thanks for the rich inheritance of the Oxford Movement. We will also pray for the future, seeking to discover God’s will and fulfil His purposes for us in our own lives, churches and communities. We warmly invite you to hold an hour of silent prayer in your own church or to join one being held in a church near you. Please register your church’s hour of silent prayer on www.oxfordmovement.org.uk