High Church Movement Research Articles

Cerību laiks: LELB kontakti ar Anglijas baznīcu arhibīskapa Gustava Tūra darbības laikā (1946–1968)

The purpose of this article is to analyse relationships of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia (ELCL) with the Church of England during Gustavs Tūrs’ time as archbishop. Special attention is given to his visit to U.K. in 1955 as a member of the delegation of Soviet clergy. These contacts are placed in various contexts – theological, socio-political, personal relationships. “Voices” from various sources are placed face to face and confronted with each other. The author has explored materials previously unused in scientific circulation in Latvia – the archive files stored at the Lambeth Palace Library (London). Contacts between the two churches is a continuation of relationships maintained before the Second World War. Delegations of the Lutheran Churches in Estonia and in Latvia had meetings with representatives of the Church of England in 1936 and in 1938. These negotiations resulted in agreement on intercommunion that because of the war was never ratified but respected by the involved parties. The first years after Stalin’s death was a “thaw”, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union was relaxed. The renewed interest of Soviet leadership in using religious organizations for Soviet foreign politics was used by churches to further their own aims. They tried to reap additional benefits from the Soviet-inspired “parade ecumenism” – theological studies abroad, exchange visits, etc. However, it was not achieved without compromises. Here pops up a theme of collaborationism, which still is sensitive in post-Soviet countries. It may seem easy to evaluate this phenomenon from today’s perspective, whereas for people having no hope that situation would change in their lifetime, adjusting to the political realities was the only option they had. Of course, the question remains what kind of concessions they made to the Soviet system. Contacts between the churches in U.K. and Latvia helped to exchange information; they paved the way to membership in international organizations like the World Lutheran Federation. For Anglicans, the main emphasis during the visit of the delegation of Soviet clergy in 1955 was on Orthodox-Anglican relationships. It is related to the fact that the High-Church movement at that time was at its zenith of influence in the Church of England. The attitude of the Latvian Lutheran Church in diaspora was negative, because it did not recognize ELCL as legitimate, nevertheless, this attitude was not consistent, because the leadership of diaspora church simultaneously tried to maintain personal contacts with the colleagues in Latvia.

Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century: The Life and Thought of William Stevens, 1732–1807. By Robert M. Andrews

<i>Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century: The Life and Thought of William Stevens, 1732–1807.</i> By <scp>Robert</scp> M. <scp>Andrews</scp>

Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century: The Life and Thought of William Stevens, 1732‐1807 (Brill's Series in Church History and Religious Culture 70). By Robert M.Andrews. Pp. xiii, 312, Brill, Boston/Leiden, 2015, $100.75.

Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century: The Life and Thought of William Stevens, 1732‐1807 (Brill's Series in Church History and Religious Culture 70). By Robert M.Andrews. Pp. xiii, 312, Brill, Boston/Leiden, 2015, $100.75.

Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century: The Life and Thought of William Stevens, 1732–1807, by Robert M. Andrews

Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century: The Life and Thought of William Stevens, 1732–1807, by Robert M. Andrews

Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century: The Life and Thought of William Stevens, 1732–1807, written by Robert M. Andrews

Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century: The Life and Thought of William Stevens, 1732–1807, written by Robert M. Andrews

Becoming Human Again: The Theological Life of Gustaf Wingren by Bengt Kristensson

Reviewed by: Becoming Human Again: The Theological Life of Gustaf Wingren by Bengt Kristensson Mary Elizabeth Anderson Becoming Human Again: The Theological Life of Gustaf Wingren. By Bengt Kristensson Uggla. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2016. 392pp. For nearly half a century, Gustaf Wingren (1910–2000) was a theologian with an international reputation and a true force in Swedish academic circles. However, less than two decades after his death, his [End Page 342] work has become largely overlooked. Through his excellent intellectual biography of Wingren, Bengt Kristensson Uggla calls attention back to this important figure, reminding us of his significant contributions to twentieth-century theology and advocating for his continued value today. Contextualization is central to this analysis of Wingren’s theological life. Uggla draws on an impressive array of archival and published sources to provide historical background for Wingren’s life and theology. At times the attention to detail can be almost overwhelming, but through this account Uggla also provides a history of twentieth-century theology and Swedish society alongside his portrait of Wingren. Conflict comprises much of the context of Wingren’s theology. His thought developed amid several theological debates: pietism versus orthodoxy, then later pietism versus the high church movement; liberal theology versus dialectical theology and motif research; and faith versus reason. Social struggles also shaped his theology, particularly World War II, increasing secularism, and a growing market-driven economy. While these controversies began apart from Wingren, he eventually found himself in the midst of them, disagreeing with all sides. In all these conflicts, Wingren’s critiques were based on his own emphasis on contextualization and consequently the doctrine of creation. After publishing two historical works on the theology of Luther and Irenaeus, Uggla asserts Wingren makes a “turn toward practical knowledge” in his work Living Word, shifting from a historical to a hermeneutical approach (132). Specifically, Wingren argued theology must explore the connections between the essential aspects of Christian faith and life and the situations shared by all people (156). In other words, theology must be contemporary and contextual and therefore constantly reinterpreted. Those who failed to understand this found themselves targets of Wingren’s sharp critique. Anders Nygren, Karl Barth, and Rudolf Bultmann were the first to be singled out in Wingren’s next work, Theology in Conflict, but others followed. Wingren then fully developed his contextual theology in two works: Creation and Law and Gospel and Church. [End Page 343] Wingren’s focus on contextualization led to a second major shift in his theology during the 1960s and 70s. The change was influenced by societal factors, but also several events within Wingren’s personal life: his withdrawal of his ordination in protest of the rejection of women’s ordination by conservative members of the Church of Sweden; his divorce from his wife of thirty-four years; and his retirement from Lund University. However, Uggla contends nothing was more important in this second shift than his relationship with Greta Hofsten, the woman who eventually became Wingren’s second wife. Greta Hofsten was a journalist and political activist with her own complicated and fascinating history, some of which Uggla recounts. She and Wingren met in Stockholm in 1967 and soon formed a friendship. According to Uggla, Hofsten was the person who first saw the potential in Wingren’s theology for social critique, and she was the primary inspiration for his second theological shift, from the academic context to the societal. Before his relationship with Hofsten, Wingren had little interest in social and political issues, but through her influence he recontextualized his theology into social criticism (195). In the final decades of his career, in collaboration with Hofsten, Wingren rewrote his previous works for this new context. Luther on Vocation became A Small Catechism; Man and the Incarnation became Human and Christian; Theology in Conflict became Change and Continuity and Silent Interpreter; and Creation and Law and Gospel and Church became Credo. All of the later works were “creative reinterpretation” for the new social context (196). Uggla’s work makes a valuable contribution to the history of twentieth-century theology in general and Wingren’s theology in particular. Despite the emphasis on history, the biography is organized thematically rather...

Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century. The Life and Thought of William Stevens 1732–1807, written by Robert M. Andrews

Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century. The Life and Thought of William Stevens 1732–1807, written by Robert M. Andrews

THE OCCASIONAL CONFORMITY CONTROVERSY, MODERATION, AND THE ANGLICAN CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY, 1700–1714

ABSTRACTThe occasional conformity controversy during the reign of Queen Anne has traditionally been understood as a straightforward symptom of the early eighteenth-century ‘rage of party’. For all the pious rhetoric concerning toleration and the church in danger, the controversy is considered a partisan squabble for short-term political gain. This traditional interpretation has, however, never been able to account for two features of the controversy: first, the focus on ‘moderation’ as a unique characteristic of post-Revolutionary English society; and second, the prominence of the Anglican nonjurors in the debate. This article revisits the occasional conformity controversy with an eye toward explaining these two related features. In doing so, it will argue that the occasional conformity controversy comprised a referendum on the Revolution settlement in church and state. Nonjurors lit upon the practice of occasional conformity as emblematic of the broader malady of moderation afflicting post-Revolutionary England. From their opposition to occasional conformity, the nonjurors, and soon the broader Anglican high-church movement, developed a comprehensive critique of religious modernity that would inform the entire framework of debate in the early English Enlightenment.

The Lutheran High Church movement in Germany and its liturgical work. An introduction. By Arne Giewald and Günther Thomann. Pp. 114. Raleigh, NC: Lulu, 2011. €8.90 (paper). 978 1 4709 7378 0

The Lutheran High Church movement in Germany and its liturgical work. An introduction. By Arne Giewald and Günther Thomann. Pp. 114. Raleigh, NC: Lulu, 2011. €8.90 (paper). 978 1 4709 7378 0 - Volume 64 Issue 3

Hopkins and Tractarianism

Hopkins and Tractarianism Peter Groves (bio) The life and work of Gerard Manley Hopkins resist easy classification. In terms of biography, the "Tractarian Hopkins" was a wilful undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford who drank at the well of ritualism on his way to converting to Roman Catholicism. While the young Hopkins did describe himself as a "Tractarian,"1 historical hindsight might prefer "ritualist," or "early Anglo-Catholic," and contemporary opponents would have chosen "Romanist" or "Puseyite." Readers of Victorian literature, however, can observe in his poetry and his theory stylistic and intellectual traits which belong in the tradition of Keble and of Newman. Close examination of those traits comes up against the awkward chronology of Hopkins short life—he was born very shortly before what R. W. Church was to identify as the end of the Oxford Movement, and spent a few ardent if immature years as an Oxford high churchman before being received into the Roman Catholic Church at the age of twenty-two. The ritualistic Hopkins flourished in an Oxford which had changed by the 1860s, but critics have found aspects of his entire life and output which suggest the influence of people and ideas undoubtedly Tractarian. In contrast with much of the century after Hopkins' death, the last fifteen years or so have seen several substantial biographical studies of the poet. Discussions have been moved markedly forward by the examination of archival material, particularly in Oxford, which gives insight into the influence of many senior figures upon the young Hopkins, leading Tractarians among them. Moreover, whereas some interpretation of Hopkins had suffered from a tendency to see him as so very idiosyncratic a poet that his work bore little or no classificatory analysis or contextual study, a laudable desire to reverse this trend has seen Tractarianism, among other influences, assert itself as a major area within literary critical analyses. Both these strands of scholarship —biographical and literary—allow us to see strong theological links between Hopkins' work and the heavily patristic theology of Keble, Pusey, and Liddon (as well as the better established connection with Newman's work). They also serve to remind us that, for Hopkins, Tractarian and ritualistic alliegances were never less than controversial, and were indeed themselves a crucial stage on that journey of rebellion which would end with his conversion to Rome and his father's anguished question "O Gerard my darling boy, are you indeed gone from me?"2 [End Page 105] Both of the major biographies of Hopkins which appeared in the early 1990s gave proper attention to the importance of the high church movement in Hopkins' early Oxford career and his growth to intellectual maturity.3 Following them, and concentrating closely on the early years, Jude V. Nixon's Gerard Manley Hopkins and His Contemporaries: Liddon, Newman, Darwin, and Pater moved further by introducing readers of Hopkins to valuable primary and secondary material which demonstrated that importance even more fully. Nixon's attentiveness to Henry Parry Liddon was particularly welcome, since the historical Liddon's dim figure—positioned so squarely in Pusey's shadow —could now be illuminated by his assiduously kept journals, in which the undergraduate Hopkins features frequently during the relevant years. In the year of his conversion, Hopkins attended Liddon's Bampton Lectures, and Nixon's careful reading identifies a number of connections between Christological themes in Hopkins' early poetry and Liddon's own teaching, connections which are echoed by scholars who have built on his work. The most specific and substantial study of Hopkins and Tractarian poetry was published by Margaret Johnson in 1997. Johnson offers a description of what she calls "early" Tractarian poetry and Keble's work in particular, and then devotes a chapter to each of Richard Watson Dixon, Digby Dolben, Christina Rossetti, and John Henry Newman. (Dixon, the teacher with whom Hopkins renewed contact later in life, initiating a celebrated correspondence, is not easily fitted into a Tractarian mold, and his affinities with Pre-Raphaelitism are discussed at some length.) Johnson identifies broad features to describe Tractarian poetry: "a powerful understanding of Christ's incarnational presence in the world, the revelation of God's presence in and through natural forces, the recognition...

The Broad Church: A Biography of a Movement by Tod E. Jones

For many readers, the first question that the title of this book will raise is,“what is the Broad Church Movement?” The author recognizes that the title may have only rather vague associations in the minds of readers, or if more precise, then nevertheless quite diverse links. For this reason, he devotes a short introductory chapter to setting forth the divergences and even contradictions that have attached to the phrase “the broad church.” The most succinct definition is that the Broad Church Movement was one of the three parties among which the Church of England was divided in the nineteenth century, which is the period upon which the author focuses his attention. Tod Jones states that his goal is not to write a history of the movement,but rather “to clothe principles in flesh and blood and write a biography of the Broad Church movement.” What Jones means by this is that he will tell the story of the movement through an exploration of the leading figures who shaped the character of the movement,and also of those other churchmen who found themselves set very much NEWMAN STUDIES JOURNAL 84 Such a dynamic appears to be most present in the chapter concerning faith and reason where, on a number of occasions, Connolly offers such insights as Ferreira’s propensity for “misinterpretation” (104). The point here is not to defend Ferreira’s work. By contrast,a more elaborate discussion of Newman’s own sources may prove to be more productive given the audience Connolly chose to address. Overall, Connolly’s book is a welcome addition and is especially helpful to those individuals trying to gain an initial appreciation for not only the original nature but also the enduring value of Newman’s thought. Perhaps one way of summarizing this sense of enduring value comes through in Connolly’s ability to demonstrate that the personalist and the intellectual models of faith are capable of combination. For Connolly,“Whether one views faith from the point of the intellectual model or the personalist model, the reality of faith is always defined according to its two main elements, the object of faith and the act of faith”(120). Connolly’s selection in terms of methodology is what makes such an assertion possible—particularly in relation to the audience he seeks to address. As a result, Connolly’s book provides a readable introduction to the work of John Henry Newman that also appreciates the complex character of Newman’s work. Todd C. Ream Indiana Wesleyan University The Broad Church:A Biography of a Movement. Tod E. Jones. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, Roman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2003. Pages: ix + 347. Bound, $85.00, ISBN 0-7391-0611-2. THE BROAD CHURCH: A BIOGRAPHY OF A MOVEMENT TOD E. JONES 85 in opposition to its principles. A fundamental goal of the movement was what we might today call “inclusivity.” This was manifested in a general resistance to what Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) called “unchristian narrowness and unworthy fears.” It is useful to compare the greater inclusivity affirmed by the Broad Church leaders with theTractarian Movement which was developing during the same period. Both movements looked backward to a sermon as their source: for the Broad Church Movement,this was a sermon preached by Julius Charles Hare in Cambridge in 1828; for the Tractarian Movement, it was the Assize sermon preached by John Keble in 1833. I have occasionally heard the Broad Church Movement characterized as a reaction to the Tractarian or High Church Movement led by John Henry Newman (1801–1890) and Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–1882). It is certainly true that Broad Church leaders were generally hostile to the ecclesiological principles put forward by the Tractarians, but opposition to the Tractarians was not limited to the Broad Church leaders. There was within the Church of England a generalized fear of the “catholicizing”of the church that characterized the efforts of theTractarians. For the Broad Church leaders, however, this reclaiming of the medieval Catholic heritage of the Church of England was understood as a narrowing or restricting of the Church’s life which looked backward to an idealized medieval Church while failing to engage in any adequate...

Anglican Recognition of Presbyterian Orders: James Cooper and the Precedent of 1610

One of the foremost advocates of union between the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches at the beginning of this century was James Cooper, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Glasgow from 1898 to 1922. Cooper was the best-known representative within the Church of Scotland of the Scoto-Catholic or high-church movement which was expressed in the formation of the Scottish Church Society in 1892. One of the ‘special objects’ of the Society was the ‘furtherance of Catholic unity in every way consistent with true loyalty to the Church of Scotland’. The realization of catholic unity led high churchmen to seek what Cooper termed a ‘United Church for the British Empire’ which would include the union of the Church of Scotland and the Church of England. This new unity would require a reconciliation of differences and the elimination of diversities: on the one hand an acceptance of bishops by the Scottish Presbyterians; on the other an acceptance of the validity of Presbyterian orders by Episcopalians and Anglicans.

The Last of the Prince Bishops: William Van Mildert and the High Church Movement of the Early Nineteenth Century. By E. A. Varley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. xv + 261 pp. $59.95.

The Last of the Prince Bishops: William Van Mildert and the High Church Movement of the Early Nineteenth Century. By E. A. Varley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. xv + 261 pp. $59.95.

Reviews and Short Notices

Reviews and Short Notices

REVIEWS

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access The Last of the Prince Bishops: William Van Mildert and the High Church Movement of the early nineteenth century. By E. A. VARLEY. Pp. xv+261. Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN 0 521 39093 1. £35/$59.95. GEOFFREY ROWELL GEOFFREY ROWELL Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 45, Issue 2, October 1994, Pages 776–777, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/45.2.776 Published: 01 October 1994

:Ronsard: Etude historique et litteraire. Vol. 5: Un Brasier sous la cendre

Graham Parry, The Arts of the Anglican Counter-Reformation: Glory, Laud and Honour, Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2005, pp. xii + 207, hb. £45.00, ISBN: 1843832089This book has to be judged at two levels. For the general and non-expert reader it is a fair, well-written and attractively-illustrated introduction to the topic, though some of us might quibble about the atrocious pun in the sub-title and question the extent to which the high church movement of the early seventeenth century really was a 'counter-Reformation'. For the more expert scholar it is a sad disappointment and this is a pity, since there is a good deal more to be researched and published about the grassroots response to the episcopal initiatives of the 1620s and 1630s. Graham Parry looks at church building and furnishing (five chapters), contemporary devotional literature (two chapters), church music and the role of antiquaries in promoting romantic visions of a pre-Reformation heritage (one chapter each). The last four chapters are undoubtedly the best since they cover those areas where Graham Parry, Professor of English at York University, has the greatest expertise. Whilst he tries to weld these elements together with the architectural and liturgical ones to provide a 'seamless robe' of high church belief and practice there is little doubt that the robustness of his thesis is challenged by the defects of the first five chapters. These suffer from no really new source material being used, some major omissions in the secondary works consulted, and a serious lack of contextualisation.Parry treats the seventeenth-century high church movement as if it was a purely English phenomenon led largely by a few bishops. There is no mention of Ireland, Scotland and Wales yet the movement (if it was one in the classic sense) cannot be understood without being seen in a British context. Whilst there is no doubt that there was much opposition to the ceremonial initiatives, though the vociferousness of the opposition probably exaggerated its true extent, it is at least arguable that without the attempt (by Scottish bishops) to impose the Laudian agenda on Scotland the religious fall-out of the 1640s might have been more modest, and the campaign for a limited episcopacy successful. Parry also sees this high church revival as something that was confined to the period between about 1615 and 1645. There is, however, growing evidence that, at the grassroots, opposition to Puritanism, and its attack on the Book of Common Prayer, was beginning to drive people, with or without an episcopal lead, into a greater appreciation of ceremonial. Where Parry is at his most misleading is in giving the impression that, with the execution of Laud and the abolition of episcopacy, the high church revival was a spent force after 1645. In fact, of course, as we now know from the work of John Spurr (not cited) and others, there was far more residual Anglican liturgical practice during the interregnum than had been realised and, although the 1662 religious settlement tried to be as comprehensive as possible, its failure to reconcile all the Puritans was to lead to a high church triumph by the 1670s. …

The Arthurian Revival in Victorian Art by Debra N. Mancoff (review)

Reviews105 engagement with virtually everyone who has written about Tennyson during the last forty years, he demonstrates how our criticism of Tennyson is always implicated in other people's comments. Tennyson's Characters begins with an account of an actual critical seminar and ends with a meditation on Merlin as the archetypal critic. Tennyson, who had his own anxious fascination with critics, knew that all his commentators long to be Merlins: And none can read the text, not even I; And none can read the comment but myself; And in the comment did I find the charm. ("Merlin and Vivien" 679-81) Peter Hinchcliffe St Jerome's College University of Waterloo Debra N. Mancoff. The Arthurian Revival in Victorian Art. New York: Garland, 1990. xxü + 358 + Plates. $75.00 US (cloth). The author wrote a dissertation on this subject several years ago, but this new study is a superior, more sophisticated and authoritative version of that material in terms of writing, analytical insight, and research. Organized into eight chapters and accompanied by 101 black and white and eight color plates, this perceptive book raises many important issues in the Introduction which reflect recent revisionist and iconological approaches as well as Mancoff1 s own critical intelUgence in marshalling several interdisciplinary areas of inquiry. One of her major points consistently threading throughout the text concerns the subliminal appeal to the Victorian period of King Arthur, whom she convincingly describes as a modern counterpoint to both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and, simultaneously, as an emerging metaphor of national identity. Advising readers of Arthur ' s mythopoetic origins, Mancoff in this opening section provides a very useful overview of the warrior king and the connotations of virtue and honour which he embodied in oral and written traditions from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries. 106Victorian Review Chapter One continues to untangle various sources and permutations of the Arthurian Legend, suggesting how both escapist and archaeological attitudes differed in their interpretations and focus. The related tenets of the Gothic Revival influenced an entire earlier generation of artists and architects, thus setting the stage for Victorian fantasies about the Middle Ages. Indeed, the Victorians generally envisioned medievalism as a better, more moral and ideal period of existence. These preconceptions served to strengthen, as Chapter Two affirms, what Mancoff calls "ethical medievalism and revivalist chivalry," and these forces further entrenched the Arthurian legend as "a paradigm of action, time-honoured and indisputably British" (28). For the metaphor truly to succeed, however, much less for it to become internalized as an integral part of the national identity, the Victorians had to see themselves in the legend, and the author suggests that this is precisely what happened. Accordingly, the "Arthurian metaphor was empowered as a moral exemplar and a transforming mirror, inspiring the modern Englishman to strive for the standards of his mythic fathers, while seeing himself reflected in their glorified image" (29). In terms of revivalist chivalry, the seeds of this had been sown—for example, in the earlier nineteenth-century writings of George Ellis and in the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott and Kenhelm H. Digby. These resulted in a literary cult of the knight which, as an encoded emblem of modern behaviour and ideals, "held a flattering mirror to the image of the upper-class male, who embraced its reflection with enthusiasm" (48). The romanticizing of the knight as an appealing modern hero was also highly visible in popular culture in such events as tournaments and processions, and even the High Church Movement was able to incorporate the high-born, morally and socially responsible male into its own ethical creeds. Equally strong is the third section on "Politics, Painting, and the New Palace at Westminster," which reflects considerable original research and synthesis, especially on the proposed evolution of the interior palace decorations. In addition, Mancoff briefly outlines a survey of national art sponsorship, adding to the recent (long over-due) spurt of scholarship on art patronage and here remarkably free of theoretical jargon. She also provides readers with important background on the rise and role ofhistory painting in Britain, at the same time indicating the inherent strengths and weaknesses of this lofty gerne of art...

The Cult of Homosexuality in England 1850-1950

Between 1850-1950 homosexuality became a cult in England flourishing in the public schools, the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, the high church movement, the aesthetes of the Nineties and the Bloomsbury group. After the first world war it became a fashionable way of revolting against the ethos that justified the slaughter; after the second the spectacle of so many distinguished writers, actors, and intellectuals being liable to criminal prosecution brought about a change in Britain's archaic laws.

Episcopal Vision/American Reality: High Church Theology and Social Thought in Evangelical America

The first book to study the Episcopal high church movement within the context of nineteenth-century American culture. Mullin traces the history of the Episcopal Church from its rise in the early nineteenth century, when it was seen as a refuge from the excesses of evangelical Protestantism, to 1870, when the antebellum high church synthesis had largely collapsed. His book not only sheds light on the reasons for the flourishing of this alternative social and intellectual vision but also helps to account for the general crisis confronting religion in America at the turn of the century.

British and German High Churchmen in the Struggle against Hitler

The struggle of the Confessing Church', wrote Otto Dibelius, ‘was a struggle of theologians, backed by a very small group of courageous laymen’. The importance of Karl Barth among these theologians was soon recognised. Even today in England and Germany many write almost as if Barth had been the sole theological resource of Hitler's protestant opponents: ‘It was he who nerved the Confessing Church in Germany to resist the attempts of the Nazis to corrupt the Christian witness, and who was driven into exile for doing so’. This is an exaggeration. My purpose here is to draw attention to the Catholic or high church movement in this same struggle. The theological ideas of this movement can be shown to have influenced, directly or indirectly, a considerable number of the protestants who opposed Hitler.