Stranger Churches Research Articles

Migrant Voices in Multilingual London, 1560–1600

Abstract Early modern London was multilingual, and early modern urban life was shaped by linguistic diversity. This article draws on the multilingual archives of Elizabethan London's ‘stranger churches’ – Protestant congregations which catered to the needs of French-, Dutch- and Italian-speaking migrants (among others) – to explore how linguistic diversity shaped social relations. These sources offer insights into the everyday multilingualism of the early modern city. They demonstrate London's migrant communities’ intense interest in what people said and why, and show how different languages and their speakers interacted on the streets and in the spaces of later sixteenth-century London. By charting how linguistic diversity was part of the lives of ordinary Londoners in this period, including close examination of incidents of multilingual insult, slander, and conflict, this article argues that the civic and religious authorities relied on the stranger churches’ abilities to carry out surveillance of speech in languages other than English, and that urban social relations and urban spaces were shaped by multilingualism. It ends by arguing that linguistic diversity played an essential but understudied role in the social history of early modern cities.

“Come to My House”: The Architecture of Conversion and Christopher Marlowe’sThe Jew of Malta

Highlighting the importance of the architecture of conversion for Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, this article situates the play within the context of Reformation adaptations, including the founding of playhouses and stranger churches within ex-monastic buildings. Foregrounding fascination with the mercurial and protean energies of architectural conversion, rather than charting more familiar processes of ruination, nostalgia, and loss, the article emphasizes the religious polyvalency of Barabas’s converted house and connects its thresholds to the performance of conversion in different contexts. The Jew of Malta, I argue, makes imaginative use of the complex dilemmas posed by converted structures, making visible the uncomfortable and inconvenient instabilities that they manifest.

Silke Muylaert. Shaping the Stranger Churches: Migrants in England and the Troubles in the Netherlands, 1547–1585. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions. Leiden: Brill, 2021. Pp. 268. $119.00 (cloth).

Silke Muylaert. Shaping the Stranger Churches: Migrants in England and the Troubles in the Netherlands, 1547–1585. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions. Leiden: Brill, 2021. Pp. 268. $119.00 (cloth). - Volume 61 Issue 3

Shaping the Stranger Churches. Migrants in England and the Troubles in the Netherlands, 1547–1585, by Silke Muylaert

Shaping the Stranger Churches. Migrants in England and the Troubles in the Netherlands, 1547–1585, by Silke Muylaert

Silke Muylaert, Shaping the Stranger Churches. Migrants in England and the Troubles in the Netherlands, 1547-1585

Silke Muylaert, Shaping the Stranger Churches. Migrants in England and the Troubles in the Netherlands, 1547-1585

“To Omit the Precise Rule and Strayt Observacion”: The 1572 “Bill Concerning Rites and Ceremonies” and the Campaign for Liturgical Diversity in the Elizabethan Church

AbstractThe focus on the rise and stall of English Presbyterianism has obscured other attempts by politically active puritans to address the problems that bedeviled the Elizabethan church—in particular, how to reconcile a promiscuously international reform movement with the reality of a national church, and the desire for parish-level autonomy with royal supremacy and statutorily mandated uniformity of practice. This article takes as its subject one such attempt, the remarkable “Bill Concerning Rites and Ceremonies” introduced in the 1572 Parliament, which leveraged the episcopal structure of the church to the advantage of the godly, empowering bishops to grant individual priests the right to diverge from the Book of Common Prayer liturgy and to adopt elements of the rituals used by the French and Dutch “stranger churches” then worshipping in London. The bill's emergence at a very specific juncture, after the statutory confirmation of the Thirty-Nine Articles in 1571, illustrates how godly Protestants sought to use newly ratified regulatory powers to their advantage and to establish that only theological, not liturgical, uniformity mattered for a functional and true national church. Moreover, the bill was legally innovative, proposing to use episcopal power in disaggregated ways, thus institutionalizing the exceptions in worship that individual bishops had informally granted to the ministers under their supervision. It offered a remarkable vision of a national church that contained within it ad hoc and multinational liturgies and that was defined not by its adherence to one form of worship but by the supervision of an enlightened bishopric.

SOURCES OF UNITY OR DISRUPTION? A REFLECTION ON SOME MID-SIXTEENTH CENTURY REFUGEE CHURCHES

The sixteenth century refugee churches in “Germany” show a near universal tendency towards disputation and discord. While this rather depressing picture can be placed at the door of Lutheran hostility, it is sad to record that the refugee churches themselves were not without fault in heightening the conflict between Lutheran and Reformed – making unity between the two confessions increasingly unlikely. The refugee churches were also a product of the circumstances in which they lived, the intimacy of which often gave rise to tension and argument. From these churches can be traced the seeds of congregationalism that took root in the following century. The London Stranger churches present a somewhat different picture. While not free from internal dispute, the social work of their consistories played a large part in the integration of refugee communities into late sixteenth century London. This can be counted as one of the more positive aspects of the sixteenth century refugee church.

Review: The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa: A Church of Strangers by Ilana van Wyk

Review: The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa: A Church of Strangers by Ilana van Wyk

Text and Authority in the South African Nazaretha Church, written by Joel Cabrita The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa: A Church of Strangers, written by Ilana van Wyk

Text and Authority in the South African Nazaretha Church, written by Joel Cabrita The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa: A Church of Strangers, written by Ilana van Wyk

A church of strangers: the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa

This book is a powerful and engaging ethnographic study and expose of a church of Brazilian origin, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa (UCKG), which has taken root in South Africa as a feature of the post-apartheid era. It is part of the rapidly growing Pentecostal movement, yet is quite distinctive from it in the sense that it denies the expression of emotions and eschews the formation of community which are fundamental to Christian community. Its markers are demonology and angelology which are basic to the work of spiritual warfare. As is common in gnostic bodies which claim to possess arcane special knowledge, it is dismissive of mainline Christianity and African Traditional Religion (ATR). It is neither biblically based nor Christocentric. What it does have in common with similar churches is the prioritisation of material rather than spiritual growth as a source of blessing in the forms of wealth, health, social harmony and happiness. Pastors are money-makers while congregation members are pressed into making large donations, even when this means the denial of basic family subsistence needs. Obedience is required to the institution rather than to the call of the Holy Spirit. Its organisation is eclectic yet basically hierarchical, exercising total control often by remote means and micro-management, thus denying the manifestation and operation of charismatic leadership. This indicates the presence of worldly features and multi-national corporate strategies. Control is often exercised by means of the spread of gossip, hearsay and rumour. From their entry into the church, members

ILANA VAN WYK , The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa: a church of strangers. New York NY: Cambridge University Press (hb US$99 – 978 1 107 05724 1). 2014, 299 pp.

ILANA VAN WYK , The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa: a church of strangers. New York NY: Cambridge University Press (hb US$99 – 978 1 107 05724 1). 2014, 299 pp.

England and Religious Plurality: Henry Stubbe, John Locke and Islam

The Elizabethan Settlement identified religious conformity with political allegiance. Not unlike the cuius regio eius religio of the 1555 Peace of Augsburg in the Holy Roman Empire, from 1559 onwards subjects in England had to subscribe to the two Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, the first declaring the monarch as head of the state and the second determining worship under the monarch as head of the Church. In such an Anglican monarchy, there could be no legal space for the non-Anglican subject, let alone for the non-Christian. The few Marranos (Jews forcibly converted to Christianity) lived as Portuguese immigrants, at the same time that Protestant Dutch and Walloon traders congregated in stranger churches, and whilst they were allowed to worship in their own languages, they remained outsiders to the English/Anglican polity.

The First Modern Refugees? Charity, Entitlement, and Persuasion in the Huguenot Immigration of the 1680s

When Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, he perpetuated the long tradition of foreign Protestants seeking shelter in England. England’s place as a religious refuge began after the Reformation; the resulting foundations of Stranger churches meant that a pre-existing community could advocate for the refugees. Yet, the religious attitudes that previously fostered an economy of entitlement for religious exiles no longer exercised the influence they once had. This meant that there was a distinct possibility that the Huguenot refugees of the 1680s could have become the first modern refugees.

The First Modern Refugees? Charity, Entitlement, and Persuasion in the Huguenot Immigration of the 1680s

When Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, he perpetuated the long tradition of foreign Protestants seeking shelter in England. England’s place as a religious refuge began after the Reformation; the resulting foundations of Stranger churches meant that a pre-existing community could advocate for the refugees. Yet, the religious attitudes that previously fostered an economy of entitlement for religious exiles no longer exercised the influence they once had. This meant that there was a distinct possibility that the Huguenot refugees of the 1680s could have become the first modern refugees.

William Winthrop and Religious Reform in London 1529–1582

William Winthrop (1529–1582) was a member of the Clothworkers Company and long time resident of the parish of St. Michael's Cornhill. He was a committed Protestant who remained in London during the Marian reign, being active in the underground church in the metropolis and providing aid to fellow believers in prison such as John Careless. Mter Elizabeth's accession he sought to further the cause of reform in a variety of ways. He provided the martyrologist John Foxe with letters of some who had died for the faith. Winthrop served as an officer of his own parish church and supported liturgical reforms. He was also actively engaged in supporting the Protestant stranger churches in London, raising funds for the Spanish and French congregations and serving as an elder of the Italian congregation. Winthrop was associated with John Field and other clergy who were identified as puritans and he used his financial resources to guarantee the composition for first fruits of reform minded clergymen in London and also in Stour Valley region along the Essex-Suffolk border where his relatives lived.

William Winthrop and Religious Reform in London 1529–1582

William Winthrop (1529–1582) was a member of the Clothworkers Company and long time resident of the parish of St. Michael's Cornhill. He was a committed Protestant who remained in London during the Marian reign, being active in the underground church in the metropolis and providing aid to fellow believers in prison such as John Careless. Mter Elizabeth's accession he sought to further the cause of reform in a variety of ways. He provided the martyrologist John Foxe with letters of some who had died for the faith. Winthrop served as an officer of his own parish church and supported liturgical reforms. He was also actively engaged in supporting the Protestant stranger churches in London, raising funds for the Spanish and French congregations and serving as an elder of the Italian congregation. Winthrop was associated with John Field and other clergy who were identified as puritans and he used his financial resources to guarantee the composition for first fruits of reform minded clergymen in London and also in Stour Valley region along the Essex-Suffolk border where his relatives lived.

Calvinism with an Anglican Face: The Stranger Churches in Early Elizabethan London and their Superintendent

Sometimes a useful point is scored by reminding students whose Latin is rusty that John Jewel’s Apologia Ecclesiae Anglkanae is not an apology for the Church of England, still less for a newly invented religion called Anglicanism, but an apology of the Church of England, in defence of a religion deemed to be universal, catholic and of a primitive character. But one is in danger of being caught out by the alert and troublesome pupil who may know that the English version of the Apologia was entitled An apologie or aunswer in defence of the Church of England. There is ambiguity in the very construction of Jewel’s title, as there will prove to be inany attempt to reconcile the various senses in which the post-reformation English churchwas and was not considered to be a distinct and self-sufficient entity.