A History of Anglo-Catholicism

In the 1830's at Oxford University in Britain, a group of scholarly priests started publishing a series of pamphlets dealing with the nature of the Church of England at the time. The three principal leaders of this "Oxford Movement" were John Keble, John Henry Newman and Edward Pusey. Their writings, called tracts, were widely read and debated, and advocates of this new vision for the Church were known as Tractarians.

In nineteenth century England, there predominated two views of the Church. One saw it as the spiritual side of society. Its primary purpose was to improve the quality of national life through the teaching of morals, sponsoring good works and encouraging public virtue. The other saw the Church in a more "evangelical" light, as an invisible society comprise of persons who had made a personal decision to accept Christ.

In effect, the Oxford Movement offered a third view, one that was rooted in the Scriptures and the writings of the early church Fathers. It saw "the Church" as the visible divine society founded by Christ himself to carry out his mission on earth. The Tractarians emphasized that Christ gave authority to his apostles and their successors, the bishops. An essential distinction of the "Catholic Church" is the presence of this apostolic succession as represented by the threefold order of bishop, priest and deacon. Thus, the Catholic Church is comprised of those denominations that have maintained the apostolic succession and have adhered to the faith as portrayed in the ancient Creeds and Councils: the Anglican, Roman and Orthodox branches.

The Tractarians affirmed that a person enters the Church through Baptism and is fed by Christ himself in the Sacraments. Faith is not the cause but the result of a person's Christian identity and Church membership. This vision sparked a theological, spiritual and liturgical renewal not only in England but throughout the Anglican world - a renewal that is still on-going.

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