John Henry Newman: the Oxford Aberration
John Henry Newman left Oxford February 23, 1846, bags in hand. His search for the pure, undivided church led him to publish the infamous Tract 90 “Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles” (1841). When his attempt to bend Anglican’s confession to fit his Roman Catholic sensitivities fell flat, he did the honorable thing and joined the Catholic Church. Newman had been the figurehead of the ten-year-long Catholic revival in Oxford (1833-1843) known as the Oxford or Tractarian Movement. A number of others who were pretending to be Anglican subsequently left with Newman.
It is a common mistake to not distinguish Tractarianism from the preceding generation of High Churchmen. Newman considered himself more in line with the “old divines” (earlier followers of William Laud) rather than with the high churchmen of the early 1800s. In fact, the Tractarians made fun of the High Church Party just as they did the evangelicals, because of their opposition to the Tracts for the Times. In an article in the British Magazine, Newman said that the “element of High Churchmanship (as the word has commonly been understood) seems about to retreat again into the depths of the Church temper, and Apostolicity is to be elicited instead, in greater measure . . . High-churchmanship - looking at the matter historically - will be regarded as a temporary stage of a course . . . I give up High-churchmanship” (Peter Nockles, The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship 1760-1857). Seemingly over night, a call for more frequent communion and for higher church standards for worship, devotion, and church music turned with the Oxford Movement to a Roman Catholic expression (without the pope). The commingling of the terms “high church” and “tractarian” has muddied the waters of Anglican definition and pushed the Church of England away from the doctrines of Reformation Anglicanism as found in the historic formularies.
It can’t be overstated the impact the Oxford Movement had on the church, and I suggest this explains the muddle we have today trying to define Anglicanism. For example, the words “mass” (from the Hebrew word missah, meaning a sacrificial offering) and “father” as a title for priests were never used before the 1830s, but are today’s preferred terms in some circles. The English reformers deliberately removed the word “altar” from our worship because it suggests the Medieval practice of “sacrifice of the mass” and a sacrificing priesthood, but the 1928 Book of Common Prayer quietly inserted “altar” back into Episcopal parlance without fanfare. The English reformers would be horrified to hear the (1979 Prayer Book) Fraction Anthem (“Christ our passover is sacrificed for us”) because their very lives were based on the fact of Christ’s once-and-for-all sacrifice for us on the Cross (Hebrews 9:26). The English reformers prescribed that a Bible be presented to consecrated bishops instead of the sacramental vessels of the Medieval church because of our singular commitment to the priority of the Bible read and preached, but in the 1979 Prayer Book revision, the Bible is presented and “after this other symbols of office may be given.” In the 2019 ACNA Prayer Book there is even a provision made for other presentations after the Bible: a staff, oil for anointing, a cross and ring, and a miter. Miters were never worn by bishops before the Oxford Movement; the first bishop after the Reformation to wear one was Edward King (Bishop of Lincoln 1885-1910), and the first Archbishop of Canterbury to don one in 1929, was Archbishop Lang.
John Henry Newman went on to become a Cardinal, theologian and philosopher in the Roman Catholic Church, and on October 13, 2019 (see picture) he was canonized "saint" by Pope Francis during an open-air mass in St. Peter's Square. The mass was attended by Prince Charles and tens of thousands of pilgrims who came for the occasion.