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John Rawlinson and Anglican Liberal Catholicism in the Early Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2020

Abstract

The article examines some key writings in the works of Bishop John Rawlinson with relation to the development of Anglican Liberal Catholicism in the early twentieth century. The article aims to show how he contributed to the development of Anglican Liberal Catholic thought and practice in the period, especially with regard to views on authority and ecumenical relations.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2020

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Footnotes

1

Graham Wilcox is an Anglican priest living in Stratford upon Avon, UK.

References

2 S.W. Sykes, The Integrity of Anglicanism (Oxford: A.R. Mowbray, 1978), pp. 3, 23-24.

3 C. Gore (ed.), Lux Mundi: A Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation (London: John Murray, 1889).

4 On Liberal Evangelicalism see M. Wellings, Evangelicals Embattled: Responses of Evangelicals in the Church of England to Ritualism, Darwinism and Theological Liberalism 1890–1930 (Bletchley: Paternoster, 2003), pp. 256-64.

5 B. Jowett (ed.), Essays and Reviews (London: Parker, 1860).

6 M. Chapman, ‘The Evolution of Anglican Theology 1910–2000’, in J. Morris (ed.), The Oxford History of Anglicanism. IV. Global Western Anglicanism c. 1910–Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 25-49 (29).

7 B.H. Streeter, ‘The Historic Christ’, in B.H. Streeter (ed.), Foundations: A Statement of Christian Belief in Terms of Modern Thought by Seven Oxford Men (London: Macmillan, 1912), pp. 73-145.

8 N. Talbot, ‘The Modern Situation’, in Streeter (ed.), Foundations, pp. 3-24 (4).

9 A.E.J. Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, in Streeter (ed.), Foundations, pp. 365-422.

10 Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, p. 365.

11 Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, p. 367.

12 Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, p. 368.

13 Kenotic ideas on the self-limitation of the mind of Christ in his Incarnation had been advanced by Charles Gore in his essay in Lux Mundi and his Bampton lectures of 1891 on The Incarnation of the Son of God.

14 Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, p. 377.

15 Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, p. 377.

16 Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, p. 380.

17 Will Spens, Belief and Practice (Memphis: General Books, modern edn, 2012), p. 17.

18 G. Tyrrell, ‘Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi’, in Through Scylla and Charybdis or the Old Theology and the New (London: Longmans, 1907), pp. 104-105.

19 See especially A. Loisy, L’Evangile et L’Eglise (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1902), and G. Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross-Roads (London: Longman, 1910).

20 Spens, Belief and Practice, p. 19.

21 A.E.J. Rawlinson, Dogma, Fact and Experience (London: Macmillan, 1915), pp. 22-23.

22 Rawlinson, Dogma, Fact and Experience, p. 39.

23 Rawlinson, Dogma, Fact and Experience, p. 41.

24 A.E.J. Rawlinson, The New Testament Doctrine of the Christ: The Bampton Lectures for 1926 (London: Longmans, 1926), p. 7.

25 Details of the controversy can be found in G.K.A. Bell, Randall Davidson: Archbishop of Canterbury (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd edn, 1952), pp. 671-89.

26 Rawlinson, Dogma, Fact and Experience, p. 170.

27 Rawlinson, Dogma, Fact and Experience, p. 203.

28 E.G. Selwyn (ed.), Essays Catholic and Critical by Members of the Anglican Communion (London: SPCK, 1926). Rawlinson’s essay on ‘Authority as a Ground of Belief’, pp. 84-97 and Spens’ essay on ‘The Eucharist’, pp. 427-48.

29 A.E.J. Rawlinson, Catholicism with Freedom: An Appeal for a New Policy (London: Longmans, 1922).

30 Rawlinson, Catholicism with Freedom, p. 3.

31 Rawlinson, Catholicism with Freedom, p. 8.

32 Rawlinson, Catholicism with Freedom, p. 11.

33 W. Temple, ‘Chairman’s Introduction’, in Doctrine in the Church of England: The Report of the Commission on Christian Doctrine appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1922 (London: SPCK, 1938), pp. 1-18 (4).

34 Details of the controversy can be found in J. Maiden, National Religion and the Prayer Book Controversy 1927–1928 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2009).

35 H. Henson, Disestablishment: The Charge Delivered at the Second Quinquennial Visitation of his diocese together with an Introduction (London: Macmillan, 1929), pp. 46 and 48.

36 A.E.J. Rawlinson, The Church of England and the Church of Christ (London: Longmans, 1930), pp. 79-80.

37 Rawlinson, The Church of England and the Church of Christ, p. 82.

38 In the Essays and Reviews case, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in June 1863 reversed the earlier condemnation of Williams and Wilson for their views in the volume imposed by the Ecclesiastical Court of Arches. The details are in O. Chadwick, The Victorian Church: Part Two 1860–1901 (London: SCM Press, 1987), pp. 79-83.

39 He had earlier developed his ecclesiological thinking in his Studies in Historical Christianity (London: SCM Press, 1922), based on a course of lectures he gave at Cambridge in 1922.

40 Rawlinson, The Church of England and the Church of Christ, p. 12.

41 Rawlinson, The Church of England and the Church of Christ, pp. 21-22.

42 Rawlinson, The Church of England and the Church of Christ, p. 23.

43 Rawlinson, The Church of England and the Church of Christ, p. 23.

44 Rawlinson, The Church of England and the Church of Christ, p. 25.

45 Rawlinson, The Church of England and the Church of Christ, p. 118.

46 R.S. Dell, John Rawlinson: Honest Thinker (private publication, 1998), p. 135.

47 Dell, John Rawlinson, p. 138. Dell says Lang described Rawlinson as a ‘Liberal Catholic’ in his letter to Baldwin about the appointment. See also R. Beaken, Cosmo Lang: Archbishop in War and Crisis (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), pp. 172-73 for a description of Lang’s policy of having a balanced bench of bishops.

48 Dell, John Rawlinson, p. 140.

49 Details of the service are in Dell, John Rawlinson, pp. 141-42.

50 Dell, John Rawlinson, pp. 135-67, has details of his time at Derby including personal testimonies of those who knew him and his wife.

51 Dell, John Rawlinson, p. 142.

52 Details of the sermon and its reception can be found in E. Carpenter, Archbishop Fisher: His Life and Times (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1991), pp. 310-12.

53 Fisher, in his retirement, was strongly opposed to the scheme, which he did not see as expressing his ideas in his Cambridge sermon. Carpenter, Archbishop Fisher, pp. 757-58.

54 Rawlinson, ‘The Historical Origins of the Christian Ministry’, Foundations, pp. 408-22.

55 Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, p. 384.

56 Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, p. 385.

57 A. Schweitzer’s book, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, was published in England in 1910 with its emphasis on Jesus as a prophetic figure dominated by the expectation of an imminent eschaton. See Mark D. Chapman, The Coming Crisis: The Impact of Eschatology on Theology in Edwardian England (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), pp. 67-80 for material on Schweitzer and his impact which was considerable.

58 Rawlinson, ‘The Historical Origins of the Christian Ministry’, p. 418.

59 Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, p. 393.

60 Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, p. 395.

61 Rawlinson, ‘The Principle of Authority’, p. 385.

62 A.E.J. Rawlinson, The Church of South India: The Lichfield Cathedral Divinity Lectures 1950 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1951).

63 Rawlinson, The Church of South India, p. 17.

64 Lambeth Conference Report of 1930 quoted by Rawlinson, The Church of South India, p. 32.

65 A.E.J. Rawlinson, Current Problems of the Church (London: SPCK, 1956), p. 29.

66 A.E.J. Rawlinson, The Anglican Church in Christendom (London: SPCK, 1960).

67 Rawlinson, The Anglican Communion in Christendom, p. 117.

68 Rawlinson, The Anglican Communion in Christendom, p. 118. The Church of North India was inaugurated in 1970 but this time the Church of South India problem was avoided by having a ministry that was episcopally ordained from the start.

69 A.E.J. Rawlinson, Problems of Reunion (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1950), p. 53.

70 K.E. Kirk (ed.), The Apostolic Ministry: Essays on the History and Doctrine of Episcopacy (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1946).

71 Paul A. Welsby, A History of the Church of England 1945–1980 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 94. See also Clive D. Field, Britain’s Last Religious Revival? Quantifying Belonging, Behaving and Believing in the Long 1950s (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), where he casts doubt on the notion of the decade as a conservative age of faith in Britain.