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The Elizabethan settlement, and the Church of England that emerged from it, made way for a theological reformation, an institutional reformation, and a high political reformation. It was a reformation that changed history, birthed an Anglican communion, and would eventually launch new wars, new language, and even a new national identity. A People's Reformation offers a fundamental reinterpretation of the English Reformation and the roots of the Church of England. Drawing on archival material from across the United States and Britain, Lucy Kaufman examines the growing influence of state authority and the slow building of a robust state church from the bottom up in post-Reformation England. Situating the people of England at the heart of this story, the book argues that while the Reformation shaped everyday lives, it was also profoundly shaped by them in turn. England became a Protestant nation not in spite of its people but through their active social, political, and religious participation in creating a new church in England. A People's Reformation explores this world from the pews, reimagining the lived experience and fierce negotiation of church and state in the parishes of Elizabethan England. It places ordinary people at the centre of the local, cultural, and political history of the Reformation and its remarkable, transformative effect on the world.

This original and persuasive book examines the moral and religious revival led by the Church of England before and after the Glorious Revolution, and shows how that revival laid the groundwork for a burgeoning civil society in Britain. After outlining the Church of England's key role in the increase of voluntary, charitable, and religious societies, Brent Sirota examines how these groups drove the modernization of Britain through such activities as settling immigrants throughout the empire, founding charity schools, distributing devotional literature, and evangelizing and educating merchants, seamen, and slaves throughout the British empire-all leading to what has been termed the \"age of benevolence.\"

In Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century, Robert M. Andrews presents a biography of the late eighteenth-century High Church layman, William Stevens (1732-1807), elucidating his influence within the High Church movement of his day.

In his The Life and Theology of Alexander Knox, David McCready highlights one of the most important figures in the history of Anglicanism. A disciple of John Wesley, Knox presents his mentor as a representative of the Neo-Platonic tradition within Anglicanism, a tradition that Knox himself also exemplifies. Knox also significantly impacted John Henry Newman and the Tractarians. But Alexander Knox is an important theologian in his own right, one who engaged substantially with the main intellectual currents of his day, namely those stemming from the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Meshing Knox's theological teaching on various topics with details of his life, this book offers a fascinating portrait of a man who, in the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 'changed the minds, and, with them, the acts of thousands.'.

This book features nine essays written by leading scholars in the field to offer new insights into the place of the Church of England within the volatile Restoration era. Sections on ideas and people include essays covering the royal supremacy, the theology of the later Stuart Church and clerical and lay interests.

This prize-winning account of the pre-Reformation church recreates lay people's experience of religion, showing that late-medieval Catholicism was neither decadent nor decayed, but a strong and vigorous tradition. For this edition, Duffy has written a new introduction reflecting on recent developments in our understanding of the period. \"A mighty and momentous book: a book to be read and re-read, pondered and revered; a subtle, profound book written with passion and eloquence, and with masterly control.\"-J. J. Scarisbrick, The Tablet \"Revisionist history at its most imaginative and exciting. . . . [An] astonishing and magnificent piece of work.\"-Edward T. Oakes, Commonweal \"A magnificent scholarly achievement, a compelling read, and not a page too long to defend a thesis which will provoke passionate debate.\"-Patricia Morison, Financial Times \"Deeply imaginative, movingly written, and splendidly illustrated.\"-Maurice Keen, New York Review of Books Winner of the Longman- History Today Book of the Year Award

This volume brings together a diverse group of Reformation scholars to examine the life, work, and enduring significance of John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury from 1560 to 1571. A theologian and scholar who worked with early reformers in England such as Peter Martyr Vermigli, Martin Bucer, and Thomas Cranmer, Jewel had a long-lasting influence over religious culture and identity. The essays included in this book shed light on often-neglected aspects of Jewel’s work, as well as his standing in Elizabethan culture not only as a priest but as a leader whose work as a polemicist and apologist played an important role in establishing the authority and legitimacy of the Elizabethan Church of England. The contributors also place Jewel in the wider context of gender studies, material culture, and social history. With its inclusion of a short biography of Jewel’s early life and a complete list of his works published between 1560 and 1640, Defending the Faith is a fresh and robust look at an important Reformation figure who was recognized as a champion of the English Church, both by his enemies and by his fellow reformers. In addition to the editors, contributors to this volume are Andrew Atherstone, Ian Atherton, Paul Dominiak, Alice Ferron, Paul A. Hartog, Torrance Kirby, W. Bradford Littlejohn, Aislinn Muller, Joshua Rodda, and Lucy Wooding.

Linking the decline in Church authority in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries with the increasing respectability of fiction, Carol Stewart provides a new perspective on the rise of the novel. The resulting readings of novels by authors such as Samuel Richardson, Sarah Fielding, Frances Sheridan, Charlotte Lennox, Tobias Smollett, Laurence Sterne, William Godwin, and Jane Austen trace the translation of ethical debate into secular and gendered terms. Stewart argues that the seventeenth-century debate about ethics that divided Latitudinarians and Calvinists found its way into novels of the eighteenth century. Her book explores the growing belief that novels could do the work of moral reform more effectively than the Anglican Church, with attention to related developments, including the promulgation of Anglican ethics in novels as a response to challenges to Anglican practice and authority. An increasingly legitimate genre, she argues, offered a forum both for investigating the situation of women and challenging patriarchal authority, and for challenging the dominant political ideology.

The period 1928-1942 saw some of the greatest political and social upheavals in modern British history. Lang, as Archbishop of Canterbury, led the Church of England through this tumultuous period and was a pivotal influence in political and religious decision-making. In this book, Robert Beaken provides a new perspective on Lang, including his considerable relationship with the royal family. Beaken also shows how Lang proved to be a sensitive leader during wartime, opposing any demonisation of the enemy and showing compassion to conscientious objectors. Despite his central role at a time of flux, there has been little written on Lang since the original biography published in 1949, and history has not been kind to this intellectually gifted but emotionally complex man. Although Lang has often been seen as a fairly unsuccessful archbishop who was resistant to change, Beaken shows that he was, in fact, an effective leader of the Anglican community at a time when the Church of England was internally divided over issues surrounding the Revised Prayer Book and its position in an ever-changing world. Lang's reputation is therefore ripe for reassessment. Drawing on previously unseen material and first-hand interviews, Beaken tells the story of a fascinating and complex man, who was, he argues, Britain's first 'modern' Archbishop of Canterbury.

Whilst the views of leaders within the Church of England are frequently canvassed during periods of national crisis, little attention has been devoted to finding out whether there are Church perspectives on contemporary foreign policy issues. The Church of England has not been regarded as an actor with a strong input into international affairs, preferring to speak out on domestic and individual issues. Yet world politics present fundamental ethical dilemmas which call for careful deliberation and the Church has a role to play both in shaping the debate and arguing for particular policy directions. To what extent is national policy shaped by underlying Christian values. Do the campaigning efforts of faith groups really exert influence and guide the development of state policy? This book seeks to elucidate whether there are particular Christian perspectives on the role that Great Britain should play in the world today. It investigates the role that the Church of England has played in contemporary foreign policy issues: including the use of force – intervention, counter-terrorism and arms sales – and overseas trade, aid and debt forgiveness. The book brings together senior individuals from within the Church, academia and non-governmental organisations to investigate these various ethical dilemmas.