The Spirit of the Oxford Movement brings together some of Owen Chadwick's most important and characteristic essays on the Tractarian Movement and the Church of England in the Victorian era. Along with studies of Newman, Liddon, Edward King and Henri Bremond are included more general essays surveying the reaction of the Established Church and on the nature of Catholicism. In particular the revision of the long-unobtainable analysis of 'The Mind of the Oxford Movement' illustrates once again the profound contribution Owen Chadwick has made to our understanding of religion in Britain in the nineteenth century.

Acclaimed by leading Church historians as the by far the most useful introduction to the study of the Anglo-Catholic movement in the 1830s, this shows the way in which Dawson draws attention to the hitherto underplayed influence of Hurrell Froude on Newman. Froude emerges as one of the most attractive figures of the time. The author also demonstrates how the principal concerns of the Oxford Movement were doctrinal, not specifically liturgical. He makes the point that were alive in the twentieth century, he would find modern Anglicanism completely incompatible with a true understanding of doctrine. Lucid and fascinating, Dawson's account of one of the most important movements in English thought, has not been bettered since it was first published in 1933.

“This is the book we have been waiting for... a permanent enrichment of our understanding of the Oxford Movement” proclaimed The Downside Review upon the publication of Christopher Dawson’s masterwork in 1933, exactly 100 years after John Keble’s sermon "National Apostasy" stirred a nation. Dawson himself regarded the book as one of his two greatest intellectual accomplishments. Dawson and John Henry Newman were Oxonians and both were converts to Catholicism; both stood against progressive and liberal movements within society. In both ideologies, Dawson saw a pathway that had once led to the French Revolution. Newman, for Dawson, was a kindred spirit. In The Spirit of the Oxford Movement, Dawson goes beyond a mere retelling of the events of 1833 - 1845. He shows us the prime movers who sought a deeper understanding of the Anglican tradition: the quixotic Hurrell Froude, for instance, who "had none of the English genius for compromise or the Anglican faculty of shutting the eyes to unpleasant facts." It was Froude who brought Newman and Keble together and who helped them understand each other. In many ways, Dawson sees these three as the true embodiment of the Tractarian ethos. Dawson probes deeply, though, to provide a richer, clearer understanding of the intellectual underpinnings of the Oxford Movement, revealing its spiritual raison d’être. We meet a group of gifted like-minded thinkers, albeit with sharp disagreements, who mock outsiders and each other, who pepper their letters with Latin, and forever urge each other on. Newman came to believe, as did Dawson, that the only intellectually coherent bastion against secular culture was religion, and the “on” to which they were urged was the Catholic church. The Spirit of the Oxford Movement provides insights into why Newman, and Dawson, came to this understanding.

Practice These Principles is an edited, up-to-date version of What is the Oxford Group?, a core book for early AA which is also printed in this two-book volume. Those interested in A.A. history will find this two-book volume to be a must-have edition. Practice These Principles is an edited version of the original work, What is the Oxford Group? (full text reprinted) which served as a basis for the text of Alcoholics Anonymous. What is the Oxford Group? was written in 1932 and served as one of the core books for early A.A.s.

Well over a century and a half after its high point, the Oxford Movement continues to stand out as a powerful example of religion in action. Led by four young Oxford dons--John Henry Newman, John Keble, Richard Hurrell Froude, and Edward Pusey--this renewal movement within the Church of England was a central event in the political, religious, and social life of the early Victorian era. This book offers an up-to-date and highly accessible overview of the Oxford Movement. Beginning formally in 1833 with John Keble's famous "National Apostasy" sermon and lasting until 1845, when Newman made his celebrated conversion to Roman Catholicism, the Oxford Movement posed deep and far-reaching questions about the relationship between Church and State, the Catholic heritage of the Church of England, and the Church's social responsibility, especially in the new industrial society. The four scholar-priests, who came to be known as the Tractarians (in reference to their publication of Tracts for the Times), courted controversy as they attacked the State for its insidious incursions onto sacred Church ground and summoned the clergy to be a thorn in the side of the government. C. Brad Faught approaches the movement thematically, highlighting five key areas in which the movement affected English society more broadly--politics, religion and theology, friendship, society, and missions. The advantage of this thematic approach is that it illuminates the frequently overlooked wider political, social, and cultural impact of the movement. The questions raised by the Tractarians remain as relevant today as they were then. Their most fundamental question--"What is the place of the Church in the modern world?"--still remains unanswered.

An international team of authors explores the impact of the Oxford Movement on the Church and religious life beyond England.