There is no shortage of books on the Oxford Movement, so we might ask: ‘Do we need another one?’. Benjamin King, however, has seen the legitimate and timely need for a book which considers the role of the laity in the Tractarian or Oxford Movement. This is a fine aim and one he does very well, looking widely across the Anglican world, not only in England but also in the Empire as well up to the 1880s. King’s purpose successfully counters the view that the Oxford Movement was a clerical movement alone, at the expense of lay people. King sets out to explore the theological rationale undergirding the insistence that that the laity were integral to the Church’s mission in the world and to the upholding of the Church’s teaching (p. 4). The laity were seen by the Tractarians as the people of God, receiving the sacraments and upholding church teaching with a divinizing effect, such that the consensus Fidelium served to build up the Church and its teaching. All this was seen as distinct from the Evangelical idea of lay holiness which promoted post-baptismal conversion rather than the idea, supported by the Tractarians (as stated in Article XXVII) that people are regenerated in baptism. For the Tractarians, the power of education was emphasized with lay people encouraged to study and grow in faith. King notes that 40 of the 90 Tracts for the Times were directed at lay people. Theological education was not the preserve of the clergy, and for some Tractarians, the laity were seen to have legitimate roles in synods and church government. Not all members of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement supported this vision for the laity. Some believed that lay involvement was useful in slowing change and that providence was the essential matter since it worked slowly, maintaining the status quo, with the obedient agreement of the laity prohibiting rapid change. For some Tractarians, the role of the laity was that of conservator of the status quo, with no place for private judgement. The laity’s role was to acknowledge and accept the providential order. King outlines the way that the Tractarians objected to lay involvement in the matters of the Church of England. He mentions the objection to Erastianism which sparked the Oxford Movement in 1833 in relation to the Irish dioceses, the parliamentary debates of the 1850s about the revival and reform of Convocation and the rulings of lay judges on matters of doctrine such as the Gorham Judgement and the ritualist cases. For many Tractarians, lay involvement was about upholding Church teaching, not private judgement, and so there was a reluctance to involve the laity in the governance of the Church. King details this in relation to England, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

King reveals some difficult matters related to slavery and the Tractarians. Hurrell Froude, for example, saw slavery as part of the providential order, under threat from abolitionists in parliament and in the church. William Gladstone, a Tractarian layman, said in 1856 ‘that if parliament had heeded the West India planters and their ‘practical knowledge of the negro’, it would never have emancipated the slaves’ (p. 67). Not all Tractarians supported this view, and Robert Wilberforce was one among many Tractarians who advocated the abolition of slavery. King’s treatment of the American Civil War and the Tractarian reaction is incisive. Early opposition by Tractarians to slavery at the beginning of the war and the bringing of an end to slavery in the Confederacy was replaced by some with the view that the abolitionists were wrong to intervene. Political and class commitments of some lay Tractarians, coupled with racism, led to the favouring of the Confederacy by some.

This book performs a valuable task in looking at the varied ways that lay people of the Oxford Movement came to be involved in the governance of the Church. While people were encouraged by the Tractarian leaders to see the Church as sacred and to accept key doctrines like apostolic succession and the role of the sacraments, these efforts were often meant to prevent change and not encourage it. Despite these forces against change, King concludes that the role of the laity increased, such that ‘catholic’ came to mean that everyone had a decisive role to play in the life of the Church. This book is very well written and tells its story in a way that is engaging and yet challenging for modern Anglicans to hear. Benjamin King demonstrates an outstanding ability in research and analysis which helps all Anglicans, especially those who are the successors of the Oxford Movement, to hear parts of the story which may not be so easy to hear. He is to be congratulated on a fine achievement in scholarship which adds significantly to the history of the Tractarians and the Oxford Movement. Despite the many books on the Tractarians and the Oxford Movement, this is a book that needs to be written and read.