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Summary
The purpose of the course is to enable students to become familiar with and/or to deepen their understanding of the changing life of Christianity in England from 1500 to 1611. In those years the English Church built on its earlier eleven centuries and drew from continental currents of renewal and reform shaping Christian faith and practice in the distinctive ways that a later age was to call “anglicanism” Those identifying themselves today as Anglicans are not the only Christians who partake of this sixteenth-century heritage. It also belongs to those whose English forbears unsuccessfully struggled to demand the precise patterns of continental Reformed churches. It belongs to Methodists who separated from the national church two centuries later. Although the course concentrates on religious and ecclesiastical affairs, these, as always in studies of church history, cannot be understood apart from their deep involvement with the political, economic, and cultural concerns of British society. The course will be divided into three main topical rather than chronological sections -- with a preliminary consideration of the earlier years of the English church in the initial week: I. Continuity and change through four monarchs II. Authority and ministry in a unitive society of nation and church III. Catholic and Protestant worship and teaching in the English Church A summary of the principal sixteenth century events and issues in the formation and development of a distinctive tradition will be found in William P. Haugaard, "The History of Anglicanism: From the Reformation to the Eighteenth Century" in The Study of Anglicanism (rev. edn., ed. Stephen Sykes, John Booty, & Jonathan Knight [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998]). A reading of the first half (pp. 3-18) of this essay will provide a rapid birds-eye view of the course.
ISSN
CH 610 The English Reformation SP08
Publication Date
January 2008
Publisher
Asbury Theological Seminary
Keywords
CH, 610, The, English, Reformation, SP08, CH610TheEnglishReformationSP08
Language
English