Front cover image for Apostle to the wilderness : Bishop John Medley and the evolution of the Anglican Church

Apostle to the wilderness : Bishop John Medley and the evolution of the Anglican Church

"Bishop John Medley was associated with a revolutionary group, the Oxford Movement (also called the Tractarians), in the Church of England that sought to return the church to its primitive and Catholic heritage. Part of this revolution was a rejection of the comfortable relationship between Church and State that had existed since the end of the seventeenth century. Equally suspect because of their perceived Roman Catholic leanings and the potential for disloyalty to the English Establishment, the Tractarians aroused strong feelings throughout Victorian English society. Medley was associated with the key figures of the movement and involved in many of the religious controversies of this turbulent time. In addition, he had the responsibility of maintaining the unity of an ideologically divided church in a colonial diocese." "This book illuminates one part of the great societal change that occurred in the nineteenth century as the British Empire both reached its apex and began to be transformed into diverse independent political entities. By examining previously unpublished original source materials and by subjecting Medley's own writing to theological examination, this work reveals how this profoundly conservative Bishop became one of the makers of a new Canadian society. An understanding of the nature of Anglican policy and order is crucial to the challenges facing Anglicanism today. Medley's vision of a church that is at once rooted in tradition, yet cognizant of the spirit of the age and responsive to the needs of an ever-changing secular society, is immensely relevant to the present debate."--Jacket
Print Book, English, ©2005
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison [N.J.], ©2005
History
246 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
9780838640852, 0838640850
59147928
Medley's life : the early years
John Fredericton : missionary to the wilderness
Medley's intellectual context
Medley the ecclesiologist
The sacraments and ritualism
Authority and church government