The Oxford Handbook of the British Sermon 1689-1901

by Keith A. Francis (Editor), William Gibson (Editor)

Overview

The period 1689-1901 was 'the golden age' of the sermon in Britain. It was the best selling printed work and dominated the print trade until the mid-nineteenth century. Sermons were highly influential in religious and spiritual matters, but they also played important roles in elections and politics, science and ideas, and campaigns for reform. Sermons touched the lives of ordinary people and formed a dominant part of their lives. Preachers attracted huge crowds and the popular demand for sermons was never higher. Sermons were also taken by missionaries and clergy across the British empire, so that preaching was integral to the process of imperialism and shaped the emerging colonies and dominions. The form that sermons took varied widely, and this enabled preaching to be adopted and shaped by every denomination, so that in this period most religious groups could lay claim to a sermon style. The pulpit naturally lent itself to controversy, and consequently sermons lay at the heart of numerous religious arguments. Drawing on the latest research by leading sermon scholars, this handbook accesses historical, theological, rhetorical, literary and linguistic studies to demonstrate the interdisciplinary strength of the field of sermon studies and to show the centrality of sermons to religious life in this period.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191612091
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	10/04/2012
Series:	Oxford Handbooks
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	18 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Keith Francis is a historian of religion in Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and is particularly interested in the development of the biological sciences and their impact on nineteenth-century Christianity. He is the Executive Secretary of the American Society of Church History and a visiting research fellow at Oxford Brookes University. William Gibson is a historian of religion in Britain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he has written widely on the Church of England in this period and is particularly interested in its role in politics and the emergence of an enlightenment culture. He is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford Brookes University and Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History. He is co-editor of Wesley and Methodist Studies and reviews editor of Archives (the journal of the British Records Association). In 2011 he was visiting research fellow at Yale University. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Association and of the Royal Society of Arts.

Table of Contents

I: Introductory Essays
1. The British Sermon 1689-1901: Quantities, Performance, and Culture, William Gibson
2. Sermons: Themes and Developments, Keith A. Francis
II: Sermons: Communities, Cultures and Communication
3. Parish Preaching in the Long Eighteenth Century, Jeffrey S. Chamberlain
4. Parish Preaching in the Victorian Era: The Village Sermon, Frances Knight
5. Preaching from the platform, Martin Hewitt
6. The British Quaker Sermon, 1689-1901, Michael Graves
7. The Sermons of the Eighteenth-Century Evangelicals, Bob Tennant
8. Sermons in British Catholicism to the Restoration of the Hierarchy, Geoffrey Scott
9. Preaching in the Churches of Scotland, Ann Matheson
10. The Sermon and Political Controversy in Ireland, 1800-1850, Irene Whelan
11. Sermons in Wales in the Established Church, John Morgan-Guy
12. Preaching in the Vernacular: the Welsh sermon, 1689-1901, D. Densil Morgan
13. Order and Uniformity, Decorum, and Taste: Sermons Preached at the Anniversary Meeting of the Three Choirs, 1720-1800, Andrew Pink
III: Occasional Sermons
14. The Sermon, Court and Parliament 1689-1789, Pasi Ihalainen
15. The Defence of Georgian Britain, the Anti-Jacobite Sermon 1715-1746, James J. Caudle
16. Preaching, National Salvation, Victories and Thanksgiving, 1689-1800, Warren Johnston
17. Sermons in the Age of the American and French Revolutions, Grayson Ditchfield
18. This Itching Ear d Age : Visitation Sermons and Charges in the Eighteenth Century, William Gibson
19. Consecration Sermons, Colin Haydon
20. The Protestant Funeral Sermon in England, 1688-1800, Penny Pritchard
21. The Victorian Funeral Sermon, John Wolffe
IV: Sermons, Controversies and the Development of Ideas
22. Hard Labour: Institutional Benevolence and the Development of National Education, Bob Tennant
23. Sermons for End Times: Evangelicalism, Romanticism, and Apocalypse in Britain, Robert J. Surridge and Keith A. Francis
24. Rationalism, the Enlightenment, and Sermons, Nigel Aston
25. Preaching the Oxford Movement, Jeremy Morris
26. Sermons and the Catholic Restoration, Melissa Wilkinson
27. Paley to Darwin: Natural Theology versus Science in Victorian Sermons, Keith A. Francis
28. Preaching the Broad Church Gospel: The Natal Sermons of Bishop John William Colenso, Gerald Parsons
V Sermons: Missions and Ideas of Empire
29. From Barbarism to Civility, from Darkness to Light : Preaching Empire as Sacred History, Robert G. Ingram
30. Eighteenth-Century Mission Sermons, Rowan Strong
31. The Sermon in the British Colonies, Joanna Cruickshank
32. Church of Ireland Missions to Roman Catholics c.1700-1800, Andrew Sneddon
33. Go ye therefore and teach all nations : Evangelical and Mission Sermons, the Imperial Stage, Jessica A. Sheetz-Nguyen
VI: Sermons and Literature
34. The Poet-Preachers, Kirstie Blair
35. Tradition Preaching and the Gothic Revival, Stephen Prickett
36. The Sermon and the Victorian Novel, Linda Gill VII: Conclusion
37. Sermon Studies: Major Issues and Future Directions, Keith A. Francis

Editorial Reviews

"...[A] fascinating, well-researched, well-produced volume that is not only a skillful mapping-out of the great influence the sermon enjoyed in a dazzling array of contexts, but a triumph of balanced and imaginative synthesis. The editors have assembled a model collection of essays to which all students of English history, religion, criticism, and fiction will be deeply indebted." —The Weekly Standard

"This book provides acomprehensive and scholarly treatment of the sermon in the public life of Britain, from the Glorious Revolution to the death of Queen Victoria... the contributors have succeeded in demonstrating how an apparently commonplace and ephemeral aspect of the social and religious culture of Britain offers important insights into how that culture understood its own purposes and place in the world." —Journal of Church and State

From the Publisher