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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'etre. 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.
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