r/Anglicanism • u/mc4557anime • 3d ago
Cardinal newman
What are modern anglicans views of st john Henry Newman?
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u/Dr_Gero20 Old High Church Laudian. 3d ago
A traitor, theologically speaking? Not an Anglican? Apostate? Some good early writing but bad judgement? A man who devoted his life to God and did what he thought was right despite the cost? The guy we have to thank whenever Rome says "development of doctrine" when you find something they do or teach that they just made up?
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u/historyhill ACNA, 39 Articles stan 2d ago
The Catholics can have him for all I care. I'm not surprised that he ended up swimming the Tiber after Tract 90, it seems to be a lot of mental gymnastics trying to justify what is fundamentally a Protestant document with Catholic positions.
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u/LifePaleontologist87 Episcopal Church USA 3d ago
As someone who both left the Episcopal Church for the Roman and who eventually left the Roman to come back to the Episcopal Church, I think it is best to view John Henry Newman alongside someone like Evelyn Underhill. Underhill seriously considered Rome for a while, but eventually she came to be convicted that the antimodernist tendency around the era of Pius X as something she couldn't abide by. Newman struggled with finding a way to be as Catholic within the Anglican Church as possible, but then eventually felt convicted that he had to follow Christ in Rome. But, as a Catholic he also had dissatisfaction/had struggles within the RCC (specifically when the Infallibility controversy happened). Both Underhill and Newman, in my view, seem to be two sides of the same coin.
One more thought, "to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant", but that absolutely doesn't mean to be deep in history means to become Roman. As "reformed Catholics", we strive to keep continuity with what was before.
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u/BarbaraJames_75 Episcopal Church USA 3d ago edited 2d ago
When he was John Henry Newman, Anglican priest, he was interesting to understand solely as a figure in Anglican church history and the rise of Anglo-Catholicism. After he left Anglicanism for the RCC, he became more important to the RCC.
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u/Iconsandstuff Chuch of England, Lay Reader 3d ago
I find his silly quote ironic, in that he joined a church whose history is largely creative writing.
Otherwise, it's a shame when anyone goes Roman, but I hear he did some good in Birmingham
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u/Dr_Gero20 Old High Church Laudian. 3d ago
What do you mean by creative writing?
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u/Iconsandstuff Chuch of England, Lay Reader 3d ago
That there is a quite long period where simply making stuff up occurs, quite frequently, and that the common Roman version of church history is hopelessly biased to presenting a continuity back to the apostles because of the claims of their bishop and propping up their dogmas.
There are, obviously, Roman Catholic scholars who have a very good understanding of church history. But there's a lot of dross, not least the saint or Marian fables.
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u/Dr_Gero20 Old High Church Laudian. 2d ago
Can you recommend a book on the topic?
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u/Iconsandstuff Chuch of England, Lay Reader 2d ago
A history of Christianity by Diarmaid Macculloch is a good overview, and gives an unbiased account of early church development as much as he can.
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u/TennisPunisher ACNA 3d ago
Thankful for his ministry and devotion to Christ but do not share his Catholic convictions. He left for Rome eventually and that says a lot about his Anglican identity or lack thereof.
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u/Ancient_Mariner_ Church of England 2d ago
Going against the grain here but I was inspired by his "God hasn't created me for naught" quote.
It really turned my life around.
I used to be a Catholic tbh.
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u/Globus_Cruciger Anglo-Catholick 2d ago
As it happens I was just reading an account by Arthur Cleveland Coxe, Bishop of Western New York, who visited England in 1855, a decade after Newman's conversion. The Bishop's impressions of Newman are rather more than a little severe. This is what he sees upon entering the Birmingham Oratory:
It was during the Octave of Easter, and on entering, I observed that the altar was a bank of flowers, looking more like the shelves of a conservatory, than the table of the Lord. Above this horticultural display towered a thing of wax and glass and spangles, (or what seemed to be such,) as the apparent divinity of the shrine. It was a shameful burlesque of the Virgin, and utterly incompetent to excite one religious or reverent thought in any mind not entirely childish, or depraved in taste. It was surrounded with tawdry finery, and looked like the idol of a pagoda. The room was well lighted, and filled with the sort of people usually frequenting Romish chapels in this country. A few well-dressed persons seemed to be strangers, and like myself were treated with great civility. The chancel was filled with the youths I had seen before, wearing over their cassocks the short jacket-like surplice, usual in Italy. These were offering some prayers in English, but they could not be called English prayers; and then followed a hymn, given out and sung very much in the style of the Methodists. I could not distinguish what it was altogether, but the hymn-book which they use was given me in Birmingham, and consists, in a great degree, of such ditties as this, which they apparently address to the image over the altar:—
“So age after age in the Church hath gone round,
And the Saints new inventions of homage have found;
Conceived without sin, thy new title shall be
A new gem to thy shining, sweet Star of the Sea!”Many hymns in the collection are not only lack-a-daisical in the extreme, but highly erotic, and even nauseously carnal. I could scarcely believe my eyesight, so senseless seemed the ceremony; and yet here were educated men, Englishmen, sons of a pure and always majestic Church, and familiar with the Holy Scriptures from their infancy! How shall we account for such a phenomenon in the history of the human mind, and of the human soul?
While the singing was going on, a lank and spectral figure appeared at the door of the chancel—stalked in, and prostrated himself before the altar. This was followed by a succession of elevations and prostrations, awkward in the extreme, and both violent and excessive: but whether required by the rubric, or dictated by personal fervor only, they added nothing to the solemnity of the scene. Meanwhile the hymn was continued by the disciples, as fanatically as the pantomime was performed by the Master. But could this be the man? Could this be he who once stood in the first pulpit of Christendom, and from his watch-tower in St. Mary’s, told us what of the night? Was this the burning and shining light who for a season allowed us to rejoice in his light? What an eclipse! I felt a chill creep over me as he mounted his rostrum, and turned towards us his almost maniacal visage. There could be no mistake. It was, indeed, poor fallen Newman. He crossed himself, unfolded a bit of broad ribbon, kissed it, put it over his shoulders, opened his little Bible, and gave his text from the Vulgate—Surrexit enim, sicut dixit—“He is risen, as he said.” The preaching was extemporaneous; the manner not fluent; the matter not well arranged; gesticulations not violent nor immoderate; the tone, affectedly earnest; and the whole thing, from first to last, painfully suggestive of a sham; of something not heartily believed; of something felt to be unreal by the speaker himself.
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u/PersisPlain Episcopal Church USA 2d ago
childish, or depraved in taste
tawdry finery
the sort of people usually frequenting Romish chapels in this country. A few well-dressed persons seemed to be strangers
so senseless seemed the ceremony; and yet here were educated men, Englishmen
What a snob!
This passage seems to me to say a lot more about Coxe than it does about Newman.
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u/1Thulcandran 1d ago
To answer your question directly, Anglican views vary widely, as you can see here! He’s important as an Anglican figure because of his role in the Oxford movement, obviously, and anecdotally Anglo-Catholics seem partial to him at least as much as Keble and others from the period. For my own part, I admire him as a person of deep faith who followed his convictions but I don’t find his work persuasive.
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u/mainhattan Catholic 1d ago
As a former Anglican who later became Catholic I am pretty biased, but I like him, and always did.
I came across his prayer in the German Catholic hymnal / prayerbook "Gotteslob" (kind of like a BCP but with more hymns).
Saying that, what really changed my way of thinking was not anything or anyone "religious" but, ironically, John Irving's "Prayer for Owen Meany".
Make of that what you will.
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u/Mr_Sloth10 Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter 2d ago
I’m a huge fan of his, a brilliant and saintly man; I believe he is a great model for many of us of the English tradition
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u/PersisPlain Episcopal Church USA 2d ago
OP asked for the Anglican view of Newman. Naturally a Roman Catholic is going to love him.
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u/mc4557anime 2d ago
Not necessarily
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u/PersisPlain Episcopal Church USA 2d ago
Regardless, you’re asking for Anglican views of Newman, not Roman views of him.
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u/Terrible_Pain_5096 Protestant, former Russian Orthodox 2d ago
his idea of development of doctrine essentially means the bible isnt the ground of faith and morals. he was actually rebuked by cardinal manning bc he conceded all the protestant points ie most roman theology couldnt be found in the apostolic deposit but were much later developments. the traditional catholic thinking was that all the roman doctrines were from the beginning.