Introduction John Henry Newman: Reading The Times

Abstract

Introduction John Henry Newman:Reading The Times Michael D. Hurley (bio) and Rebekah Lamb (bio) John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was, Owen Chadwick once remarked, "an eminent Victorian despite himself": He wrote two books still regarded as classics of English prose. He led a religious movement in the Church of England which transformed the worship of that Church and helped to alter the ways of other Protestant Churches. He helped Britain to see for the first time since the Reformation that Catholic priests could be as humane, and generous, and unbigoted, as anyone else. He had the most interesting idea of the nature of faith propounded by any thinker of the nineteenth century. He was the first theorist of Christian doctrine to face the challenge of modern historical enquiry. And he was a quiet, unpretentious man of prayer.1 Chadwick emphasizes the many-sidedness of the man and was right to do so. For more than a century, scholarship on Newman has offered valuable accounts of his influence within a variety of fields, from Christian doctrine, ethics, and patristics, to the philosophy of history and education, spiritual devotion, and personalism. While some aspects of his achievement have nonetheless been comparatively neglected (notably, his writings on aesthetics and Christian anthropology, his work in journalism and homiletics, his commitments to pastoral care, friendship, the arts, and child welfare), it seems likely that academic as well as devotional interest in Newman will continue to diversify and grow in the twenty-first century, as already suggested by recent publications from Reinhard Hütter, Guy Nicholls, and Thomas Pfau, to name only a few.2 Newman's beatification in 2010 "gave opportunities [End Page 1] for new appreciations and re-evaluations," Geoffrey Rowell observed, and his canonization in 2019 has done even more to excite interest not only in his life but also in his legacy (he is often called "the Father of Vatican II").3 This trend is set to continue if not increase, especially if he is, as seems likely, made a Doctor of the Church. As with Newman's own writing, the spur for this special issue is "occasional." It marks his recent canonization and explores how such an "eminent Victorian" could also be an exemplar for the twenty-first century—once again, "despite himself." Newman did not sit easily with suggestions of his sanctity, and he would likely be surprised at the extraordinary and persistent influence of his writings today in such a wide variety of fields. This issue models the breadth and depth of his own approaches, methods, and interests, bringing together scholars from an array of different disciplines, including literary studies, philosophical theology, systematic and historical theology, classics, and psychology. Some contributors are already established Newman scholars; others are new on the scene. Between them they explore a wide array of topics, including his prose and verse styles, pastoral ministry, philosophy of history, aestheticism, devotional imagination, philosophy of education, and his reception by theologians. The issue, following Chadwick's cue, is wide-ranging by design, but with the difference that contributors emphasize especially his relevance today, as a thinker and writer for our times—not least for showing us, in Rowan Williams's words, "just why the notion of God might matter to the mind and the heart."4 Williams's locution captures one of the most remarkable features of Newman's example: that he engaged mind and heart, and indeed both together, as potentially interdependent movements between thought and feeling, faith and reason, governed by a will attuned to the call of conscience. It is this particular "theology of conscience," according to Joseph Ratzinger, that makes Newman one of the most important teachers within church history: "because he both touches our hearts and enlightens our thinking," showing us by this process how to read our own times and personal situations in relation to the metaphysical realities underpinning them.5 For Newman, prayer, thinking, writing, and examining the conscience were distinctive yet interrelated means and modes of reading reality, absorbing the philosophical pattern of attention modeled in Scripture and the lives of the saints. Appropriate to a journal concerned with the interrelations of religion and literature, several contributors take...