Geoffrey Rowell: Historian and Theologian of Anglo-Catholicism

Abstract

This article evaluates the contribution of Bishop Geoffrey Rowell (1943–2017) to the study of the history and theology of Anglo-Catholicism, by reviewing his published work, from Hell and the Victorians (1974) up to essays published shortly before his death. It argues that, as a historical theologian, his work was significant in assisting the recent rehabilitation of the Oxford Movement leaders as creative theologians, rather than rigid conservatives. His work bypassed other important developments in religious history, however, such as the social history of religion, and thereby marked its own limitations. Rowell's opposition to changes in modern Anglicanism nonetheless coexisted with a conception of the breadth and comprehensiveness of Anglican theology that made him appreciative, like Newman, of the limitations of all attempts at dogmatic definition.