Anglican Ritualism in Colonial South Africa

This book explores the phenomenon sometimes referred to as “ritualism” in the Anglican tradition. The use of gestures, vestments, lighted candles, incense and other rituals associated with Anglicanism’s Roman Catholic past has formed a part of worship patterns since the denomination’s birth in the sixteenth century. However, due to the suspicion with which the majority of English people viewed Roman Catholicism, such practices never entered the mainstream. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a new wave of ritual practice swept through Anglicanism, not only in England, but across the world. While this wave was held in great suspicion by most churchgoers at first, by the turn of the nineteenth century, it had begun to influence the status quo, such that weekly Communion services, vestments and candles now form a normal part of regular Anglican worship. This book provides an introduction to ritualism’s origins in Anglicanism, and then examines how this movement took root in colonial South Africa. It finds that, after a period of fairly robust antagonism towards ritualism, a general movement towards ritualist practices began to emerge which characterised local Anglicanism’s ethos. Those who are interested in church history, the colonial impact of the British Empire, ritual studies, or the tensions between class systems will find this book stimulating.