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Oxford's Protestant Spy. The Controversial Career of Charles Golightly. By Andrew Atherstone. (Bletchley, England: Paternoster, 2007, Pp. 333, xiv. $36.99.)
The Oxford Movement was perhaps destined to provoke sharp opposition and controversy, given its origins as a means of protest against the ascendency of theological and political liberalism in England. In addition to its powerful liberal opponents, tractarianism also provoked opposition from many "old" high churchmen, evangelicals and traditional Protestants, who were alarmed (often in different ways) by its liturgical and ceremonial innovations and by its perceived accommodation to Rome.
The most notorious and tenacious opponent of tractarianism was the Oxford clergyman, Charles Golightly (1807-1885). Golightly, a descendant of prominent Huguenot refugees, matriculated at Oriel College during a time of remarkable intellectual revival, where he came to know well the liberal "Noetics," including Edward Copleston, Richard Whatley, Renn Dixon Hampden, and Edward Hawkins, and the soon-to-be leaders of the Oxford Movement, including John Henry Newman, John Keble, Edward Bouverie Pusey, and...