Anglican Ritualism in Colonial South Africa: Exploring Local Developments and Practice 1848-1884

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.


Andrew-John Bethke is a Senior Lecturer in Musicology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He holds a PhD in Liturgical Musicology from the University of Cape Town and is a Fellow of Trinity College, London. His research focuses mainly on South African Anglican hymnody and choral music. His published journal articles cover topics such as early South African colonial hymn collections, local tonic sol-fa tune books, the localisation of the western hymn tradition in black communities and experiments in creating new repertoires of congregational music in vernacular languages and music styles. Having taught Anglican Liturgy and History in his first lecturing post at the College of the Transfiguration in Makhanda, South Africa, he also has an interest in the local development of the Anglican tradition.

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ISBN: 1-5275-1517-6

ISBN13: 978-1-5275-1517-8

Release Date: 19th June 2023

Pages: 127

Price: £66.99

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