The Oxford Handbook of the British Sermon 1689-1901

The period 1689-1901 was 'the golden age' of the sermon in Britain. Sermons out-sold other books until the mid-nineteenth century and were a key part of peoples' religious worship. Sermons influenced the outcome of elections, they challenged science and were used as vehicles for popular campaigns such as that for the abolition of slavery. The popularity of sermons should not be underestimated. Preachers attracted huge crowds, the Baptist minister Charles Spurgeonregularly preached to 5,000 people, and the popular demand for sermons was never higher. Sermons were also taken by missionaries and clergy across the British empire. Sermons varied widely in form, and this enabled preaching to be adopted and shaped by every denomination, so that in this period mostreligious groups could lay claim to a sermon culture.

Keith Francis is a historian of religion in Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and is particularly interested in the development of the biological sciences and their impact on nineteenth-century Christianity. He is the Executive Secretary of the American Society of Church History, a visiting research fellow at Oxford Brookes University, as well as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland University College.

William Gibson is a historian of religion in Britain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he has written widely on the Church of England in this period and is particularly interested in its role in politics and the emergence of an enlightenment culture. He is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford Brookes University and Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History. He is co-editor of Wesley and Methodist Studies and reviews editor of Archives (the journal of the British Records Association). In 2011 he was visiting research fellow at Yale University. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Association and of the Royal Society of Arts.

I: Introductory Essays
1. The British Sermon 1689-1901: Quantities, Performance, and Culture, William Gibson
2. Sermons: Themes and Developments, Keith A. Francis
II: Sermons: Communities, Cultures and Communication
3. Parish Preaching in the Long Eighteenth Century, Jeffrey S. Chamberlain
4. Parish Preaching in the Victorian Era: The Village Sermon, Frances Knight
5. Preaching from the platform, Martin Hewitt
6. The British Quaker Sermon, 1689-1901, Michael Graves
7. The Sermons of the Eighteenth-Century Evangelicals, Bob Tennant
8. Sermons in British Catholicism to the Restoration of the Hierarchy, Geoffrey Scott
9. Preaching in the Churches of Scotland, Ann Matheson
10. The Sermon and Political Controversy in Ireland, 1800-1850, Irene Whelan
11. Sermons in Wales in the Established Church, John Morgan-Guy
12. Preaching in the Vernacular: the Welsh sermon, 1689-1901, D. Densil Morgan
13. Order and Uniformity, Decorum, and Taste: Sermons Preached at the Anniversary Meeting of the Three Choirs, 1720-1800, Andrew Pink
III: Occasional Sermons
14. The Sermon, Court and Parliament 1689-1789, Pasi Ihalainen
15. The Defence of Georgian Britain, the Anti-Jacobite Sermon 1715-1746, James J. Caudle
16. Preaching, National Salvation, Victories and Thanksgiving, 1689-1800, Warren Johnston
17. Sermons in the Age of the American and French Revolutions, Grayson Ditchfield
18. This Itching Ear d Age : Visitation Sermons and Charges in the Eighteenth Century, William Gibson
19. Consecration Sermons, Colin Haydon
20. The Protestant Funeral Sermon in England, 1688-1800, Penny Pritchard
21. The Victorian Funeral Sermon, John Wolffe
IV: Sermons, Controversies and the Development of Ideas
22. Hard Labour: Institutional Benevolence and the Development of National Education, Bob Tennant
23. Sermons for End Times: Evangelicalism, Romanticism, and Apocalypse in Britain, Robert J. Surridge and Keith A. Francis
24. Rationalism, the Enlightenment, and Sermons, Nigel Aston
25. Preaching the Oxford Movement, Jeremy Morris
26. Sermons and the Catholic Restoration, Melissa Wilkinson
27. Paley to Darwin: Natural Theology versus Science in Victorian Sermons, Keith A. Francis
28. Preaching the Broad Church Gospel: The Natal Sermons of Bishop John William Colenso, Gerald Parsons
V Sermons: Missions and Ideas of Empire
29. From Barbarism to Civility, from Darkness to Light : Preaching Empire as Sacred History, Robert G. Ingram
30. Eighteenth-Century Mission Sermons, Rowan Strong
31. The Sermon in the British Colonies, Joanna Cruickshank
32. Church of Ireland Missions to Roman Catholics c.1700-1800, Andrew Sneddon
33. Go ye therefore and teach all nations : Evangelical and Mission Sermons, the Imperial Stage, Jessica A. Sheetz-Nguyen
VI: Sermons and Literature
34. The Poet-Preachers, Kirstie Blair
35. Tradition Preaching and the Gothic Revival, Stephen Prickett
36. The Sermon and the Victorian Novel, Linda Gill
VII: Conclusion
37. Sermon Studies: Major Issues and Future Directions, Keith A. Francis