the advance of conservative evangelicalism after the Second World War. Greater attention to the continuities in the policy of evangelicalism towards Oxford and Cambridge during its period of ‘decline’ is clearly overdue. If the objectives of the Pastorate might have been predictable on the basis of long-standing evangelical tradition, its methodology seems rather unex-pected. Shaped by the model of the college tutor, the methods adopted by the Pastorate chaplains were as far away from the popular revivalist image of turn of the century evangelicalism as can be imagined. ‘We are naturally asked what methods we pursue’, noted C.S. Woodward in 1914, reflecting on the previous five years spent as a Pastorate chaplain, ‘the answer may be put in two words – personal influence.’ How was this influence brought to bear

doi:10.4324/9780203166505-103

Chapter

the advance of conservative evangelicalism after the Second World War. Greater attention to the continuities in the policy of evangelicalism towards Oxford and Cambridge during its period of ‘decline’ is clearly overdue. If the objectives of the Pastorate might have been predictable on the basis of long-standing evangelical tradition, its methodology seems rather unex-pected. Shaped by the model of the college tutor, the methods adopted by the Pastorate chaplains were as far away from the popular revivalist image of turn of the century evangelicalism as can be imagined. ‘We are naturally asked what methods we pursue’, noted C.S. Woodward in 1914, reflecting on the previous five years spent as a Pastorate chaplain, ‘the answer may be put in two words – personal influence.’ How was this influence brought to bear

Chapter

the advance of conservative evangelicalism after the Second World War. Greater attention to the continuities in the policy of evangelicalism towards Oxford and Cambridge during its period of ‘decline’ is clearly overdue. If the objectives of the Pastorate might have been predictable on the basis of long-standing evangelical tradition, its methodology seems rather unex-pected. Shaped by the model of the college tutor, the methods adopted by the Pastorate chaplains were as far away from the popular revivalist image of turn of the century evangelicalism as can be imagined. ‘We are naturally asked what methods we pursue’, noted C.S. Woodward in 1914, reflecting on the previous five years spent as a Pastorate chaplain, ‘the answer may be put in two words – personal influence.’ How was this influence brought to bear

ABSTRACT

It is by the quiet work of making friends that the Pastorate justifies its existence, and may be said to be influencing the religious life of Oxford. Each year, as a new batch of freshmen arrives, the Chaplains come into touch with a few in every College: some inevitably fall off after a little, or remain on the outer circle of acquaintanceship; but even so, the opportunity is not wasted. It has more than once happened that men whom one had thought to have been entirely uninfluenced have come to one’s house with moral and spiritual difficulties about which they sorely need help. The mere fact of inviting such men to an occasional meal, of sometimes seeing them in their own rooms, or meeting them by the river, may seem on paper a very little thing, but experience shows that even this casual intercourse may lead to large results later on. The day may come, and not seldom does, when it means a good deal to such men that there is a parson to hand whom they know, and believe that they can trust. But there is, of course, a very considerable number of men with whom the Chaplains are on far more intimate terms, with whom acquaintanceship has ripened into real and close friendship. They are men of very different kinds, with very different careers before them, with very different outlooks upon life, but it is not, we think, an exaggeration to say that they come to look upon the Chaplains as men to whom they would naturally go in time of need, for advice and spiritual help.29