Gore, Charles

(Jan. 22, 1853-Jan. 17, 1932). Theologian and bishop. He was a prolific writer, producing during his lifetime major studies in theology which had an influence far beyond the Church of England. He was also Bishop of Worcester, Birmingham, and Oxford. Gore first came to public attention when he edited Lux Mundi: A Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation (1889), to which he also contributed a major essay on the inspiration of Holy Scripture. The volume itself, which included essays by other members of the University of Oxford, was responsible for the development of what came to be known as liberal catholicism. Gore's contribution to Anglican theology derived from the Tractarian movement in the Church of England, which sought to revive the Catholic tradition in Anglicanism. The central theme of his extensive theological writing was the Incarnation which, he believed, provided a means for putting the Catholic faith “in a right relation to modern intellectual and moral problems,” chief among those being the Darwinian theory of evolution and the critical and historical analysis of Holy Scripture, both of which were a major concern in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He continued to develop an incarnational theology in his Bampton Lectures, The Incarnation of the Son of God (1891), The Body of Christ (1901), and, after his retirement as Bishop of Oxford, his trilogy Reconstruction of Belief (1921-1924). He also edited A New Commentary on Holy Scripture (1928), which drew together the theology and biblical critical scholarship which Lux Mundi had begun. He was one of the most significant theologians of his era. Gore was also a leading figure in the Christian socialist movement in the Church of England and in the revival of the religious life in the Anglican Communion. Gore's incarnational theology was influential in the United States. William Porcher DuBose, at the University of the South, and Marshal B. Stewart, at the General Theological Seminary, shared many of the concerns found in Gore's theology. DuBose and Stewart had considerable influence upon generations of Episcopal clergy. See Lux Mundi; see Oxford Movement, The.