Corporate Holiness puts literary criticism and archival research to the service of an account of the Church of England missions to the overseas territories in the period 1760-1870. It describes how pulpit rhetoric sustained a dialogue that enabled the development of the three main Anglican missionary societies.

Bob Tennant is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Durham.

• Introduction


• 1: The Church overseas in the 1760s


• 2: Preaching liberty: orphans, slaves and citizenship


• 3: The Church Missionary Society


• 4: The heroic phase (1): corporate redefinition and controversy


• 5: The heroic phase (2): missionary praxis


• 6: The imperial Church (1): the overseas dioceses


• 7: The imperial Church (2): managing the missions


• 8: Some mid-century crises


• Conclusion


• Appendices:


• 1: SPG Board meetings, 1751-1860: attendances by bishops


• 2: Anniversary preachers use of Biblical texts