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564 - The English Religious Tradition and the Genius of Anglicanism |
The English Religious Tradition and the Genius
of Anglicanism
By Geoffrey Rowell
Nashville, Abingdon, 1994. 256 pp. $16.95.
This series of learned and lively essays starts by reevaluating the contributions of three pre-Reformation Christian notables: "The Venerable Bede and the 'Church of the English'" by Patrick Wormald, "Anselm and the English Religious Tradition" by Sir Richard Southern, and "Lady Julian of Norwich and her Audience: Mine Even-Christian" by Sister Benedicta Ward. Eight subsequent essays reconsider John Wycliffe by Anne Hudson, Thomas Cranmer by Patrick Collinson, Richard Hooker by Henry McAdoo, George Herbert by Elizabeth Clark, Lancelot Andrewes by A. M. Allchin, John and Charles Wesley by Gordon Wakefield, John Keble by Stephen Prickett and William Temple by Adrian Hastings. In addition, there is an intriguing study of "The Genius of Anglicanism" by Stephen Sykes, which evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of Anglicanism from an historical and a contemporaneous perspective. The editor wrote the introduction and a bicentenary sermon celebrating John Keble and Richard Harries, a sermon given in commemoration of the founder and benefactor of Keble College, Oxford, of which Rowell is the chaplain.
All these essays are learned, and many are revisionist. A few are marked with wit as well as wisdom. My only difficulty rests with the inclusion of the first three in a volume on Anglicans, since their subjects were Roman Catholics and the most distinguished of them, Archbishop Anselm, a brilliant theologian, was an Italian rather than an Englishman. Yet, this product of eminent historians is thought provoking and well worth the reading.
Horton Davies
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ.