James Clark is the Book Review Editor at The North American Anglican. His writing has appeared in Front Porch Republic, American Reformer, and Journal of Classical Theology, as well as other publications.
In saying “the old Testament is not contrary to the new,” Article VII focuses on two kinds of continuity: moral and eschatological. Concerning morality, “No Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called moral.” As for last things, “Both in the old and New Testament everlasting life is offered…
Article VI plainly states that “the Church doth read [the Apocryphal books] for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.” This could be taken to mean simply that people ought to read the Apocrypha on their own. However, a cursory glance at any Prayer…
Baptism and the Anglican Reformers. By G. W. Bromiley. Cambridge, UK: James Clarke and Co., 2023. 258 pp. $97.50 (cloth), $33.75 (paper). G. W. Bromiley is perhaps best remembered as one of the translators and a co-editor (with T. F. Torrance) for the English edition of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. However, he was also an…
Reformation Anglicanism: Essays on Edwardian Evangelicalism. Edited by Mark Earngey and Stephen Tong. London, UK: The Latimer Trust, 2023. 260 pp. $11.50 (paper). In some ways, and for some people, the Edwardian period of the English Reformation is fertile ground for speculations about what could have been. Edward VI died in 1553 at the young…
When Protestants declare that the Bible is their highest authority, a typical rejoinder from Roman Catholics is, “And where did the Bible come from?” The implication is that the Bible was canonized by the (Roman) Catholic Church, thereby indicating that the Church’s authority is even higher than that of the Bible. This way of thinking…
Give Us This Day Devotionals, Volume 4: John. By Charles Erlandson. Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2022. 266 pp. $37 (cloth), $27 (paper). As the Word of God, the Bible is an inexhaustible fount of life in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. But we Christians, dull of mind and sleepy in…
Consult any pre-21st century English or American Prayer Book and you will find in the Nicene Creed that the Holy Spirit proceeds “from the Father and the Son.”[1] The phrase “and the Son” is a translation of the Latin term Filioque, with the opening words of Article V—“The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and…
That the Resurrection is central to Christianity is well known, so it is unsurprising that Browne comments on its centrality in his chapter on Article IV: The Resurrection is in many respects the key-stone of the Christian Faith. On the truth of it depends the truth of the Gospel; for it was to this great…
As discussed previously, Browne argues that “Hell” in Article III should be understood as “Hades,” the place of departed spirits, and does not refer to “Gehenna,” the realm of damned souls. However, even simply stating that Christ entered Hades broadly rather than Gehenna specifically is not uncontroversial. Browne notes that Calvin argued Christ’s descent into…
The popular conception of life after death—inasmuch as the idea is still entertained by the average person—undoubtedly draws on Christianity, but in a muddled fashion. Confusion on the subject is so pervasive that even professing Christians are liable to use terms such as “Heaven” and “Hell” in ways that do not conform to biblical teaching….