James Clark is the editor of the Anglican Compass edition of Edward Harold Browne's Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, author of The Witness of Beauty and Other Essays, and the Book Review Editor at The North American Anglican. His writing has appeared in Cranmer Theological Journal, Journal of Classical Theology, and American Reformer, as well as other publications.
The question of whether, or in what sense, the Son can rightly be characterized as “subordinate” to the Father has been a contentious topic in recent decades. The controversy reached a fever pitch in 2016 with an explosion of online posts and exchanges, in which many self-identified evangelicals defended what has been variously termed “eternal…
What makes the use of reason vital in arriving at the catholic doctrine of the Trinity is that the Bible does not contain anything like the sort of explicit trinitarian formulas found in the Nicene or Athanasian Creeds.[1] Indeed, anti-trinitarian heretics make much of the fact that the word “Trinity” does not appear anywhere in…
In the early days of the church the doctrine of the Trinity soon became fraught with controversy, as anyone with even a basic sense of Christian history is aware. When consulting Browne’s historical survey of this controversy, one theme becomes apparent: in all times and places, perversion of the doctrine of God—and the doctrine of…
If you turn to the Litany of any American Book of Common Prayer, you will find among the deprecations (prayers for deliverance) the following: From all inordinate and sinful affections; and from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil, Good Lord, deliver us.[1] The corresponding deprecation in the English Book of…
Bisschop’s Bench: Contours of Arminian Conformity in the Church of England, c. 1674‒1742. By Samuel Fornecker. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. 256 pp. $83 (cloth). There is, Samuel Fornecker writes, a historiographical tradition that says the post-Restoration Church of England was a “via media” characterized by “a distinct ‘Anglican’ identity in contrast to the…
Although Article I is titled “Of Faith in the Holy Trinity,” its first sentence is a concise statement of what is today often called classical theism or the classical doctrine of God: There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker and…
(Editor’s Note: recent concerns regarding this book are addressed here) The Case for Christian Nationalism. By Stephen Wolfe. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2022. 488 pp. $24.99 (paper). The contemporary effort to formulate an alternative political vision to liberal democracy has been underway for some time now. However, much of the constructive literature thus far has…
As the work that Browne undertakes here is an exposition or commentary on the Thirty-nine Articles, it is not surprising that he says a few words in the Introduction on the right way to go about reading and interpreting them: In the interpretation of them, our best guides must be, first, their own natural, literal,…
Thanks in large part to the revisionist Tractarian understanding of the Anglican via media, it is now commonly supposed that the substance of Anglicanism is not Protestant. “The glory of the English Church is, that it has taken the VIA MEDIA, as it has been called. It lies between the (so called) Reformers and the…
There are few myths about Anglicanism more prevalent or persistent than “Henry VIII founded the Church of England because he wanted a divorce.” It is half-true, in that Henry’s desire to annul his marriage with Catherine was a primary impetus for the events that later became known as the English Reformation. However, to suggest that…