James Clark is the 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.
Conversion and Election: A Plea for a United Lutheranism in America. By Francis Pieper. Ithaca, NY: Just and Sinner Publishing House, 2020. 140 pp. $14.00 (paper). In the late nineteenth century, Lutherans in America were at odds with each other over the doctrines of election (i.e., predestination) and conversion. The conflict was reignited in 1912…
The Devil’s Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism (2 Volumes). By Michael J. McClymond. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018. 1362 pp. $90.00 (paper). Before the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion were finalized in 1571, there were the Forty-two Articles of 1553. Almost all the substance of the latter can be found in the…
Metaphysics in the Reformation: The Case of Peter Martyr Vermigli. By Silvianne Aspray. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. 176 pp. $80.00 (cloth). Attempting to discern a systematic approach to metaphysics in the Reformation quickly runs into a problem, namely that the Reformers generally did not treat metaphysical questions as such in their writings. As…
The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760‒1857. By Peter B. Nockles. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 364 pp. $55.99 (paper). In Orthodox Anglican Identity, Charles Erlandson identifies four different “spiritualities” that are commonly thought to be encompassed within “orthodox Anglicanism” as a whole: Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical, Charismatic, and Global. The Anglo-Catholic spirituality is…
PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 5. The Witness of Beauty in Practice How individual churches can most readily manifest beauty to their communities will vary depending on their circumstances. For this reason, I will not try to be overly specific about what people should do to achieve this end, nor will I suggest any…
PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 2. The Beauty of God We have seen that beauty, as a transcendental, is a property of not just some beings but all beings. From this a significant implication follows: The point here is the very notion of a “transcendental”: the word indicates that which transcends, or goes beyond,…
PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 At the turn of the twenty-first century, a revival of natural law took place among both Roman Catholics and Protestants. This revival has resulted in many contemporary Christian scholars affirming reason as the means by which “basic moral principles, assumed by and standing in agreement with biblical revelation, are…
Here at the North American Anglican, we would like to feature at least one book review a month. We are interested primarily in Anglican theology but in theology and Church history more broadly. If there is a book you’d like to review, send an email to editor@northamanglican.com containing the title and author of the book…
A Poetics of Orthodoxy: Christian Truth as Aesthetic Foundation. By Benjamin P. Myers. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2020. 140 pp. $39 (cloth); $19 (paper). Benjamin P. Myers begins A Poetics of Orthodoxy with what is by now a familiar argument, namely that “the church needs art” (1). By this Myers does not mean we need…
The Ark, the Covenant, and the Poor Men’s Chest: Edmund Bonner and Nicholas Ridley on Church and Scripture in Mid-Tudor England. By Mark A. Newcomb. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2020. 288 pp. $26 (paper). “In recent decades, the idea of a direct connection between Erasmian Humanism and Protestantism has been historiographically discounted” (xv),…