James Clark is the Book Review Editor at The North American Anglican. His writing has appeared in Front Porch Republic, Journal of Classical Theology, and Evangelical Quarterly, as well as other publications.
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…
How the English Reformation was Named: The Politics of History, 1400-1700. By Benjamin M. Guyer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. 240 pp. $85 (cloth). In common parlance, “the Reformation” is conceived as a unified phenomenon, the various national manifestations of which can all be causally traced to the original German reformation spearheaded by Martin…
The Openness of Being: Natural Theology Today. By E. L. Mascall. Nashotah, WI: Nashotah House Press, 2022. 288 pp. $15.25 (paper). Since their establishment in 1887, the Gifford Lectures have been devoted to the exploration of natural theology, defined on the lecture series website as “the attempt to prove the existence of God and divine…
The Second Adam and the New Birth. By M. F. Sadler. Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2004. 288 pp. $21.95 (paper). Some years ago when a friend and I were both becoming interested in Anglicanism, I accompanied this friend on a visit with his Baptist family. My friend’s mother heard that I, like her son, was…
For at least three decades now, contemporary natural law advocates have been making the same two points[1]: first, that natural law—defined as “the rule, order, or norm of all human actions…in terms of what is right or wrong, good or evil”—can be “known through the rational consideration of the natural ends of humankind through consideration…
Anglicanism: The Thought and Practice of the Church of England, Illustrated from the Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century. Edited by Paul Elmer More and Frank Leslie Cross. Cambridge, UK: James Clarke & Co., 2009. 610 pp. $49.13 (paper). In a video titled “Why I Am Not Anglican,” Lutheran pastor and author Dr. Jordan B….
Anti-Methodism and Theological Controversy in Eighteenth-Century England: The Struggle for True Religion. By Simon Lewis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. 224 pp. $85 (cloth). Peter B. Nockles notes in The Oxford Movement in Context that there is a “myth” that the eighteenth-century Church of England saw a “collapse of High Churchmanship” (6). In a…
Eternal Life and Human Happiness in Heaven: Philosophical Problems, Thomistic Solutions. By Christopher M. Brown. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2021. 464 pp. $75 (cloth). A favored strategy among skeptics and atheists to undermine Christianity—albeit less common than the problem of evil—is attempting to poke holes in the Christian understanding of heaven. For…
The Sacramental Vision of Edward Bouverie Pusey. By Tobias A. Karlowicz. New York: T&T Clark, 2021. 232 pp. $115 (cloth). To call a work “revisionist” usually suggests that it seeks to overturn a commonly held understanding of its subject in favor of an interpretation that is implausible or strained, often in the service of some…
Patriarcha: The Complete Political Works. By Robert Filmer. Perth, AU: Imperium Press, 2021. 316 pp. $21.00 (paper). Liberal democracy is under fire these days, if the growing number of books critiquing it is any indication.[1] As part of this re-evaluation of liberalism, some on the reactionary right have written at length concerning what sort of…