laudable Practice

This year's parish Lent book is Lent With The Beloved Disciple , by Michael Marshall. It is, as we would expect, a thoughtful, theologically serious work, inviting us into a deep, rich reading of the Fourth Gospel. One reference in the book, however, did rather annoy my Old High prejudices.  In the first chapter, Marshall notes how the Tractarian Edward King approvingly quoted John Wesley condemning 'Conventional Christianity', "prevalent in his day", as inferior to the "experiential religion" of the Revivalists. I have added this to the now rather large file entitled 'Contemporary Anglicans still not understanding 18th century Anglicanism'. (And, yes, it does give me an excuse to again point readers to my views on this matter .) Shortly after encountering the above reference in Marshall, I happened to read a very fine Living Church article by Mark Clavier , reflecting on the meaning of rural churches in a secular culture: Rural churches are te...

Reading this 1974 study of the work of the SPG in Colonial North America and Anglican relationships with the continental Protestant traditions present in the colonies, I was intrigued by its account of how Anglicans allied with the 'orthodox' parties amongst the Lutherans and the Reformed (Dutch, German, and French) against pietistic and revivalist movements. The study, reflective of an earlier historiography, wrongly portrays the dominant Anglican attitude as 'Latitudinarian'.  It was the 'Orthodox' - as defined by Nockles in his classic The Oxford Movement in Context , the pre-1833 High Church tradition - who were dominant in the Church of England. The 'Orthodox' were characterised by a commitment to the Prayer Book, a restrained and modest piety, and an insistence on the apostolic nature of the threefold order, combined with, as Nockles notes, a refusal to unchurch those non-episcopal Lutheran and Reformed bodies for whom, in the 16th century, "...