How did a thirteenth-century Italian friar become one of the best-loved saints in America? Around the nation today, St. Francis of Assisi is embraced as the patron saint of animals, beneficently presiding over hundreds of Blessing of the Animals services on October 4, St. Francis' Catholic feast day. Not only Catholics, however, but Protestants and other Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and nonreligious Americans commonly name him as one of their favorite spiritual figures. Drawing on a dazzling array of art, music, drama, film, hymns, and prayers, Patricia Appelbaum explains what happened to make St. Francis so familiar and meaningful to so many Americans. Appelbaum traces popular depictions and interpretations of St. Francis from the time when non-Catholic Americans ""discovered"" him in the nineteenth century to the present. From poet to activist, 1960s hippie to twenty-first-century messenger to Islam, St. Francis has been envisioned in ways that might have surprised the saint himself. Exploring how each vision of St. Francis has been shaped by its own era, Appelbaum reveals how St. Francis has played a sometimes countercultural but always aspirational role in American culture. St. Francis's American story also displays the zest with which Americans borrow, lend, and share elements of their religious lives in everyday practice.

Andrew White is something of a legend: a man of great charm and energy, whose personal suffering has not deflected him from his important ministry of reconciliation. Andrew grew up in London, the son of strongly religious parents: by the age of five he could repeat the five points of Calvinism. As a child and young man he was frequently ill, but his considerable intelligence meant that his studies did not suffer. He set his heart on becoming an anaesthetist, an ambition he achieved, only to be redirected by God to Anglican ministry. Since ordination he has had a considerable role in the work of reconciliation, both between Christian and Jew and between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim. Often in danger, and always in pain, he has nevertheless been able to mediate between opposing extremes. A man of God, he is trusted by those who trust very few.

How do the core actions of worship nurture life with God? The ecumenical movement of the 20th century revealed a common pattern of worship among Christian communions, a pattern that bears the imprint of distinctive denominational emphases. In this exploration of that pattern, Samuel Torvend invites readers to delve into this flexible tradition that centers a parish in the life of God given for the life of the world. The basics of Episcopal and Anglican worship in North America are explored in this Little Books series, which invites parishioners and newcomers to consider both the beauty of worship and Episcopal ethical commitments.

William Perkins and the Making of Protestant England presents a new interpretation of the theology and historical significance of William Perkins (1558-1602), a prominent Cambridge scholar and teacher during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Though often described as a Puritan, Perkins was in fact a prominent and effective apologist for the established church whose contributions to English religious thought had an immense influence on an English Protestant culture that endured well into modern times. The English Reformation is shown to be a part of the European-wide Reformation, and Perkins himself a leading Reformed theologian. In A Reformed Catholike (1597), Perkins distinguished the theology upheld in the English Church from that of the Roman Catholic Church, while at the same time showing the considerable extent to which the two churches shared common concerns. His books dealt extensively with the nature of salvation and the need to follow a moral way of life. Perkins wrote pioneering works on conscience and 'practical divinity'. In The Arte of Prophecying (1607), he provided preachers with a guidebook to the study of the Bible and their oral presentation of its teachings. He dealt boldly and in down-to-earth terms with the need to achieve social justice in an era of severe economic distress. Perkins is shown to have been instrumental to the making of a Protestant England, and to have contributed significantly to the development of the religious culture not only of Britain but also of a broad range of countries on the Continent.

At every level of church life from the local congregation to worldwide denominations, Christians can find themselves in turmoil and divided over a range of important issues. Many conclude that harmony is not achievable, and never will be. Can we, as Archbishop Justin Welby has asked, transform 'bad disagreement' into 'good disagreement'? What would that look like in practice? This book is designed to help readers unpack the idea of 'good disagreement' and apply it to their own church situations. It doesn't enter into specific contentious debates, but instead considers issues such as reconciliation, division, discipline, peacemaking, mediation and mission. It asks what needs to happen for those from differing viewpoints to both listen and be heard, and does not shy away from hard questions about unity in the gospel and the church's public witness. The book draws lessons from the New Testament, church history, and contemporary experience, with chapters from a dozen theologians and practitioners. They are editors Andrew Atherstone and Andrew Goddard, Tory Baucum, Martin Davie, Lis Goddard, Clare Hendry, Toby Howarth, Ashley Null, Ian Paul, Stephen Ruttle, Michael B. Thompson, and Tom Wright.

This is the standard Book of Common Prayer (BCP) and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church together with The Psalter or Psalms of David according to use in the Episcopal Church in the United States authorized in 1979. Included is the normative edition of The Hymnal 1982 for all who sing, choir and congregation alike, containing all hymns and service music. Genuine leather, gold edges, ribbon markers, gift box.

One of the most significant works on Anglican and Women's history to be published in recent years. Includes a foreword by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This book tells the story of how a parish women's meeting started in 1876 by a Victorian vicar's wife is now the most authentic and powerful organization of women in the new global Christianity. Its cross-disciplinary approach examines how religious faith and shifting ideologies of womanhood and motherhood in the imperial and post colonial worlds acted as a source of empowerment for conservative women in their homes, communities and churches. In contrast to much of feminist history, A History of the Mothers' Union 1876-2008: Women, Anglicanism and Globalisation shows how the beliefs of ordinary women led them to become advocates and activists long before women had the vote or could be ordained priests. Having survived an identity crisis over social and theological liberalism in the 1960s, the Mothers' Union provides a model of unity and reconciled diversity for a divided world wide church. Today it is hailed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and international development practitioners as an outstanding example of global Christian engagement with poverty and social transformation issues at the grass roots. Thematerial is arranged both thematically and chronologically. Case studies of Australia, Ghana and South Africa trace how the Mothers' Union arrived with white British women but evolved into indigenous organizations. CORDELIA MOYSE is Adjunct Professor of Church History at Lancaster Theological Seminary, Lancaster, PA, USA.

The period between 1857 and 1957 saw a transformation in Anglican sexual understanding when the established church negotiated substantial new normative interpretations of marriage, sexuality, citizenship, and priesthood. Timothy Jones demonstrates how the introduction of female voices into the previously exclusively male spheres of power transformed understandings of gender. He also delineates the impact of the Anglo-Catholic revival on Anglican sexual culture, in particular, the significance of catholic sacramentality on understandings of the relationship between the sexual and the spiritual. Sexual Politics in the Church of England exposes a surprisingly dynamic and dialogical relationship between theology, feminism, and the new sexual sciences that resists the teleologies of secularisation that dominate the histories of sexuality and Christianity in Britain. The story of Anglican sexual politics told in this book firmly rebuts contemporary notions of the Church as an inevitably reactionary institution. On the contrary, it reveals the Church's historic capacity to renegotiate gender and sexual ideologies, and shows how it was often at the forefront of sexual change in British society.

Ian Ker presents a major collection of Newman's writings, celebrating his full achievements as both a universally significant religious thinker, and a major Victorian writer. An unsystematic thinker, Newman's ideas are scattered throughout his works - most of which were 'occasional' in their origin. This anthology provides a rich and varied sampling from his voluminous works, drawing our attention to some of the very finest passages in Newman's writings whether selected from his well-known publications or from occasional texts that are difficult to find in print. The selection is divided into five sections, which focus on his life as an educator, a philosopher, a preacher, a theologian, and a writer.

The unique role that Westminster Abbey has played in the life of the nation is revealed, detailing the special relationship it holds with the Royal Family and what it meant to the Queen. The Queen, when she was 21, declared that her whole life, whether it was long or short, would be devoted to service. At her coronation, she was set apart for service after the example of Jesus Christ. During Her Majesty's diamond jubilee year, the Dean of Westminster recalled the coronation, and special commemorations attended by The Queen in Westminster Abbey, including the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (which reached a television audience of 2.2 billion people). He offers an insight into some very special occasions - not all widely known - and reflects on a pattern of leadership as devoted service.

Provides for a selection of texts, together with scholarly introductions, from one of the world's great private libraries, covering a period from Elizabeth I to the Church's involvement in homosexual law reform. This volume of the Church of England Record Society, published in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the foundation of Lambeth Palace Library, is a tribute to the value of one of the world's great private libraries to the scholarly community and its importance for the history of the Church of England in particular. Thirteen historians, who have made considerable use of the Library in their research, have selected texts which together offer an illustration of the remarkable resources preserved by the Library for the period from the Reformation to the late twentieth century. A number of the contributions draw on the papers of the archbishops of Canterbury and bishops of London,which are among the most frequently used collections. Others come from the main manuscript sequence, including both materials originally deposited by Archbishop Sancroft and a manuscript published with the help of the Friends of Lambeth Palace Library in 2007. Another makes use of the riches to the papers of the Lambeth Conferences. Each text is accompanied by a substantial introduction, discussing its context and significance, and a full scholarly apparatus. The themes covered in the volume range from the famous dispute between Archbishop Grindal and Queen Elizabeth I, through the administration of the Church by Archbishop Laud and Archbishop Davidson's visit to the Western Frontduring World War I, to involvement of the Church in homosexual law reform.

One of the most significant works on Anglican and Women's history to be published in recent years. Includes a foreword by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This book tells the story of how a parish women's meeting started in 1876 by a Victorian vicar's wife is now the most authentic and powerful organization of women in the new global Christianity. Its cross-disciplinary approach examines how religious faith and shifting ideologies of womanhood and motherhood in the imperial and post colonial worlds acted as a source of empowerment for conservative women in their homes, communities and churches. In contrast to much of feminist history, A History of the Mothers' Union 1876-2008: Women, Anglicanism and Globalisation shows how the beliefs of ordinary women led them to become advocates and activists long before women had the vote or could be ordained priests. Having survived an identity crisis over social and theological liberalism in the 1960s, the Mothers' Union provides a model of unity and reconciled diversity for a divided world wide church. Today it is hailed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and international development practitioners as an outstanding example of global Christian engagement with poverty and social transformation issues at the grass roots. The material is arranged both thematically and chronologically. Case studies of Australia, Ghana and South Africa trace how the Mothers' Union arrived with white British women but evolved into indigenous organizations. CORDELIA MOYSE is Adjunct Professor of Church History at Lancaster Theological Seminary, Lancaster, PA, USA.

The religious leader John Henry Newman (1801-1890) started his long career as a devout Protestant; he later became the head of a new movement of Catholic ideas within the Church of England, and finally joined the Catholic Church. He began a new epoch in the study of religious faith. In this classic short study, reissued with a new preface to celebrate Newman's beatification, Owen Chadwick examines the many aspects of Newman's thought and writings, especially his views about faith, knowledge, and education.

Church and Chapel in Industrializing Society: Anglican Ministry and Methodism in Shropshire, 1760-1785 envelopes a new and provocative revisionist history of Methodism and the Church of England in the eighteenth century, challenging the Church's perception as a varied body with myriad obstacles which it dutifully and substantially confronted (if not always successfully) through the maintenance of an ecclesiastically and theologically rooted pastoral ideal. This model was lived out 'on the ground' by the parish clergy, many of whom were demonstrably innovative and conscientious in fulfilling their pastoral vocation vis-a-vis the new demands presented by the social, ecclesiastical, political, and economic forces of the day, not least of which was the rise of industrialisation. Contrary to the effete arguments of older cadre church historians, heavily reliant on the nineteenth-century denominational histories and primarily the various forms of Methodism, this book provides a thoroughly researched study of the ministry of John William Fletcher, incumbent of the parish of Madeley at the heart of the industrial revolution, whose own work along with that of his Evangelically minded Anglican-Methodist colleagues found the Church of England sufficiently strong and remarkably flexible enough to rigorously and creatively do the work of the Church alongside their non-Anglican Evangelical counterparts. Despite the manifest challenges of industrializing society, residual dissent, and competition from the Church's rivals, the Establishment was not incapable of competing in the religious marketplace.

Today, the statement that Anglicans are fond of the Fathers and keen on patristic studies looks like a platitude. Like many platitudes, it is much less obvious than one might think. Indeed, it has a long and complex history. Jean-Louis Quantin shows how, between the Reformation and the last years of the Restoration, the rationale behind the Church of England's reliance on the Fathers as authorities on doctrinal controversies, changed significantly. Elizabethan divines, exactly like their Reformed counterparts on the Continent, used the Church Fathers to vindicate the Reformation from Roman Catholic charges of novelty, but firmly rejected the authority of tradition. They stressed that, on all questions controverted, there was simply no consensus of the Fathers. Beginning with the "avant-garde conformists" of early Stuart England, the reference to antiquity became more and more prominent in the construction of a new confessional identity, in contradistinction both to Rome and to Continental Protestants, which, by 1680, may fairly be called "Anglican." English divines now gave to patristics the very highest of missions. In that late age of Christianity--so the idea ran--now that charisms had been withdrawn and miracles had ceased, the exploration of ancient texts was the only reliable route to truth. As the identity of the Church of England was thus redefined, its past was reinvented. This appeal to the Fathers boosted the self-confidence of the English clergy and helped them to surmount the crises of the 1650s and 1680s. But it also undermined the orthodoxy that it was supposed to support.

"To be human is to be lonely." When his seventy-something spiritual director Friar Ugo spoke these words in a voice cracking with age, Jason Gaboury felt a deep sense of their truth. To the observer, Jason, a campus minister, active church member, and father with a young family, might not have seemed lonely. But it's how he felt. He has wrestled with loneliness ever since he can remember, perhaps before he can remember . . . through childhood, college, and into adulthood. When Friar Ugo challenged him to see loneliness as a context for friendship with God, things began to change. In these pages God invites you to stop and wait with him in your own moments of isolation and anxiety. It's an invitation into a journey through loneliness into a deeper life with God.

Letters written by a clergyman during the late seventeenth century illuminate the religious turmoil of the period. This book provides an edition of the letters of George Davenport, an Anglican clergyman in the north of England whose adult career covered the period of the Interregnum and the Restoration. Many of the letters are to his former Cambridge tutor, William Sancroft, beginning from 1651 after Sancroft had been expelled from Cambridge, and continuing after the Restoration when Davenport replaced Sancroft as chaplain to John Cosin, bishop of Durham, later becoming Rector of Houghton-le Spring, Durham. They were written to keep Sancroft supplied with information about Durham, where he was a prebendary with license to be non-resident, needing to collect revenues from his living and then torebuild his prebendal house. The earlier letters reveal something about the life of an illegally (since episcopally) ordained young Anglican who, unlike many, did not go into exile but stayed largely in London supported by friends. Davenport eventually became a most conscientious resident parish priest and the letters throw considerable light on the Restoration settlement in the Durham diocese, from the `beautifying' of Houghton church to the catechisingof the people and the collection of tithes from a sometimes tardy flock. Davenport also helped Cosin to Catalogue his famous library and himself gave many manuscripts to it, of which a list is included here as an appendix. The letters are presented here with full introduction and elucidatory notes.

In this second book by Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori, she explores issues and challenges of deep concern to the Episcopal Church, the wider Body of Christ, and the world at large. Arranged thematically, her essays reflect on the travel, issues, people, and passions that have driven the first three years of her primacy. She places particular emphasis on the Millennium Development Goals, plus the turmoil within the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church in the United States.

On the 40th anniversary of the irregular ordination of the group of women who became known as the "Philadelphia Eleven," Darlene O Dell introduces us to the women involved, the paths that brought them together on that that momentous day - and what has changed (or not changed) in the life of the church over the intervening years. This is the first book to document the story in first-person interviews. It includes a Foreword by Carter Heyward. "

Although the sacramental Rite of Reconciliation is included in many Anglican prayer books, nothing has been written expressly Anglicans since the 1980s that focuses on the pastoral skills required for this ministry. This book combines and passes on the teaching, coaching, skill development, and accumulated pastoral wisdom that has not been widely accessible or well integrated into clergy training. Realistic transcripts and "verbatims" of sample confessions and counseling sessions involving a wide range of people makes this a unique ministry resource for most seminaries and theological colleges, plus clergy in general-including Lutheran pastors who use the rite of "Individual Confession and Absolution" in the Lutheran Book of Worship."

Episcopalian identity tends to focus on history and worship, and sometimes on ethics but "cradle" and new Episcopalians plus seekers will benefit from having a brief, accessible summary of the Christian faith as seen through an Episcopalian lens. There are two underlying convictions behind the book: first, that ecumenism is at the heart of the Episcopal faith. Episcopalians are well placed to offer themselves as a place of convergence between Roman

Catholics and Protestants, and even between Roman Catholics and the Orthodox. Secondly, in the current conflicts both within the Episcopal Church and between the Episcopal Church and some of its Anglican Communion partners, there is no fundamental difference in doctrine. The book is an attempt to portray what all parties have in common.

The book comes in four parts:

The Faith

Sources of the Faith

The Order of the Faith

The Character of the Faith

Based upon addresses given to Anglican audiences in North America and Australia, Bill Countryman directly confronts the challenges that face Anglicans and other Western Christians at a time of internal division and increasing indifference to religion on the part of educated elites. He regards these challenges as a work of the Holy Spirit, who is clearing the ground for a new era of building, and help readers start thinking about what kind of future the Spirit is leading us toward. The book begins by presenting the Spirit as a demolition expert, endeavoring to shake us out of our complacency. It then focuses on three central elements of Christian faith and life: the image of Jesus, the sacraments, and the scriptures, and notes some different ways in which we have seen and utilized them over the ages. It holds out the communion of saints as the key to understanding the ongoing value of the church today. It calls faithful people of all stripes to reject our tendency to turn God s gifts into idols and to rediscover a humility that will be open to the rebuilding that must now be done with the leadership of the Spirit. "

The New Church's Teaching series has been one of the most recognizable and useful sets of books in The Episcopal Church. With the launch of the Church's Teachings for a Changing World series, visionary Episcopal thinkers and leaders have teamed up to write a new set of books, grounded and thoughtful enough for seminarians and leaders, concise and accessible enough for newcomers, with a host of discussion resources that help readers to dig deep. Michael Curry leads off this volume with a clarion call for Episcopalians to join the Jesus Movement. A team of the church's brightest stars follow up with reflections on the practice of ministry in light of the movement: Nora Gallagher on encountering the "other," Rob Wright on adaptive leadership, Broderick Greer on reconciliation, Anthony Guillen on new ministries, Megan Castellan on evangelism, and Kellan Day on ministry with young people. Michael Curry closes with a word on making the world whole. Christians have been following Jesus together for some 2000 years - these leaders help to illuminate how we follow him in our time.

This book considers the work of Charles Taylor from a theological perspective, specifically relating to the topic of ecclesiology. It argues that Taylor and related thinkers such as John Milbank and Rowan Williams point towards an "Aesthetic Ecclesiology," an ecclesiology that values highly and utilizes the aesthetic in its self-understanding and practice. Jamie Franklin argues that Taylor's work provides an account of the breakdown in Modernity of the conceptual relationship of the immanent and the transcendent, and that the work of John Milbank and radical orthodoxy give a complementary account of the secular from a more metaphysical angle. Franklin also incorporates the work of Rowan Williams, which provides us a way of thinking about the Church that is rooted in a material and historical legacy. The central argument is that the reconnection of the transcendent and the immanent coheres with an understanding of the Church that incorporates the material reality of the sacraments, the importance of artistic beauty and craftsmanship, and the Church's status as historical, global, and eschatological. Secondly, the aesthetic provides the Church with a powerful apologetic: beauty cannot be reduced to the presuppositions of secular materialism, and so must be accounted for by recourse to transcendent categories.

In a world and nation marked by suffering and division, Marcus Halley invites readers to explore rituals of healing and reconciliation in parish practice. How is Christian community fostered when healing and reconciliation are prayerfully and actively sought? How do the ancient rituals of healing practiced among us today form a community committed to the Way of Love, the Way of Healing? And how does such practice lead the Christian community to seek peace? The basics of Episcopal and Anglican worship in North America are explored in this Little Books series, which invites parishioners and newcomers to consider both the beauty of worship and Episcopal ethical commitments.