The Book of Common Prayer is one of the most influential books in history. First published in the reign of Edward VI, in 1549, it was a product of the English Reformation following the break with Rome. For nearly five centuries, it has formed the order of worship for established Christianity in England. More listeners have heard these prayers, it is said, than the soliloquies of Shakespeare. As British imperial ambitions spread, the Book of Common Prayer became the primary instrument (at least as much as the King James Bible) of English culture, firstly in Ireland in 1551. When the Puritans fled to America in 1620 it was to escape the discipline imposed by of the Book of Common Prayer, yet the book came to embody official religion in America before and after Independence, and is still in use. Today it is a global book: it was the first book printed in many languages, from north America to southern Africa, to the Indian sub-continent. In this Very Short Introduction Brian Cummings tells the fascinating history of the Book of Common Prayer, and explains why it is easily misunderstood. Designed in the 1540s as a radical Protestant answer to Catholic "superstition", within a century (during the English Civil Wars) radical Christians regarded the Book of Common Prayer as itself "superstitious" and even (paradoxically) "Papist". Changing in meaning and context over time, the Book of Common Prayer has acted as a cultural symbol, affecting the everyday conduct of life as much as the spiritual, and dividing conformity from non-conformity, in social terms as well as religious, from birth to marriage to death. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

In this comprehensive overview of the Anglican Church, theologian J. I. Packer showcases the hallmarks of "authentic Anglicanism" and its rich history while casting a vision for the future.

Originally published in 1934, this book contains the text of two lectures delivered that year on the subject of unity in the Anglican Church by the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, James Bethune-Baker. The third section of the book is given over to explaining certain recent divisive developments in Anglicanism, including attitudes to evolution and the literal truth of the Bible, which necessitated these lectures. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Anglican theology.

Over the past two centuries, few Christians have been more influential than John Henry Newman. His leadership of the Oxford Movement shaped the worldwide Anglican Communion and many Roman Catholics hold him as the brains behind reforms of the Second Vatican Council. His life-story has been an inspiration for generations and many commemorated him as a saint even before he officially became the Blessed John Henry Newman in 2010. His writings on theology, philosophy, education, and history continue to be essential texts. Nonetheless, such a prominent thinker and powerful personality also had detractors. In this volume, scholars from across the disciplines of theology, philosophy, education, and history examine the different ways in which Newman has been interpreted. Some of the essays attempt to rescue Newman from his opponents then and now. Others seek to save him from his rescuers, clearing away misinterpretations so that Newman's works may be encountered afresh. The 11 essays in Receptions of Newmans show why Newman's ideas about religion were so important in the past and continue to inform the present.

Christianity Today Book of the Year In the overlooked moments and routines of our day, we can become aware of God's presence in surprising ways. How do we embrace the sacred in the ordinary and the ordinary in the sacred? Framed around one typical day, this book explores life through the lens of liturgy-small practices and habits that form us. In each chapter, Tish Harrison Warren considers a common daily experience-making the bed, brushing her teeth, losing her keys. Drawing from the diversity of her life as a campus minister, Anglican priest, friend, wife, and mother, Warren opens up a practical theology of the everyday. Each activity is related to a spiritual practice as well as an aspect of our Sunday worship. Come and discover the holiness of your every day.

Originally published in 1902, this book contains the edited text of two biographies of William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore, who was martyred for his Anglican faith during the Irish Rebellion of 1641. One biography in the collection was written by Bedell's son, and the other by the Rev. Alexander Clogie, a Scottish clergyman who was imprisoned with Bedell. Also included in the volume is a meditation by Bedell on the efficiency of grace, as well as several of his letters and extracts from State Papers that contain mentions of him. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in seventeenth-century religion and the life of Bedell.

Originally published in 1940, this book contains the text of the Birkbeck Lectures for 1937-8. Smyth assesses the contributions that Cambridge cleric Charles Simeon made to the Evangelical Revival in Cambridge in the eighteenth century, and includes correspondence between Simeon and other evangelical thinkers of the day among his sources. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in religion in Georgian England and the Evangelical Revival.

Originally published in 1906, this book presents an attempt 'to ascertain the office and position of certain Bishops in the Provincial Chapter of Canterbury, and likewise to trace the history of the Precedence of certain English Prelates'. Extensive notes and an appendices section are incorporated within the text. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the Anglican Church and the history of Christianity.

This book looks at how that oft-maligned institution, the Anglican Church, coped with mass migration from Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century. The book details the great array of institutions, voluntary societies and inter-colonial networks that furnished the Church with the men and money that enabled it to sustain a common institutional structure and a common set of beliefs across a rapidly-expanding 'British world'. It also sheds light on how this institutional context contributed to the formation of colonial Churches with distinctive features and identities. One of the book's key aims is to show how the colonial Church should be of interest to more than just scholars and students of religious and Church history. The colonial Church was an institution that played a vital role in the formation of political publics and ethnic communities in a settler empire that was being remoulded by the advent of mass migration, democracy and the separation of Church and State. -- .

First published in 1992, this book examines the intellectual confrontation between priest and Freethinker from 1660 to 1730, and the origins of the early phase of the Enlightenment in England. Through an analysis of the practice of historical writing in the period, Champion maintains that historical argument was a central component for displaying defences of true religion. Taking religion, and specifically defences of the Church of England after 1660, as central to the politics of the period, the first two chapters of the book explore the varieties of clericalist histories, arguing that there were rival emphases upon regnum or sacerdos as the font of true religion. The remainder of the book examines how radical Freethinkers like John Toland or the third Earl of Shaftesbury set about attacking the corrupt priestcraft of established religion, but also importantly promoted a reforming civil theology.

Originally published in 1932, this book contains Alexander Nairne's essay on the role of the Old Testament in the Church of England, with a suggested structure for a course of instruction for the faithful in the Testament's historical and theological context. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the use of the Hebrew Bible in Christianity.

A essential reference work for the history of the Church of England and Anglican canon law. This volume is a major new scholarly edition of some of the most important sources in the history of the Anglican Church. It includes all the canons produced by the Church of England, from the opening of the Reformation parliamentin 1529 to 1947. Most of the material comes from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, among which the canons of 1529, 1603 and 1640, and Cardinal Pole's legatine constitutions of 1556, are of particular importance. Butthe volume also includes the first scholarly editions of the deposited canons of 1874 and 1879 and the proposed canons of 1947. In addition, it includes both the Irish canons of 1634 and the Scottish canons of 1636. The canons areaccompanied by a substantial number of supplementary texts and appendixes, illustrating their sources and development; Latin texts are accompanied by parallel English translations, and the editor provides a full scholarly apparatus, which is particularly valuable for its identification of the sources of the various canons. The texts are preceded by an extended introduction, which provides not only an up-to-date analysis of the framing and significance ofeach set of canons, but also critical discussions of the origins and development of canon law and the system of ecclesiastical courts. It is an essential work of reference for anyone interested in the history of the Church of England since the Reformation, or in Anglican canon law. GERALD BRAYis Anglican Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University.

This essay by C. H. Smyth won the Thirlwall and Gladstone Prize, awarded by the History Faculty in the University of Cambridge, in 1925 and was first published in the following year. The text looks in depth at the English Reformation under Edward VI, which was almost unique in the fact that it was primarily concerned with social and domestic considerations, rather than foreign policy, and emphasises the role of foreign figures such as Martin Bucer in working with Archbishop Cranmer to create an intellectually rigorous form of Anglicanism. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the English Reformation and Protestantism in England.

Originally published in 1922, this book provides a detailed discussion of the revision, adaptation and enrichment of the Book of Common Prayer for the use of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The first part of the book tells the story of the movement for revision in Canada, portrays the revisers at their work and records the progress of the revision through all of its many stages. The second part takes the revised Prayer Book service by service and shows what alterations were made, and the source or origin of the new matter introduced. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Canadian Anglicanism and the Book of Common Prayer.

Originally published in 1922 as part of the Cambridge Plain Texts series, this volume contains the full preface for Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the seminal work by Anglican theologian Richard Hooker (1554-1600). An editorial introduction is also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Hooker and the development of Anglicanism.

The Church of England Yearbook is a vital resource for anyone interested in finding out information on the local and national structures of the Church of England, Anglican Provinces around the world, and Christian organisations in the UK. Filled with essential facts, figures and contact details, the 2019 edition contains: * names and addresses of staff in the 44 dioceses of the Church of England; * an outline of the national structures of the Church of England, including the Archbishops' Council; * addresses, objectives and activities of organizations linked to the Church; * essential information about the Churches and Provinces in the worldwide Anglican Communion; * details of ecumenical organizations linked with the Anglican Church; * a Who's Who directory of General Synod members and other senior clergy, lay people and senior staff.

Deals with all aspects of the role and responsibility of being a Churchwarden. The aim of this book is to encourage Churchwardens to approach their role with confidence, and with the knowledge that much can be achieved in their term of office. The C of E has 30,000 churchwardens, of which several thousand are elected for the first time every year. "Churchwardens are the great unsung heroes of the Church of England" says the Rt Rev Michael Ipgrave, Bishop of Lichfield, in his foreword to this book. "The great strength of Matthew Clements' writing is that he sets the sometimes dry duties and responsibilities of wardenship within the warm context of human lives lived joyously and devotedly in the service of Christ and his beloved Church. All will find in this book practical wisdom, shrewd commonsense and indefatigable commitment to a noble cause." The role of the churchwarden in the Anglican Church has not changed much over the years, although perhaps the respectability and authority of the role has diminished. It is a responsible and important role which, if done conscientiously, will augment the efforts of the clergy and encourage the congregation, thus strengthening the Body of the church. This book is for all current churchwardens as well as all those (sometimes reluctant) volunteers who are considering the possibility of becoming churchwardens in the future. Additionally, it will be useful for anyone else in the church who is able to admit to themselves that they don't really know what the churchwarden actually does. Told with gentle humour based on solid experience and pragmatism, Matthew Clements details the extensive boundaries of a churchwarden's responsibilities and gives many examples from his own experience of just what the job can entail. There are many pitfalls that await the unwary, and there are many joys as well.

Herbert Hensley Henson (1863-1947) held the position of Bishop of Durham between 1920 and 1939. He was also well known for his forthright opinions on a variety of issues, including the Dreyfus affair. In this volume, which was originally published in 1939 as part of the English Institutions series, Henson provides a comprehensive guide to the Church of England. The first chapter gives a historical introduction, then subsequent chapters deal with the various institutions which make up the Church and its relationship with other branches of Christianity. A detailed index and numerous illustrative figures are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the Anglican tradition and ecclesiastical history.

This two-volume biography of George Augustus Selwyn (1809-78), the first Anglican bishop of New Zealand, after whom Selwyn College, Cambridge, was later named, was published in 1879. Selwyn was ordained in 1834 and served as curate at Windsor; in 1840, when New Zealand was declared an independent British colony, he was chosen as first bishop of the newly established diocese. The declared aim was to develop an Anglican organisation for the growing European settlement, while resisting too much state control, and by 1857 Selwyn had drafted a constitution for the Church of New Zealand which led eventually to disestablishment. A staunch defender of indigenous rights, he travelled widely throughout New Zealand and the Pacific islands, and subsequently played a leading role in the first Lambeth Conference. In Volume 2, H. W. Tucker describes Selwyn's later ministry, the effect of the Maori Wars, and his final years as bishop of Lichfield.

This two-volume biography of George Augustus Selwyn (1809-78), the first Anglican bishop of New Zealand, after whom Selwyn College, Cambridge, was later named, was published in 1879. Selwyn was ordained in 1834 and served as curate at Windsor while tutoring at Eton; in 1840, when New Zealand was declared an independent British colony, he was chosen as first bishop of the newly established diocese. The declared aim was to develop an Anglican organisation for the growing European settlement, while resisting too much state control, and by 1857 Selwyn had drafted a constitution for the Church of New Zealand which led eventually to disestablishment. A staunch defender of indigenous rights, he travelled widely throughout New Zealand and the Pacific islands, and subsequently played a leading role in the first Lambeth Conference. In Volume 1, his former chaplain, H. W. Tucker, describes Selwyn's early life, ordination and first decade in New Zealand.

Originally published in 1914, this book contains a discussion of the position of episcopacy within the Anglican tradition. It was created in response to the controversy surrounding the 1913 Kikuyu conference, which proposed a federation of the various missionary bodies working in East Africa. At the close of the conference the majority of the delegates, who came from a range of different denominations, participated in a united communion service presided over by Bishop Peel of Mombasa and the Rev. J. E. Hamshere, of the Church of Scotland Mission. This was seen by many, notably Bishop Weston of Zanzibar, as unacceptable breach of Anglican practice. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of episcopacy, revealing its importance within the Church of England as well as the historical tradition of interaction with other forms of Christianity.