Martin's insightful booklist
This is a summary of recent books read by Martin Davie, compiling his evaluations and the commendations of others. In this edition: Three...
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Biblical Truth
for today's Anglican church
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The House of Bishops’ background paper for the July 2024 meeting
of the Church of England’s General Synod, LLF: Moving Forward as
One Church, is based on the belief articulated by Bishop Martyn
Snow in the Preface, ‘Unity matters – it really matters.’ As the word
‘one’ in the paper’s title indicates, what the bishops want is for the
Church of England to remain united as one church, and they see the
proposals contained in the paper as a way to achieve this.
Unity and Truth is a critical theological review of what the bishops
propose in their paper (which the General Synod very narrowly
voted to support). What it shows is two things:
First, what the bishops are proposing as the way forward for the
Church of England on the issue of human sexuality is not compat
ible with a proper theological understanding of what the unity of
the Church requires.
Secondly, should the Church of England continue to move in the
direction that the bishops are proposing, conservative Christians
in the Church of England will have no alternative, but to seek to
establish an orthodox third province within the Church of England,
precisely as a way to preserve as much unity as possible.
This little book is an important resource for anyone wanting to
understand why the way forward for the Church of England pro
posed by the bishops is theologically untenable and what a better
approach would like.
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Deaconess Margaret Rodgers (1939–2014) was a leader in the Deaconess community, an historian and researcher, and a shrewd, media-savvy tactician within the Anglican Diocese of Sydney.
She served as Principal of Deaconess House, the CEO of Anglican Media and the Archbishop’s Media Officer, and had the distinction of being the first woman elected to the Synod’s Standing Committee. Despite poor health, she used her aptitude for committee work to contribute to a wide variety of corporate governance in the Anglican world and beyond.
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Presented as the Donald Robinson Library Lectures in 2023, these essays provide the fi rst scholarly assessment of Margaret’s life and work, and include a chapter on the history of the Deaconess Institute in Sydney.
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Driven yet reserved, fearless yet gracious, Margaret Rodgers seems to be an enigma as a powerful woman in a complementarian diocese. However, this book reveals her to be servant-hearted and dedicated to using her gifts to serve the church.
new book
What can be learned from Thomas Cranmer’s theology of the Trinity, and why does it merit closer examination? This book considers Cranmer’s Trinitarian theology from various angles, drawing on his writings, including the 1553 Articles of Faith and the 1552 Book of Common Prayer. It explores his theological debt to the Church Fathers, fellow Reformers, and Medieval theology, demonstrating how Cranmer articulated a fully historic, orthodox, and Reformed doctrine of the Trinity. Rather than leaving behind a comprehensive theological treatise, Cranmer’s greatest achievement was imprinting the realities of the triune Godhead in the hearts and minds of the English-speaking world through his liturgy.
The book concludes with reflections on Cranmer’s Trinitarian legacy, noting his influence on subsequent generations of Anglicans and addressing contemporary concerns in Trinitarian theology, seeking enduring insights from Cranmer’s work. It aims to encourage us to follow Cranmer’s lead in knowing, trusting and delighting in Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Whether they recognise it or not, everyone has a worldview, a way of understanding the world in which they live and their place in it. The difference between these worldviews means that physically people may inhabit the same universe, but mentally the universes they inhabit may be very different. Given the existence of this range of mental universes, the aim of Living in the Multiverse is to do three things.
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Firstly, to explain the nature of the Christian universe and the reasons for believing that this universe exists not only as a mental concept, but as an objective reality. Secondly, to introduce Christians to the other main mental universes inhabited by people living in the UK today, explaining the reasons for their existence and looking at how they are similar to and different from the Christian universe. ​ Thirdly, to explore what it means for Christians to live well in the midst of these multiple mental universes.
Recent releases
What is orthodoxy? In recent controversies in the Church of England and in the wider Anglican Communion, those who insist that the Church's traditional teaching about marriage and celibacy cannot be altered are increasingly described as 'orthodox', a claim that has been disputed on the ground that orthodoxy is defined by the great creeds and confessions of the Church, none of which mentions the subject.
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This briefing argues that orthodoxy extends well beyond what the creeds and confessions state. It is rooted in the mind of Christ which is revealed to us in Holy Scripture and encompasses every aspect of life.
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Michael Wigglesworth was a Puritan minister and a renowned preacher. Little did his contemporaries know that Wigglesworth was also tormented by recurring homoerotic urges that brought him a deep sense of his own depravity. Through journalling, Wigglesworth left an extremely rare record of the interior life of a seventeenth-century Puritan minister who harboured strong passions towards other men. Highlighting Wigglesworth’s adherence to the tradition of Protestant conversion and the practice of Puritan diary-keeping, this book argues that journalling despair with his same-sex experience was itself Wigglesworth’s pursuit of divine remedy.
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