Tolkien Dogmatics: Keene Review
Tolkien Dogmatics Theology through Mythology with the Maker of Middle-Earth Austin Freeman Lexham, 2022 (ISBN: 9781683596677, 476pp, £19.99) The author of the book under review admits that ‘of the making of books on Tolkien there is no end’, but argues that his...
Keene’s Review: Challenging Western Christians and Their Neighbours
Keene's Review Challenging Western Christians and their Neighbours Steven Paas Resource Publications (Wipf and Stock), 2020 (ISBN: 9781725275843, 106pp, £14.30) The author of this short book rightly focuses on Christ’s great commission as the governing text and...
Keene Review: Finding Your Best Identity
Finding Your Best Identity A short Christian introduction to identity, sexuality and gender Andrew Bunt IVP, 2022 (ISBN: 9781789744200, 90pp, £8.99) The most casual glance at biblical passages such as Matthew 6 or 1 John 2 indicates that ‘the world’ is entirely...
Keene’s Review: Confirm, O Lord by Martin Davie
Defend, O Lord Confirmation according to the Book of Common Prayer Martin Davie Latimer Trust, 2022 (ISBN: 9781906327743, 116pp, £6.50) Confirmation is a vital spiritual coming-of-age rite in churches which practice paedobaptism, giving those for whom promises were...
Keene Review: Spiritual Practices of the Puritans
Spiritual Practices of the Puritans The Importance of Diary-Keeping Kirsten Birkett Latimer Trust, 2022 (ISBN: 9781906327750, 29pp, £3.50) The volume presents the edited text of a lecture first given via Facebook Live, being 2021’s St Antholin’s Lecture. This lecture...
The English Reformed Tradition: Holloway
The English Reformed Tradition Its distinctives & worth David Holloway Latimer Trust, 2022 (ISBN: 9781906327767, 43pp, £4) The author of this short but valuable booklet is one of the longest-serving incumbents in England, having taken the reigns at Newcastle’s...
Book Reviews: Baptism & Confirmation & Patterns for Baptism
Book Reviews Baptism and Confirmation Church House Publishing, 2022 (ISBN: 9780715123522, 468pp, £40) Patterns for Baptism Church House Publishing, 2022 (ISBN: 9780715123492, 392pp, £25) These handsome volumes are the latest additions to Common Worship, the Church of...
Keene Reviews: To Live is Christ
To Live is Christ by Richard Baxter with Introduction by Alan Clifford Charenton Reformed Publishing, 2022 (ISBN: 9780992946593, 151pp, £10) Many readers will be familiar with the better-known works of Baxter, such as The Reformed Pastor and The Saints’ Everlasting...
Review: God’s Church for God’s World
God’s Church for God’s World Faithful perspectives on mission and ministry Tom Woolford and Adam Young (eds.) IVP, 2022 (ISBN: 9781789742244, 218pp, £19.99) Part Three Issues 8114 and 8115 reviewed Parts one and two of this multi-authored book, who main focus is the...
Keene Reviews: God’s Church for God’s World: Part 2
God’s Church for God’s World Faithful perspectives on mission and ministry Tom Woolford and Adam Young (eds.) IVP, 2022 (ISBN: 9781789742244, 218pp, £19.99) Part Two Part One of this review introduced God’s Church for God’s World, a significant new multi-authored...
Keene Review: God’s Church for God’s World Part One
God’s Church for God’s World Faithful perspectives on mission and ministry Tom Woolford and Adam Young (eds.) IVP, 2022 (ISBN: 9781789742244, 218pp, £19.99) Part One This is an important book which takes a snapshot of evangelical ministry in 2022. The title and...
Keene Book Review: Late-Georgian Churches
Late-Georgian Churches Anglican architecture, patronage and churchgoing in England, 1790-1840 Christopher Webster John Hudson Publishing, 2022 (ISBN: 978-7398229-0-3, 320pp, £80) During the past hundred years, and especially the past fifty, valiant progress has been...
Book Review: To Proclaim Afresh Declarations and Oaths for the Church of England
To Proclaim Afresh Declaration and Oaths for Church of England Ministers Faith and Order Commission Church House Publishing, 2022 (ISBN: 9780715142905, 35pp, £5.99) Colin Podmore’s 1999 article on the Declaration of Assent in the Ecclesiastical Law Journal considered...
Repackaging Christianity: Alpha and Building a Global Brand
Repackaging Christianity Alpha and the building of a global brand Andrew Atherstone Hodder & Stoughton, 2022 (ISBN: 978-1-399-80151-5, 308pp, £22) The Alpha Course is known to many from its prolific advertising, on buses, on banners outside churches, on the...
Book Review: Reimagining Britain by Justin Welby
Reimagining Britain Foundations for Hope Justin Welby Bloomsbury, 2018, new edn. 2021 (ISBN: 978-1-4729-8497-5, 322pp, £12.99) The Archbishop of Canterbury has made several notable political interventions recently, including over ‘partygate’ and the Rwanda deportation...
Book Review: The Life and Teaching of Jesus Explained and Applied
The Life and Teaching of Jesus Explained and Applied Gareth Crossley self-published, 2022 (ISBN: 978-1-9998563-8-0, 477pp, £12) This is an original gospel harmony with the tone of biography. As the author’s logo promises, the subject springs from scripture as lion and...
Keene Book Review: The Book of All Books
The Book of All Books Roberto Calasso Allen Lane, 2019, tr. 2021 (ISBN: 978-0-241-44672-0, 450pp, £25) Long-form reiterations of Biblical material, with varying levels of ‘artistic licence’, have become a popular literary form. A recent treatment of this sort for the...
Book Review: How the Church Fathers Read the Bible
How the Church Fathers Read the Bible A Short Introduction Gerald Bray Lexham, 2022 (ISBN: 978-1-68359-583-0, 194pp, £19.99) The formularies of the English church make frequent reference to the Patristic writers but these sources are little known or understood today....
Book Review: Healing for the Soul
Healing for the Soul Richard Smallwood, the Vamp, and the Gospel Imagination Braxton D. Shelley Oxford University Press, 2021 (ISBN: 9780197566466, 320pp, £35.99) Braxton D. Shelley is not only a Yale (Harvard at the time of writing the book) professor of music...
Book Review: Haggai, A Time to Build
Haggai: A Time to Build George Hutcheson Scottish Heritage, 2021 (ISBN: 9781912042203, 67pp, £5.70) In 1654, Scotland was under occupation by the forces of General Monck, the acknowledged king was in exile, and political and religious tensions ran high. In this...
Book Review: Follow Jesus!
Follow Jesus! Do I have to go to church? Can I trust the Bible? David Pennant Silver Lining Books, 2022 (ISBN: 9780955005343, 186pp, £4.50) This book, the amalgamation of two long booklets, offers trenchant opinion and honest personal testimony. Pennant was...
Book Review: Beyond the Odds
Beyond the Odds Providence in Britain’s Wars of the 20th Century John Scriven and Tim Dieppe Wilberforce Publications, 2021 (ISBN: 9781916121126, 598pp, £15) God works all things according to the counsel of his will – and it is the privilege of history to reflect with...
Book Review: The Soul of the American University Revisited, From Protestant to Postsecular
The Soul of the American University Revisited From Protestant to Postsecular George M. Marsden Oxford University Press, 2021 (ISBN: 9780197607244, 477pp, £81) George Marsden’s 1994 Soul of the American University was a landmark volume documenting and assessing the...
Book Review: Calamy Celebrated
Calamy Celebrated The 350th Anniversary of the Birth of Dr Edmund Calamy (1671-1732) Alan Clifford Andrew Fuller Centre for Baptist Studies, 2021 (ISBN: 9781774840221, 36pp, $20) Edmund Calamy’s name is most closely associated with his account of the ejected ministers...
Book Review: Christ the Mediator
Christ the Mediator John Morrison Scottish Reformed Heritage Publications, 2021 (ISBN: 978-1-678162764, 88pp, $9.00) This slim book reproduces articles featured in the opening editions of the journal of the Inverness seminary of the Free Church of Scotland...
Book Review: The Printing and Printers of the Book of Common Prayer 1549-1561
The Printing and Printers of the Book of Common Prayer 1549-1561 Peter Blayney Cambridge University Press, 2022 (ISBN: 978-1-108-83741-5, 253pp, £29.99) Before the present decade ends, the extant iteration of republican settlement in France is likely to become its...
Book Review by The Revd Edward Keene: Fossils & the Flood
Fossils and the Flood Exploring lost worlds with science and scripture Paul Garner New Creation, 2021 (ISBN: 97809990409, 148pp, £29.99) There are several issues on which many Christians are sorely tempted to bear a scathing disposition toward their brethren....
Book Review by The Revd Edward Keene: The Generosity Project
The Generosity Project Learn, pray and work together to become the big-hearted people God calls us to be Tony Payne & Geoff Robson Matthias Media, 2020 (ISBN: 9781925424577, 130pp, £9.99) Church small groups looking for a change of pace from their usual...
The Truth Will Set You Free, Book Review
The Truth Will Set You Free George Carey Isaac Publishing, Virginia, 2021 (ISBN: 9781952450136, 233pp, £24.95) Randall Davidson pioneered the phenomenon of archiepiscopal retirement when he stepped down from Canterbury in 1928. The practice took hold and most...
Book Review: The Old Faith
The Old Faith Henry Bullinger Church of England (Continuing), 2021 (ISBN: 9781739974008, 92pp, £5) The sensationalist move to rebrand Whitsun as Pentecost and as ‘the church’s birthday’ was challenged in the 1980s by theologians such as James Cook at Western...
Book Review: Spiritual Rest During Trials
Spiritual Rest During Trials Hugh MacKail Reformation Press, 2020 (ISBN: 9781912042166, 69pp, £6.20) The year of our Lord 1662 is remembered south of the border as the tragic point when Cranmer’s peerless prayer book was cruelly edited and weaponised to eject hundreds...
Book Review: Sent from Reading
Sent from Reading Reading’s part in overseas missions 1790-1950 John Dearing self-published, 2021 (ISBN: 978173993802, 180pp, £10) The hugely popular 2002 BBC series 100 Greatest Britons featured those leaders known for their statesmanship, charisma, celebrity, and...
Book Review: The Lullingstone Secret
The Lullingstone Secret Jill Masters Wakeman Press, 2021 (ISBN: 9781913133115, 97pp, £5.95) Lullingstone Villa in Kent is a fascinating site to visit whatever one’s awareness of ancient history and is lavishly curated by English Heritage. Since its excavation in the...
Book Review: The Welsh Methodist Society
The Welsh Methodist Society The Early Societies in South-West Wales 1737-1750 Eryn M. White University of Wales Press, 2021 (ISBN: 9781786835796, 350pp, £24.99) In many respects, the church in Britain continues to live off the puttering afterglow of the eighteenth...
Review: The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill
The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, Christianity Today Produced, Written, Edited and Hosted by Mike Cosper Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or at https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/podcasts/rise-and-fall-of-mars-hill/ One of the most intriguing and...
Book Review: The Sum of Saving Knowledge, Keene
The Sum of Saving Knowledge David Dickson and James Durham Reformation Press, 2019 (first published 1650, ISBN: 978-1912042128, 106pp, £6.10) From its distant outpost on the Isle of Lewis, Reformation Press continues to pump out modern reprints of Scottish classics. A...
Book Review: The First Book of Homilies in Modern English, Keene
The First Book of Homilies The Church of England’s Official Sermons in Modern English Lee Gatiss (ed.) Lost Coin Books, 2021 (ISBN: 978-1-7399376-0-7, 200pp, £11.99) Sincere interest in the Books of Homilies is a valuable mark of true churchmanship. Knowledge...
Book Review: Bleeding for Jesus
Bleeding for Jesus John Smyth and the cult of the Iwerne Camps Andrew Graystone Darton, Longman and Todd, 2021 (ISBN: 9781913657123, 250pp, £12.99) This book is the latest instalment of a long-running tragedy. It comes six years after the author was first made aware...
Church Society Releases Video: Engine of the English Reformation
Church Society Releases: The Engine of the English Reformation Video Ahead of Reformation Day, Church Society has released a very informative video entitled, The Engine of the Reformation. The video lasting just over three-quarters of an hour, is hosted by the Revd...
Book Review: The Social Life of Early Modern Protestant Clergy
The Social Life of the Early Modern Protestant Clergy Special issue of The Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture Jacqueline Eales and Beverley Tjerngren University of Wales Press, 2020 (ISBN: 9781786837141, 119pp, £24.99) William Gibson’s work has been...
Book Review: Historical Dictionary of the Baptists
Historical Dictionary of the Baptists (3rd Edition) William Brackney Rowman and Littlefield, 2021 (ISBN: 978-1538122518, 691pp, £130) The series of Historical Dictionaries from this publisher is extensive and growing, ranging from Italian cinema to Arab and Islamic...
Living in Love & Faith: A Review
Living in Love & Faith Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage The Church of England Church House Publishing, 2020 (ISBN: 978-0715111673, 468pp, £11.99) Confusion was fostered when the title of the church’s current...
Lives Less Ordinary: A Story of Fearless Faith
Lives Less Ordinary A story of fearless faith in an extraordinary God Roy Summers Fisherman Press, 2020 (ISBN: 978-1-164136559-8, 193pp, £7.50) Telling others in great detail about one’s own family history is normally a quick recipe for losing friends and alienating...
The History of Christianity in Britain and Ireland
The History of Christianity in Britain and Ireland From the first century to the twenty-first Gerald Bray Apollos, 2021 (ISBN: 978-1-78974-120-9, 693pp) Throughout his long academic career Bray has ably straddled both doctrine and ecclesiastical history, so it is no...
Book Review: Rejoice & Tremble Reviewed by Brian Wong
Rejoice and TrembleMichael ReevesCrossway, 2021 (ISBN: 9781433565328, 176pp) “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” Proverbs 1:7 In this book, Michael Reeves, President and Professor of Theology at Union School of Theology, explores what the Bible has to...
Book Review, Sacrifice: Howard Guinness
Sacrifice Howard Guinness Wakeman Trust, 2021 (first edition 1936, ISBN: 9781913133177, 83pp) This popular devotional piece of earlier generations is reissued with a new preface by Dr Peter Masters of the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Dr Masters is effusive in lauding the...
Mission of Inquiry: To Israel in 1839 & Its Consequences, Reviewed by Edward Keene
Mission of Inquiry To Israel in 1839 and its Consequences John Keddie Free Church of Scotland (Continuing), 2021 (ISBN: 0781667193397, 40pp) The preservation of the Jewish people as a distinct group through thousands of years of history is a great evidence of the...
Synods by Gerald Bray Reviewed by Edward Keene
Synods Gerald Bray Latimer Trust, 2019 (ISBN: 9781906327576, 70pp) The word ‘synod’ may evoke a range of reactions; apprehensions of dull ponderous deliberations on obscure points of church law; irritation at a body which presumes to ‘command the prophets’;...
Christianity & Craft Freemasonry, A Pastoral Guide for Christian Ministers
Christianity and Craft Freemasonry A Pastoral Guide for Christian Ministers Gerard Moate Latimer Trust, 2021 (ISBN: 9781906327705, 70pp) By 1964 a national commission of enquiry estimated the existence of 50,000 books and pamphlets on freemasonry. This literature has,...
Forgotten Reformer: Myles Coverdale
Forgotten Reformer: Miles Coverdale Geoffrey Main Self-published, 2021 (ISBN: 9781916873704, 228pp) Episcopal biographies are always an enjoyable read, not least those of bishops who are better known for their non-episcopal work. Coverdale is of course best known for...
Finding the Right Hill to Die On: Book Review
Finding the Right Hill to Die On: the case for theological triage Gavin Ortlund Crossway (TGC) ISBN 9781433567421 Paperback This book began back in 2005 when Al Mohler was sitting in A&E where he ‘discovered’ a theological tool - ‘triage’ - which refers to...
Review of: Quakers, Christ, & the Enlightenment
Quakers, Christ, and the Enlightenment Madeleine Pennington Oxford University Press, 2021 (ISBN: 978-0-19-289527-1, 242pp) The Society of Friends may now be all but extinct, but their historical significance is vast, not least in the realm of intellectual life. It is...
The Athanasian Creed by Martin Davie
The Athanasian Creed Martin Davie London: Latimer Trust, 2019 (ISBN: 978-1-906327-58-3, 105pp) ‘The three creeds…ought thoroughly to be received and believed for they may be proved by most certain warrants of holy scripture’, affirms the eighth article of religion....
Samuel Wesley & the Crisis of Tory Piety
Samuel Wesley & the Crisis of Tory Piety, 1685-1720 William Gibson Oxford University Press, 2021 (ISBN: 978-0-19-887024-1, 216pp) Gibson, author of The Church of England 1688-1832: Unity and Accord (2001) is a proven master of English ecclesiastical history...
That Hideous Strength: How the West Was Lost
That Hideous Strength: A Deeper Look at How the West was Lost The Cancer of Cultural Marxism in the Church and the World, and the Gospel of Change Melvin Tinker Darlington: Evangelical Press, 2020 (Expanded edition) (ISBN: 978-1-7839-7294-4, 191pp) Four...
The Puritans: a Transatlantic History
BR287 The Puritans: a Transatlantic History David D. Hall Princeton ISBN 9780691151397 Hardback Not just ‘another book on the Puritans’. Rather, a book on the Puritans that tells you what others don’t. So why is it different? For one thing, it is...
Goodly Heritage: The Secession of 1834
A Goodly Heritage: The Secession of 1834 and Its Impact on Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and North America Cornelius Pronk RHB Hardback ISBN 9781601786647 The Preface is an account by Cornelius Pronk of his own church life. This is a fascinating record. As...
Book Review – Contested Reformations in the University of Cambridge
BR279 Contested Reformations in the University of Cambridge, 1535-1584 Cheri Law Royal Historical Society Boydell Press Hardback ISBN: 9780861933471 In the history of Cambridge there is much that has remained unexplored, especially the period under review. The...
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, International
Book Review The 1662 Book of Common Prayer International Edition Given that the vast majority of 110 million Anglican Christians around belong to provinces that identify the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as their standard liturgy, it is no surprise that a publisher has...
When a nation prays
Pastor Peter Simpson Minister of Penn Free Methodist Church www.realchristianity.org or jacqui.langston@btinternet.com 2021 156 (including references) pbk £6:75 or £18:25 for 3 copies (both prices include p&p) World War Two has been examined from almost...
Bibliophiles Rejoice for Choice
Bibliophiles, lovers of books and particularly those who prefer well-bound leather bibles can rejoice for the choices they have at the moment. If you do not own one and think to do so is an occasion for sin…look the other way. There are three companies currently...
Against The Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel In An Age Of Relativism
Against The Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel In An Age Of Relativism John C Lennox Monarch Books, 2015. ISBN: 978-0-85721-621-2 The Book of Daniel gains barely a mention in the Revised Common Lectionary, but arguably there is not a book of Scripture that is more...
What does the Bible teach about LUST?
What does the Bible teach about LUST? Owen Strachan & Gavin Peacock Christian Focus Hardback ISBN: 9781527104761 Available from Evangelical Bookshop, Belfast There are 4 chapters which follow a simple outline: People are Struggling (1); Lust is sinful (2);...
Spectator Cover Shows Empty Tomb for Easter Edition
Many of the readers of the English Churchman are also readers of The Spectator but the 3 April edition was a rather nice surprise. If you missed it, the cover featured an artist’s rendering of Jesus’ empty tomb. Bright morning sunlight showed the inside of a tomb,...
The Cruelty of Heresy
The Cruelty of Heresy An Affirmation of Christian Orthodoxy By The Rt Revd C. FitzSimons Allison ISBN 978-0-8192-1513-0-90000 Published 1993 197 pages Morehouse Publishing 445 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016 This work is just as needed today as when it was...
The Invention of Papal History
BR278 The Invention of Papal History Stefan Bauer Oxford University Press Hardback ISBN 9780198807001 This may seem an unusual book to review in a Protestant newspaper. Yet our actual knowledge of papal history isn’t always clear. Not that we need to know a vast...
The Wholesome Doctrine of the Gospel, Faith and Love
The wholesome doctrine of the Gospel Faith and Love in the writings of William Perkins Edited by Andrew S Ballitch & J Stephen Yuille RHB Paperback ISBN9871601786814 Perkins is number 2 after Calvin. However not everyone can afford the works of Perkins currently...
Antagonists in the Church
Book Review Antagonists in the Church: How to Deal with Destructive Conflict By Kenneth C. Haugck Fortress Press ISBN-10 : 0806623101 ISBN-13 : 978-0806623108 This book and workbook should be part of every pastor’s library and on every seminary’s syllabus for...
Reformed and Protestant Online Resources for Lockdown
Reformed and Protestant Online Resources for Lockdown An easily overlooked treasure is found on YouTube. The Revd Dr Ashley Null, noted Anglican Reformation scholar, spoke on the Faith of the Book of Common Prayer at the inaugural lecture of the Clive West Memorial...
Known by God: A Biblical Theology of Personal Identity
This is a great book that offers true comfort to broken believers and real insights into deep scriptural themes. Rosner takes a biblical theological approach, looking at what it means to belong to and be known by God, seeking to shown how this over-looked theme is...
Review – Inward Baptism: The Theological Origins of Evangelicalism by Baird Tipson (OUP, 2020)
In this volume Tipson traces through 250 years of church history to explore the origins of one of the key characteristics of Evangelicalism – an emphasis on ‘inward baptism,’ or to use another description, a ‘conversion experience.’ Tipson hypothesises that Luther’s...