Keene Review of Reformation Anglicanism

Keene Review of Reformation Anglicanism

Reformation Anglicanism Essays on Edwardian Evangelicalism  Mark Earngey & Stephen Tong Latimer Trust, 2022 (ISBN: 978-1-906327-79-8, 246pp)   England’s expansion across the globe during the second half of the last millennium left a wide cultural and...

Tolkien Dogmatics: Keene Review

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...

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...

Keene Book Review: The Book of All Books

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: 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: 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

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:  Calamy Celebrated

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

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 Old Faith

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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...

Book Review, Sacrifice: Howard Guinness

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...

Forgotten Reformer: Myles Coverdale

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: 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...

The Athanasian Creed by Martin Davie

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

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...

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...

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, International

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

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 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...

What does the Bible teach about LUST?

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);...

The Cruelty of Heresy

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

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...

Antagonists in the Church

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...