Vernon Wilkins reviews five volumes from the Church Society.
Church Society, an evangelical “fellowship contending to reform and renew the Church of England in Biblical faith”, has published these five short monographs in line with its aim “to promote and uphold the Biblical foundations of the Church of England”.
Four of them are in a “Reflecting On” series, taking 20 excerpts each from the writings of Thomas Cranmer, Martin Luther, and John Calvin, as they themselves reflect variously on the Homilies, Galatians, Genesis, and the Psalms.
Galatians, Genesis and the Psalms need no introduction, but a word about the Homilies is in order: the Homilies of the Church of England sample Biblically-faithful sermons to be preached by those ministers not licensed to preach of their own accord, were mostly written by Cranmer himself, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VII and Edward VI and martyred under Mary, described by Gatiss as the “chief architect of the Reformation in England”.
Published in 1547, they are little-known outside of the Church of England, and little-known inside, which is why Gatiss has recently edited them into modern English.
The main aim of this “Reflecting On” series is to bring a Reformation-era pastoral voice to our understanding of Scripture in our time, as we lament the assault upon Biblical Christianity from without and from within the church.
Cranmer, Luther, and Calvin were, of course, brilliant academic theologians of mega-brain ability. But they were also church ministers with humble, sensitive, pastoral hearts, who as people-people knew how to connect with the real person in the street and empathise with an ordinary person’s life struggles. These “Reflections” demonstrate this eminently – they are not (only) for the ivory-tower scholar. I have read all four volumes, and can affirm that the aim is soundly achieved, certainly to my benefit. Pearls of pastoral wisdom from these Reformation fathers abound. Room is left for the reader’s own reflections and prayers.
The fifth volume, authored by Gatiss himself, the Director of Church Society, is different. Here are three expositions of Psalms 83–85, selected by him because, for him (and I wholeheartedly agree) they contain sound help for beleaguered Christians facing hostility from the godless world around and (as faithful Christians in the Church of England grievously have to contend) so much godlessness within the church too. He writes passionately and thoughtfully. I unreservedly commend this, and indeed all these five short volumes.
REFLECTING ON THE FIRST BOOK OF HOMILIES WITH THOMAS CRANMER / ISBN 978 1 068 570 551
REFLECTING ON GALATIANS WITH MARTIN LUTHER / ISBN 978 1 068 570 520
REFLECTING ON GENESIS WITH JOHN CALVIN / ISBN 978 1 068 570 537
REFLECTING ON PSALMS WITH JOHN CALVIN / ISBN 978 1 068 570 544
All: Edited by Lee Gatiss
Church Society. 89 pages. £4.00
WILL YOU NOT REVIVE US AGAIN? Psalms 83–85 and the urgent need to seek God in a church facing judgment
By Lee Gatiss
Church Society. 83 pages. £4.00
ISBN 978 1 068 570 568
