Bishop Books

I enjoyed reading this book as much for its footnotes as for its lively and engaging text. McLynn has done a superb job of piecing together bits of information from many sources to provide a new interpretation of Ambrose's career, especially his relations with the imperial court. The basic argument, that Ambrose didn't win all the battles he himself presented as victories, is refreshing but not always convincing. Of necessity the author must speculate a great deal, and at times his arguments border on special pleading -- as, for example, when he insists on reading Theodosius's famous law of 391, usually interpreted as the final blow against the public practice of pagan rites, as a minor statute directed only at a few officials. All in all, though, this is a masterly work of scholarship, and bound to give the reader new insight into the life and character of a key figure in the advance of Christianity as a political force.

America's Bishop is a much needed addition to historical biography. Francis Asbury single-handedly established the Methodist Church on American soil. His commitment to remain in the States rather than return to England during the Revolutionary War established him as Methodism's leader. Academic neglect of this legendary figure is unacceptable. Thanks to Darius Salter, that problem has been partially fixed.

Despite lifelong physical difficulties, Asbury maintained a strict regiment circuit riding, preaching, leadership development, and spiritual discipline. Without his commitment to the American mission, Methodism would be a minor sect or nonexistent on American soil. Francis Asbury is truly on of the most neglected heroes in American religious history.

America's Bishop reads like a cross between a biography and scholarly work. Dates, places, and people are recorded with attention to detail. The chapters are a combination of chronological movement and theological/personal development of Francis Asbury. It is not necessarily a smooth read because of the details, but it is certainly a worthwhile read.

Writing from a unique prespective and weaving together two apparently unrelated topics, Mr. Campbell does a wonderful job exploring how to claim being a southerner without taking on the mantle of racism. This book especially is of benefit to clergy exploring how to stand in the light of the gospel while excavatingthe past and looking to the future.

My aunt Shelly died in the explosion on April 19, '95. It was truly terror in the heartland. At that moment, 9:02 am. A bomb ripped through Shell and it ripped through me. Truely Angels did cry that day. I know I did. Emily Cullen

I bought this book ($25 or less) at Bishop Bonner's church, Refuge Temple, in Columbia, and it has been a blessing, and oh what a blessing! The miracles that God has worked on his behalf, the trials he overcame, and the lessons he learned bring so much light to what a person goes through in their own life. I have met him, sat under him in classes, and asked him questions, and the sincerity, consecration, and straightforwardness that he displays in real life comes through in the book. There is a powerful anointing on him and in this book, which is his testimony, and I thank God for leading me to buy it!

I found this book to be very interesting on many levels. I am from Kennebunkport so it is locally very interesting and my mother was very interested in antiques and dragged me along in her travels. The book is a facinating look at the start of the antique trade and life at that time. I highly recommend it!

The mocking grace "To God much praise, and little laud to the Devil" reflected the opinion of many of William Laud's contemporaries - and also of several generations of Whig historians. To Macaulay and his ilk, Charles I's Archbishop of Canterbury was a stock villain, culpable for the royal policies that provoked the English Civil War.

Hugh Trevor-Roper's biography (first published in 1940; Phoenix Press reprints the very slightly revised 1961 edition) cannot be called a rehabilitation, but it does correct, and has largely superseded, the Whig caricature. (The Britannica entry on Laud, for instance, reads like a precis.) Instead of a Wolsey-like grand prelate, Laud is shown to have been an honest, hardworking man, notable both for extensive charities and for fostering Greek, Arabic and Persian studies. His most conspicuous faults were personal rudeness, excessive severity as a judge (even by the severe standards of the time) and political maladroitness. Though he left behind many volumes of writings, he never grasped the importance of propaganda or public opinion. His immediate reaction to opposition was clumsy suppression, an instinct that led him to advocate the forcible imposition of episcopal governance on the Scottish church. From the failure of the "Bishops' War" followed the disintegration of Charles' personal rule, the Short and Long Parliaments, civil war and Laud's own murder by Act of Parliament in 1645.

Trevor-Roper recounts Laud's career in, as one would expect, a lively and opinionated, yet thoroughly scholarly, fashion. He emphasizes high politics and ecclesiastical conflict but also directs attention to Laud's achievements as Chancellor of Oxford University, where his impact may have been more lasting than on either Church or State. There is little speculation about the Archbishop's private life, for which hardly any evidence survives. He never married, apparently kept no mistresses, lived unostentatiously and left behind almost no purely personal correspondence or anecdotes. Trevor-Roper surmises that he tended to have allies rather than friends, but the truth is unknowable.

Excellent though it is in most respects, "Archbishop Laud" suffers from distortion in one key area. The biographer takes it as a fundamental truth that 17th Century men were as secular in outlook as his own 20th Century circle of acquaintances. Therefore, religious principles must have been mere masks for social and political content. Men adopted Puritan or Arminian or Roman Catholic theology because they liked the political doctrines associated with those labels.

That premise is no doubt true of many figures of the day, but Trevor-Roper's own narrative exposes its dubiety in this particular case. The tenet that Laud advanced most persistently, in the teeth of massive opposition by both clergy and laity, was the importance of preserving continuity with the pre-Reformation Church. He was not sympathetic to Roman Catholicism but would not abandon traditional doctrines and rituals simply because they had been labeled "popish". In these views he followed Lancelot Andrewes and Richard Hooker, and it is largely because of his efforts that their species of "Anglo-Catholicism" lasted beyond the lifetimes of their personal disciples.

None of the distinctive issues addressed by the Andrewes-Hooker school is important to Trevor-Roper. Hence, he concludes, none of them could really have been important to Laud. The "true" reason for, say, upholding the mystical character of the Eucharist was evidently to strike a blow at enclosures, emigration and the pretensions of Parliament. Rather an indirect blow, one might think.

If one imagines that Laud's ostensible hierarchy of values was his real one, his life comes into clearer focus. Activities such as the promotion of scholarship and the recovery of the church's property rights were not disconnected enthusiasms but elements of a program for reinforcing the links between contemporary and ancient Christianity and safeguarding a refurbished church from the influence of modernist opinion. Likewise, his indifference to politically attractive pan-Protestant initiatives, a stance that puzzles Trevor-Roper, reflects his desire to hold the English church at a distance from Reformation theology.

Although Trevor-Roper pronounces Laud a "failure", the Laudian tradition held a prominent, occasionally preeminent, place in the Church of England for three hundred years, and from that base it has gained an extended, if attenuated, influence. The descendants of Puritan zealots now study the Fathers of the Church, take the sacraments seriously, pay heed to the continuity of Christian experience, celebrate the ancient holy days and even admit religious images into their sanctuaries. From the perspective of 1645, that is an astonishing evolution. There is no way to know what might have been, but one cannot help suspecting that today's Protestant Christianity would be much more drab, anti-historical and unintellectual had William Laud never lived.

Having to read Bishop's book as a required piece of literature in my 1102 English class at North Georgia College and State University did not make me feel as though I would enjoy reading the book. However, as I read it, I decided that even if it had not been required, I think I would have read this book anyways. It was actually very good! I loved the fact that so much of the book was set in the South and that it was based on things that I could actually relate to. My favorite of the short stories was probably "Among the Handlers", I had actually seen things on the news about people who handled snakes as a part of their religion and it was a very engrossing story. If only all of the other required reading I had to do at school was this interesting!

TeSelle offers a fine primer to the beginning student of Augustine. This is an excellent secondary source that may help guide the student in her or his reading of primary source material. It is recommended for anyone beginning City of God, as it covers a broad range of topics found in Augustine.

Richard Price does an wonderful job touching on the theology of Bishop Augustine, as well as giving a simplistic introduction to the Saint.

Augustine of Hippo wrote some of the most influential Christian doctrine, but it was, and is, very difficult reading for the layperson.

This book puts forth Augustine's difficult topics like Original Sin, Relations within the Church, and the Trinity in an easily read format. The book is dry at times, but is still a most enlightning read.

If you are looking for a beginner book on Saint Augustine of Hippo, or if you are looking for a brief review of this Holy Doctor of the Church, than this is a very good resource.