Bradshaw Books

Loosening the Roots of Compassion is exactly what its subtitle indicates: a book of meditations for Holy Week and Eastertide. Aitken, a university professor of Christian history and literature, is also an ordained Episcopal priest. She indicates in the book's preface that we as modern-day believers can find relationship between Biblical text and liturgy, and ancient communities of believers. These contemplations become the roots of our lives, into both scripture and church tradition.

This small book is easy to use. Aitken gives mediations for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Day. She further extends the celebration into the week following the Resurrection of Jesus, including some of the Risen Christ's appearances (to the disciples; on the road to Emmaus; and the miracle of the "riot of fish"). Each meditation includes the appropriate Biblical passage as well as a modern practical application and a prayer.

I recommend this book to those in the ministry who prepare for the Lenten and Easter seasons, as well as those who would wish to have a guide for their own meditative contemplations during Holy and Easter weeks.

Armchair Interviews agrees.

Handy and interesting book for Engineers of all disciplines. Although one can find resources on the web for free that do the same thing, the book is sometimes better because it shows the step by step conversion process in a way that allows a person to be more confident than a "black box" number.

Martin St. Kilda (Wade Bradshaw) brings home the truths that one faces when he follows his calling to go to another place and minister to the people there. That calling can be of the religious nature or another form of going to work in a land different from your own. The author brings all the fears, joy, misgivings into the story. Even the sad things are presented in a humorous frame of mind. He is not afraid to tell it as it is, warts and all. This is a great experience! Anyone who has travelled and lived in another country can identify with what is being written. We Americans should read this and understand what our country can offer the world in expertise, knowledge, and plain "help." Martin St. John gives insight into the soul of the individual who is willing to leave his family, friends and his life as he knows it behind to go make his world a better place. Great job!

I have been very pleased with the easy-to-follow steps in this book. It contains nearly every faux finish an individual needs to complete his/her home project. Well worth the investment.

The book gives an excellent overview over the development of the Chotin fleet - one of the pioneering carriers on the Western Rivers. Additionally, it draws attention to the family behind the shipping company. Between the lines, the history of the Federal Barge Line, the beginner of towboating after WW1, is briefly summarized. A lot of references has been analyzed. For those who are interested in history of inland navigation on the Mississippi, this books provides some interesting details, but not a complete overview - this can be found elsewhere.

Paul F. Bradshaw, a well known liturgical scholar, has presented for consideration the various texts used throughout the Eastern and Western Rites in the ancient world for the ordination of deacons, presbyters, and bishops - as well as deaconesses, lectors, acolytes... virtually every ministry with a commissioning or ordination rite from the ancient world.

However, make no mistake, this is not a book that is to be sat on the bishop's lap to conduct ordinations -- it is a book for study, reflection, and consideration as we forge ahead in our liturgical era to prepare new rites for our own day.

Those who have a deep love for the patristic church know well that the future of our faith lays not in the development of new doctrines and beliefs but in the deeper understanding and practice of the ancient faith. Bradshaw's book provides the information needed to mediate upon at least a part of that ancient faith - the ordination of clergy.

These prayers are filled with biblical imagery, and show a glimpse of the faith-life of our brothers and sisters from nearly two-thousand years ago.

This is a must have for those interested in the theology of ministry and the liturgical rites surrounding Christian Ordination.

Ian Bradshaw's book was an early find during my retirement-age re-embrace of photography, and I continue to review and learn from it. Basically it is about relating to one's subject and seeing it in its varying lights and from varying points of view. I have used the book when introducing photography to friends who want to get past the stand-and-blast stage of shooting. It allows one to be intuitive as well as analytical. too bad it is out of print. Get a good used copy ASAP!

Throughout the twentieth century it was widely accepted by liturgical historians that the Carolingian monarchs (Pippin III and Charlemagne in particular), engaged in a sweeping Romanisation of their indigenous Gallican liturgical rites. This work challenges that assumption.

Hen argues that under Pippin III:

"New liturgical compositions were compiled, using both Roman and indigenous Frankish material, old liturgical compositions were updated and adapted to suit the Frankish use, and no official attempt to Romanise or unify the Frankish rite originated from the royal court."

That in Charlemagne's period:

"Roman books and liturgical practices were undoubtedly introduced into the Frankish kingdoms, both voluntarily and by legislation, but the traditional non-Roman rites were neither deliberately suppressed nor lost. Continuity in liturgical celebration is apparent, even when it seems that new practices were introduced or straightforwardly imposed on the Frankish Church."

And that in the reign of Louis the Pious liturgical scholars' work was "not innovation or reform, but clarification and explanation, addressed to the clergy and aimed at preserving and disseminating the `correct' rite."

All very well, one might say; an interesting piece of historical research. Certainly, Hen's scholarship is comprehensive, and is a significant contribution to the study of liturgical history. His introduction contains short essays on "The nature of liturgical studies" and "The nature of liturgical evidence" which are themselves important.

Non-specialist readers ought not be daunted: by his extensive notation Hen manages to keep the book's narrative remarkably clear and free from scholarly contention. This is a book for the interested reader as well as for the scholar.

A recurring theme, perhaps a little influenced by the contemporary penchant for `spin-doctoring,' is the political use Hen sees the Frankish monarchs making of the liturgy. One might ask whether the distinction between liturgy and politics was such that "using" the liturgy for political ends was a process of thought that would occur in this period, or whether the liturgy was not so integral to Frankish and to royal life that events we would today distinguish as "political," then found a less self-conscious and wholly natural liturgical expression?

However, this work has more than historical importance and interest. The prevailing assumption that Pippin III and Charlemagne unified and Romanised the liturgy on the sole basis of their authority is seen as ample precedent by some for later interventions by authority in liturgical development, which is of its nature organic: permitting development whilst maintaining substantial continuity.

J.D. Crichton, until his death the foremost English apologist for the postconciliar liturgical changes, described the Carolingian reform to this writer as an "earthquake," (i.e. the organic development of the liturgy was arrested, and its course substantially changed, as a direct result of the intervention of authority). In the light of this supposed precedent, Crichton, and many with him, found no difficulty in the seismographical similarities of the reforms enacted in the wake of Vatican II.

According to Hen's scholarship, Crichton and many late twentieth century reformers are wrong: there is no precedent in this period of the development of the liturgy in Frankish Gaul for abrogation of the law of the organic development of the liturgy by an authority - a thing, as Cardinal Ratzinger has pointed out, seen nowhere in the history of the Roman rite until the years following Vatican II. Thus this book is an important foundation to the current re-examination of late twentieth century liturgical reform of the Roman rite, called for by the same Cardinal.

This, and Boydell's fine production of the book, fully justify its price. It belongs in any serious liturgical library.

This is a beautiful book and well worth having. The color and pattern combinations are unusual and inspire one to sew! The downside is that there are virtually no instructions. You already need to have basic sewing knowledge and other sewing resources to do the projects. Definitely a cut above the average soft furnishings book in design and originality.

In 1995 the Church of England Evangelical Council requested a document to help Anglicans discover common ground on the complex and divisive issue of homosexuality and the church. The result was their St. Andrew's Day Statement released in November 1995, and later reproduced in a number of other publications. This book contains the short SADS (6 pages), which many read as a very conservative document, and then thirteen chapters by different authors, all British, who respond to it. Since this book is by and for British Anglicans, American readers might not connect as easily with the ecclesiastical and political issues raised, but the matters of theology and Biblical interpretation remain the same wherever you live. These chapters range across many of the most important questions and do so in an irenic way, although as with any collection of authors their style and quality vary. About a third of the authors are traditionalists, about a third are openly gay, and another third appear undecided. They include professional theologians, pastors and lay people. To be gay and Christian might sound oxymoronic, but the fact is that there are many gay people in our churches, perhaps silent and unacknowledged, and this despite the fact that much of the stigmatizing of gays has come from Christians (recall how two days after the September 11 attacks Jerry Falwell appeared on Pat Robertson's television show and blamed gays (along with others) for "helping this to happen."). In her book Coming Out in Christianity, Melissa Wilcox observes that if it is difficult for a gay to come out in the church, think about what it is like to come out as Christian within the gay community. Many gay believers, of course, have moved to the Metropolitan Community Churches where they are openly embraced and even celebrated, but many more remain in our evangelical circles. Pretending they don't exist does not help anyone, so decidedly Christian books like this that help us parse the issues are welcome.