Book Recommendations
This page is in response to the request from alumni to receive book recommendations that will help to focus their own reading.
We are also happy to publish brief notes about books that alumni have had published recently.
The Future of the Parish System, ed. Steve Croft, CHP 2006, £9.99 from Amazon
Review by David Heywood
If a busy minister had time to read only one book in the coming year (though I hope you will manage more), my recommendation would be The Future of the Parish System.
The background of rapid change in society and culture, the Church’s renewed emphasis on mission and the emergence of a wide variety of ‘fresh expressions’ in response to these, prompts the question, especially for those engaged in parochially-based ministry on a daily basis: just what is the future for parishes and the parish church?
In response to which, this book provides not only thought-provoking answers but much encouragement. Steve Croft has done a particularly good job of editing, keeping his contributors to manageable length, clarity of expression and relevance to the theme. The result is a series of chapters, some worth the price of the book on their own, each of which can be digested in less than half and hour and provides stimulating reflection on some aspect of either ‘mature’ or ‘fresh’ expressions of church.
For example: Martyn Percy gives us the essence of his college course on the cultural context of ministry, complete with his arguments for the ‘resilience’ of religious commitment, in less than 15 pages; Grace Davie likewise summarises her overview of the patterns of religious belief in contemporary Europe; Rowan Williams unpacks the theology behind his endorsement of the ‘mixed economy’ church in an accessible way; and Graham Cray adapts the presentations he gave at the launch events for Mission-Shaped Church, to reflect on the report’s implicit theology. There is even a bishop’s eye view from Ian Cundy and legal advice on what is possible to make room for new forms of ministry in new contexts from John Rees, registrar of the Province of Canterbury.
My personal favourites, though, are none of these (with apologies to Martyn!). I was immensely reassured by Sara Savage’s essay, ‘On the analyst’s couch’, in which she opens up some of the psychological aspects of parochial life in a way that resonated strongly with my own experience. The ministry of the Church of England, she points out is marked by ‘open-handed generosity’, the commitment to provide a sacred place open to all, whether individuals, families or institutions like schools; to play a part in the nurture of art, music and architecture as well as liturgy; which respects the privacy and tentativeness of most English people’s faith and holds back from intruding on the introvert. But the cost of such commitment, she points out, falls disproportionately on the clergy, and her analysis of those costs and possible responses I found extremely helpful.
Another favourite is Robin Gamble, canon missioner in Manchester and part of the team that has recently brought us ‘Back to Church Sunday’ who sets out his stall in an energetic and vibrant way to commend ‘Doing Traditional Church Really Well’. And finally Ann Morisy, whose books Beyond the Good Samaritan and Journey Out have helped to chart the ways in which churches can effectively relate to and serve their communities, ‘maps’ the ‘mixed economy’ in a way that for me opened up whole new areas of appreciation. Morisy compares the ‘explicit domain’ of so much of parish life and worship, ‘organised around the formularies of the Christian faith’, with the ‘foundational domain’, which will be familiar to those involved in chaplaincy, where the aim is to build ‘confidence in the intimation that there is an enduring spiritual reality’, and with the ‘vocational domain’, in which faith is related to the search for significance and desire to make a difference.
At a very reasonable price, especially when bought on Amazon via the college’s website, this book offers a feast of reflection that will inspire and encourage.
John Spurr, The Post-Reformation, 1603-1714 (Pearson Longman, 2006, ISBN 0-582-31906-4, £19.99).
Review by Marilyn Lewis.
Theological college teaching on the early modern period usually focuses on the Reformation, leaving the seventeenth century as a kind of postscript, in which we might just notice the Civil War and the Act of Toleration before moving on to the Enlightenment. John Spurr’s The Post-Reformation, a book for both the general reader and the specialist, amply fills this gap by giving an account of the seventeenth century in which ‘Religion was at the heart of the story.’ This is the period when attempted religious uniformity gives way, with immense difficulty, to the toleration of plurality in theology and church order, a period that ‘can perhaps only be comprehended in the light of an assessment of the nature and depth of mainstream religious belief.’ Professor Spurr looks first at ‘Religion and politics’, giving a chapter to each reign, from James I to Anne, helping the reader to understand politics in the light of religion rather than treating religion as a discrete problem or issue. He then moves on to an analysis of ‘Religion and society’, examining what kind of evidence the period yields, the institutions of the Church of England, the administrative and pastoral role of the parish, worship and the rites of passage, as well as the great richness of life in dissenting and separatist churches.
Professor Spurr characterises the Post-Reformation as ‘a struggle between different versions of religion’ but thinks it is probably too neat to see this struggle as ending with the Act of Toleration of 1689, especially if we look beyond England to Great Britain, something contemporaries increasingly were learning to do. Rather, ‘It may be more realistic to recognise that the seventeenth century’s quarrels gradually began to subside, or to mutate into other forms, as politics and religion began to drift apart as distinct domains of human activity.’ Yet, although the end of the period (1714) has a distinctly more modern feel to it than the beginning (1603), a strict separation between church and state was ‘a long way from achievement’. Religion had not yet become a matter for the individual alone; it was still ‘fundamentally about belonging to a community of some sort’, but we might begin to see two large divisions based on zeal and indifference. For zealots, the Post-Reformation was the century for trying to implement Protestantism perfectly; for them, ‘the Reformation would never be over’. But for the majority it ‘was also the tale of the slow, uncoordinated reassertion of a different mindset’ – one which simply did not find that ‘the path of righteousness’ was of compelling importance; for them, the need for reform ‘would never be over, but the Reformation had already taken place.’
The Post-Reformation is full of the kind of original research presented in a highly readable format which has made Professor Spurr one of our best interpreters of a period deserving of more attention than it usually receives.
