James Clark is the author of The Witness of Beauty and Other Essays, and the Book Review Editor at The North American Anglican. His writing has appeared in Cranmer Theological Journal, Journal of Classical Theology, and American Reformer, as well as other publications.
If “the new birth of the Spirit is closely coupled with new birth by water,” as Browne argues, then a question that follows is how this new birth of the Spirit is applied to infants. The difficulty, as it is often presented, is that whereas “in the case of adults, faith and repentance are necessary…
American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order. By Jerome E. Copulsky. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2024. 384 pp. $40 (hardcover). “The concept of heresy,” Jerome Copulsky observes, “is…relational—it is a term deployed by a group to mark out its boundaries, define its foes, and police deviance within its ranks” (3). That is to…
A Companion to the Book of Common Prayer. By Gerald Bray. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2023. 522 pp. $117 (hardcover), $46.88 (paper). Prayer Book commentaries—close studies of the Book of Common Prayer that analyze it with regard to its language, liturgy, theology, history, etc.—were once fairly common as a genre.[1] Nowadays such works are…
The question of whether infant baptism is a legitimate practice cannot be adequately engaged here without far exceeding the proper limits of a project such as this. Readers may therefore consult Browne’s treatment and rest assured that, as the Article says, infant baptism is “most agreeable with the institution of Christ.”[1] With the propriety of…
Following the response to my review of Re-Formed Catholic Anglicanism, I wish to thank Bishop Sutton for taking the time to address my arguments in detail. His own arguments clarify the nature of the disagreements that continue to exist between Reformed Catholics and what have been called Re-Formed Catholics. For the sake of edification, a…
Re-Formed Catholic Anglicanism. Edited by Charles F. Camlin, Charles D. Erlandson, and Joshua L. Harper. Anglican Way Institute, 2024. 478 pp. $29.99 (paper). In a recent review of the Nashotah House Press edition of Bishop A. P. Forbes’s Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles, Gerald McDermott describes Forbes as “reformed catholic.” A critical response to this…
It is generally agreed among commentators that Anabaptists are the primary target of Article XXVI: “Whatever may have been the popular feeling on this subject among the advocates of reformation in general, there is no doubt that the Anabaptists (in conformity with their general principle, that the whole Church should be pure and sincere) held…
While Browne acknowledges four of the minor sacraments as legitimate rites of the church, he does not extend this recognition to the anointing of the sick: “Extreme Unction is an ordinance concerning which we differ from the Church of Rome more than on the other four. We admit the proper use of confirmation, confession, orders,…
In his review of Bishop A. P. Forbes’s An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles—a new edition of which was recently published by Nashotah House Press—Gerald McDermott compares Forbes’s work to that of Edward Harold Browne and finds the former “deeper and richer,” with Browne being “decidedly Protestant in his approach, while Forbes is reformed catholic.”…
As seen previously, Browne readily grants that “four out of the five [minor sacraments] the Church of England admits, at least in a modified form.” However, it is important to note the qualification that they are admitted in a “modified form,” particularly with regard to private confession. Browne writes that “the Council of Trent anathematizes…
