Advent calls us to serious reflection undergirded by hope as we prepare for the time of renewal that is to come in the joy of Christmas. There is much to occasion reflec – tion and penitence as we look at a world deeply riven with conflict and disruption and know that so many find cause to view the future with foreboding. Nonetheless as Dr Keane reminds us from Donne, the key for authen – tically grounded hope is, that while, “Twas much, that man was made like God before, But, that God should be made like man, much more.”

At such times we do well to look at the fundamentals of our faith and heritage and for these ends this edition provides much to ponder. Joan O’Donovan establishes forcefully the impropriety of secularists who seek to limit the social, moral and epistemic claim and efficacy of the church’s public authority of proclamation. Jesse Billett argues forcefully too that the Payer Book embodies noth – ing less than the Catholic tradition expressed within the language of scripture. Then, the wisdom of the ages that preceded the innovations of modern liturgists on just how we should read the scriptures in church is set out by Fr. Gavin Dunbar.

Meanwhile, we have room still for the unexpected, as when Dr. Littlejohn finds his oats on the dual impact of tradition by first discussing the ideal in porridge and then suggesting later that some liturgists are so doctri – naire that they would effectively have us only ever eat haggis. But might not that “Great chieftain o’ the pud – ding-race” be not unlike Anglicanism after all — in being too widely underrated?