From the Editor’s Desk

Dear readers,

Throughout the world ring Christmas songs, but the Church invites us not to rush ahead to the joy of the Nativity before first expressing our longing, amid the madness of the world, for Christ’s return. This 14th Issue of the Anglican Way is not heavily seasonal, but it does invite us to consider how we proclaim the Lord’s death until the comes in the church’s ministries, sacramental rites, and the buildings designed to house those ministrations. Benjamin Crosby’s essay on Erastianism and Communion Without Baptism – topics readers might not have imagined have much to do with each other – challenges mainstream assumptions, arguing for a more mature understanding of church discipline. David Gobel, in his first essay for the AW, explores the, now widely forgotten, reformed roots of Anglican church architecture – buildings designed to house the Prayer Book’s liturgies. And our Art Editor, John Hager, writing on the 1637 Scottish Prayer Book – a perennially popular topic among our readers and conference attendees – complicates the common framing of it within a simple ‘high’ vs. ‘low’ theological conflict.

The shorter pieces of this issue add the spice of variety. PBS (USA) President Gavin Dunbar offers a counterpoint to Gobel’s article. Daniel Stoddart (in his debut contribution) explores the fascinating instance of a monastery that the Henrician Dissolution may have missed (– or did it?)! And, Graham Coursey (another first-time contributor) tells the story of the late-19th Century Maryland clergyman, Christopher Thomas Denroche. Rounding out this issue, we have the next installment of Dunbar’s catechetical course, I Am His, and, closing with an explicitly seasonal piece, we include an Advent poem (by your humble correspondent).

To read this issue, please use this link.

With best wishes,