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5.0 von 5 Sternen
An excellent survey, 7. Dezember 2005
The text, 'A History of the Church in England', by J.R.H. Moorman, is one of the important works of Anglican history of this generation. There aren't many one-volume treatments of the whole of Anglican history; while Anglicans as a rule give a good amount of attention and authority to history (the second of the three pillars of Anglicanism - Scripture, Tradition, and Reason - has much to do with history), it is surprising perhaps that this book is rare in nature. As Moorman writes in the preface to the first edition, 'It is notoriously difficult to pour a gallon of water into a pint pot.' Moorman doesn't simply treat the period of time from Henry VIII to the present, a five-hundred year span that is also difficult to encompass in a single volume; he examines the history of the church IN England from the earliest Christian presence to the present time. Perhaps this explains the title more fully - this is not so much a history of the institution of the Church of England, but rather an exploration of the church as it continues from its earliest times to its current expression. Moorman concedes that his is not an unbiased reporter - indeed, such a creature is unlikely to be found, particularly among those for whom English and England are native aspects. Moorman states that 'impartial history would be very dull', and thus makes no such pretension. He is one who does not see the Church of England as being created by Henry VIII, but rather sees the church in England (of which the Church of England is the primary institutional successor) as a continuous entity. Moorman's text is an interesting read, but a bit dry by the standards of today's historical writing. I can tell by comparison to other works of the 1950s and 1960s (when the principal text was assembled) that this would have been an innovation in terms of accessibility and resistance to stodgy history (the kind that comes in dusty tomes residing on library shelves, doomed to never be read), but today reads as being a bit archaic at times. As every history is necessarily selective, this one suffers a time or two in the kinds of details left out, but generally hits all of the major events and issues of the development of Anglicanism in England, particularly from the Elizabethan time forward to the early part of the twentieth century. One of the flaws of the book is that it does not take into account the increasingly global nature of the Anglican Communion over time. Moorman treats this only briefly in a few sections (four pages in one chapter, six pages in another). Moorman also only briefly touches on intercommunion and ecumenical actions, which are increasingly important in today's society (when he writes about other churches, it is overwhelmingly about the Roman Catholic church that he is writing). However, Moorman is an excellent text for the topic its focus. It is well documented (nearly 800 other works are referenced here), has an excellent index (24 pages of small print), and a good table of contents with chapter annotations. This is a must-read text for any Anglican, or any student of the history and culture of England.
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