April #ThemeOfTheMonth: Christian History
Added about 3 years ago by Sacristy Press
Throughout April we are going to be diving into three very different aspects of Christian history with the help of three of our authors as part of our #ThemeOfTheMonth. Watch the blog and our social media channels for more from these authors and their books.
Luke Miller is Archdeacon of London. As Faith & Belief Sector lead for London Resilience, he has been involved in many of the major incidents in the capital over the last few years and the pandemic response and has been appointed a member of the London Recovery Board. He was appointed a Chaplain to the Queen in 2020.
The founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist to which Father Congreve belonged, believed that members of SSJE should be men of the moment, men precisely up to the mark of the times. In showing Father Congreve to be a man of his moment, Luke Miller in A Life-Long Springtime, shows Father Congreve is a man of every moment, including our moment. Many of Father Congreve’s concerns, the wonders and beauty of creation, racial justice, aging, are concerns echoed by numerous people today. By looking at the issues of his day through a particular Christian lens, Father Congreve can help us look at our concerns today through a similar lens, and ground our concerns about creation, racial equality, and aging in the Christian doctrines of Creation and the Incarnation. The book will reward any who are not only interested in history, and the history of an Anglican monastic community in particular, but any who want to reflect deeply on the issues of our day.
James Koester SSJE, Superior, Society of St. John the Evangelist
Dr Paula Clifford has published widely on topics as diverse as medieval French and popular theology. Having been a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and teaching Medieval French and Linguistics at the University of Reading and University of Oxford, she spent 13 years working for Christian Aid, first in communications and then as Head of Theology. Paula is now a priest in the Church of England.
Her book explores the ways in which biographers, writers and artists have presented Tuscany’s medieval holy women, and the part played in their conceptualization by the medieval Church and the great monastic Orders, as well as by politics and secular culture.
Michael Chandler is an historian and author of several books on the Church of England in the nineteenth century. He holds a Lambeth Diploma in Theology and a doctorate from King's College London and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is a former Dean of Ely Cathedral and prior to that was a Residentiary Canon at Canterbury Cathedral.
The Victorians were a weird bunch, imbued with an enthusiasm, energy, and obsessiveness that seem alien to our louche late-Elizabethan ways. Their Archbishops, as Michael Chandler’s excellent new study shows, were no exception. … The supporting characters are larger than life and worthy of any novel (or Crown-like Netflix series). … This is an exceptionally well-researched piece of scholarship, and is also entertaining and readable. Until we get our Netflix series, this, for me, will sit worthily alongside Chadwick et al. as an annal of the mix of seriousness, strangeness, and the sublime which was the Victorian Church.
Fergus Butler-Gallie, The Church Times
Keep your eye on our blog and social media through out the month to see what these three authors have to say on our #ThemeOfTheMonth: Christian History and pick up your copies of their books here.
Please note: Sacristy Press does not necessarily share or endorse the views of the guest contributors to this blog.