Not Angels, But Anglicans: A History of Christianity in the British Isles by Henry Chadwick

Not Angels, But Anglicans: A History of Christianity in the British Isles Reviews

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  Nigel Shaw

  A reasonable single volume history of Christianity in The British Isles though the focus is almost exclusively on England and predominantly on the Church of England. Like many anthologies it is somewhat uneven in quality but does include some excellent essays.
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  Alyssa

  Useful and accessible! Would be helpful in a lit & belief class focused on Brit lit.
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  Stephen

  Telling the story of British church history should be an easy overs; you just start with those Celts who were already Christian when Pope Gregory the Great sent Saint Augustine to Kent to convert the heathens in 597 and follow the thread up until yesterday. The venerable "Church Times" (a weekly tabloid in Britain) invited the foremost church historians in the realm to write short essays about their area of expertise and published these as a weekly feature from October 1999 to April 2000. The authors included Henry Chadwick, Kenneth Stevenson, Jonathan Riley-Smith, Gillian Evans, Norman Tanner, Euan Cameron, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Patrick Collinson, and Rowan Williams. The result, when edited by Professor Chadwick into a book, was a history of Christianity in the British Isles ... sort of. The text does not flow like a river. It is certainly not seamless. The style changes with every essay. There is much failing to link themes. There is no overarching vision through which the whole is seen. Given the interests and preferences of the authors, the book includes some things which might not otherwise have been included and omits some others, which is a puzzlement. The greatest criticism of the whole work is that it fails to answer the most interesting questions of all: Is there an Anglican ethos? Is there such a thing as Anglican spirituality? The illustrations are many and well-chosen and add much interest to the text. The boxed short biographies of principal players enliven and humanize the text. Unfortunately, the "For Further Reading" was rather dated when published in 2000 and not at all updated in 2010. It inexcusably omits, for example, Diarmaid MacCulloch’s 2003 work on the "Reformation." The 2010 edit is the first revision; the book needs a new one every decade. A chapter bringing the story forward to the date of publication would be welcome. It is time to replace Bishop John R.H. Moorman's well-worn book "The History of the Church in England" (1953) with another and this text appears to be it.
  
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  Jonathan Frazier

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