When it comes right down to it, my knowledge of Anglicanism is miles wide and inches deep. I cannot speak for long about the great figures of Anglicanism. I cannot quote form Hookers *Laws*, nor can I recite any of the Tracts. I know Cranmer only through the Prayer Book (and that but an echo). I quote Archbishop Temple all the time (“The church is the only organization on Earth that exists primarily for the benefit of its non-members”), but I probably don’t have the quote right, and I have no idea where it comes from.
Of modern Anglicans I can do a little better. With CS Lewis’s work I am very familiar. I have read much of NT Wright. But I remain mostly ignorant of the current occupant of Canterbury.

I can give the most tenuous of sketches of the broad sweep of Christianity in the British Isles. I cannot answer the question of whether Joseph of Arimathea really came to England, nor do I understand the political intrigue that surrounds the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. And who is in line to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury? I don’t know.

But I have two challenges to the learned among us.

First, defend if you can this worship of Hooker that goes on. Great man that he apparently is, why should *I* hold him in such high esteem? Unwashed member of the masses that I am, I would claim for Cramner, if any one, the honor of the “Founder father” of Anglicanism. But even that would be a mistake, for we have received Anglicanism as a gift from *all* those who have come before. Even the people who I would be in most serious disagreement have their part to play (I have in mind the 17th century Latitudinarians, who foster a Deism that I abhor, but who rightly remind us of the Humanism that is a part of the Gospel). It is well and good that Hooker should be an “Anglican prophet of reason” for us, But there are many prophets in our history who also must be heard (even the hard ones like Newman).

Second, don’t let us forget this broad sweep of history, especially in this time of conflict. Anglicanism has hit many rough patches before, where it appeared that this special gift would be lost. Near its founding, Anglicanism nearly lost its “catholic-ness” and in the 18th century almost lost its very faith in a powerful, active God. But God has been faithful, and I do not believe he will leave us now. Israel constantly forgot how the LORD had led them, and faced discipline because of their forgetfulness. Help us to not be like them!

Charlie,

Good questions. I agree that it is possible to over-play Hooker’s significance for Anglicanism. Important as he is, Hooker has never played the role in our tradition as, say, Calvin or Luther have for others. Even Cranmer, formative as he was, cannot truly be held to be the founding theologian of Anglicanism. It is a mark of our catholicity that we are not beholden at our roots to the vision of any one person however laudable.

Still, Hooker is a pivotal figure for Anglicanism. The theology of the Church of England in the 16th century was an ad hoc affair. Hooker pulled it together and gave it a shape and direction. Those who follow are beholden to him.

I think he is also significant because, in his capaciousness, many have been able to find in him a congenial mentor. He has enough Aquinas to mentor the catholic-minded. He has enough Calvin to mentor the more Evangelical-minded. And he is enough a child of the Renaissance to mentor the more Humanistic-minded. And yet, he does not belong to any of these subsequent parties and can offer challenges to each.

So, while we are not Hookerians, we are indebted to him as our most seminal theologian.

I very much like and agree with your last paragraph.

Dear Charlie -

Thanks so much for raising these questions.  They are important on numerous levels, and I hope that what follows will do a good job addressing them.

First, in terms of Hooker’s writings, there is a new reader in the Laws that just came out in the past few months.  Entitled Law and Revelation (isbn: 9781853119910), it is edited by Raymond Chapman, who is the Vice-President of the Prayer Book Society.  It contains excerpts from all eight books of the Laws, and is an excellent introduction to Hooker’s unfinished magnum opus.  The volume is also a part of a series called Canterbury Studies in Spiritual Theology, which is dedicated to making selected writings of various Anglican theologians available fairly inexpensively.  Volumes thus far have been on Michael Ramsey (isbn: 0802830390), The Oxford Movement (isbn: 1853117226), George Herbert (isbn: 1853119482), Lancelot Andrewes (isbn: 1853118893), Gregory Dix, OSB (isbn: 185311717X), F. D. Maurice (isbn: 1853117773), Thomas Traherne (isbn: 1853117897), and Austin Farrer (isbn: 1853117129).  There is a forthcoming volume on C. F. D. Moule, one of the greatest Anglican biblical scholars of the 20th century, as well (isbn: 1848250185).  I trust that other volumes are also forthcoming.  I cannot comment the series highly enough; the best volumes are those on Hooker, Traherne, and Farrer, in my opinion.  (The only volume that I do not yet own is that of Herbert.  Of course, you can also get Herbert’s Complete English Works (isbn: 0679443592) in a nice hardcover for less than $20.00.)  If you get the volume on Hooker, do let me know what you think.

Second, in terms of Anglicanism and Hooker, there are two answers (two answers because there are two historically important readings of Hooker).  The first pertains to Hooker as an apologist for the Church of England as a) rightly reformed, and b) established in England.  The second pertains to Hooker more specifically as a defender and commentator upon Anglican liturgy.  For Hooker, all of this goes together, but in truth he spent more time upon the latter - the defense of the liturgy - than upon the political elements of his theology.  The fifth book of the Laws, which is all about the Book of Common Prayer, is longer than the Preface and the first four books of the Laws combined.  Briefly, I think that what has made Hooker so important over the last 400+ years has been his liturgical work (to which one might join the rhetorical structure of the Laws - although it was a polemical work, it is far more graceful than anything Calvin wrote, and it wholly lacks the rabid and violent excess of John Knox, for example).  The fifth book of the Laws is, at points, dazzling in its imagery.  And, regardless as to what Cranmer thought about the Eucharist and a lot of other things (I am not convinced that Cranmer ever had his mind made up, to be honest), Hooker’s theology of Eucharistic grace and deification, rooted in the Scriptures and the Greek Fathers, was far clearer and far more eloquent than anything that Cranmer ever wrote.  However inadvertently, Hooker located Anglican theology squarely within the context of Anglican liturgy, and Anglican liturgy squarely within the context of a mildly-scholastic, but heavily Patristic theological framework.  Hooker’s work set the tone for all later Anglican theology.

In terms of Cranmer, I think that it is Hooker’s sacramental and liturgical thought that makes him more influential than the Archbishop.  Although the two Prayer Books that Cranmer produced effectively laid the groundwork for all later Anglican theology, a) the 1662 BCP (which was very much a Laudian product) had more direct influence in the long term than the 1549 and 1552 BCPs (and only if we want to talk about indirect influence can we talk about the 1549 BCP as more important than the 1662 BCP); b) Cranmer’s own Eucharistic writings, spelled out most directly in his Defence of the Truth and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament… (isbn: 1592447775), is not always that clear.  Besides, Cranmer - like Henry VIII and other early English reformers - has always been something of an embarrassment to Anglicans.  Cranmer retracted practically everything he had fought for before he was burned at the stake.  His final words before being burned at the stake were “this hand doth offend” (or something like this) and although he may have said this in a final moment of anti-Roman Protestant defiance, far from making things clear in the end, it only muddied the waters further.  Cranmer had - at points - a solid sense of liturgical structure; unarguably, he had a strong sense of humanity’s finitude and dependence upon God.  But, in my opinion, that is all.  Cranmer held such an extreme theology of headship that he even says in the transcript of his trial that a Muslim would be the head of the Church in Islamic lands - hardly a workable ecclesiology!  And, the Eucharistic theology of the 1552 BCP (at least, as spelled out in the liturgy itself) has never been repeated by later Prayer Books.  That is no small matter.

I think that Fr. Matt is spot on when he says that Hooker pulled it all together in a way that no one earlier in the sixteenth century had done.  One might say that Hooker is to Anglicanism what Irenaeus of Lyons was to ancient Catholicism: the first person to offer a synthetic vision of a particular theological movement that later came to determine orthodoxy itself.  Incidentally, a nice volume on the reception of Hooker from 1600 - 1714 is Michael Brydon’s The Evolving Reputation of Richard Hooker (isbn: 0199204810).  If you want a good collection of essays on Hooker - indeed, a fantastic collection of essays - I suggestion Richard Hooker and the Construction of Christian Community (isbn: 086698206X).

Does this help?

I think what is most helpful is placing Hooker into his historical context. The Brydon book might be the best choice for me. Matt’s pointing to Hooker having a taste of Aquinas and a taste of Calvin raises my sympathies.

What I am most interested in is how he is “used” by those who come after him. If he is Irenaeus, who are the Augustines and Aquinas’ who follow?

Because of my own history, I would love to know what people like Wilberforce (Wesley, Whitefield too) made of Hooker.

And the real truth is I do not trust how he is used by modernistic progressives to push reason to the front of the authority line. How much of the descent into Rationalism in the 18th century can be laid at Hooker’s feet?

Charlie -

As for the “evangelical” (I think the term is anachronistic for the late-18th c., hence the scare quotes)readings of Hooker, I don’t know.  I’ve read some of Wilberforce’s abolitionist writings, but that is all, and as far as I can tell Whitefield has yet to be really engaged as the Freethinker-turned-Anglican minister that he was.  But, there is much, much more to 18th century Anglican theology than that.  The Brydon book stops at 1714, though, so major 18th century figures like Bishop Butler and Samuel Johnson are not discussed in the book, and Non-Juror debates are also not discussed (if I recall correctly).  But I know that Johnson uses Hooker quite a lot for his Dictionary, and Butler’s work in natural theology is - and I take Rowan Williams at his word here - indebted to Hooker’s thought.  Of course, I suppose that other works in natural theology, such as Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selborne (one of the founding texts of modern ecology, btw, and by an Anglican parish priest no less), and William Paley’s Natural Theology (isbn: 0199535752) are also indebted to Hooker in some ways as well (although not always explicitly).  The most influential representation of Hooker for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is without doubt Izaak Walton’s.  You can find Walton’s Lives in various editions, as well as a generous excerpt of his Life of Hooker in Jessica Martin’s recently edited volume Izaak Walton: Selected Writings (isbn: 1857543076).  Walton’s book The Compleat Angler (isbn: 0199538085) is the third most widely printed book in the history of the English language, btw - a fascinating work on fishing as a form of contemplation, with a whole lot of pro-Royalist political and theological asides thrown in for good measure (it was first published in 1653, under Cromwell).  It is a book that belongs on every Anglican’s shelf, I think.

If you’re interested in political theology of the Restoration period through the eve of the Oxford Movement, the best person to read is J. C. D. Clark.  His book English Society 1660 - 1832, Second Edition (isbn: 0521666279) remains a landmark work in the field of Old Regime England, and his follow-up volume The Language of Liberty 1660 - 1832 (isbn: 052144957X) looks at political theology and concepts of liberty in the wider Anglo-American world, with the end result that a) the American Revolution emerges as a religious war, and (of pertinence here) b) English Arianism shows itself to have had a considerable influence upon the founding of the Episcopal Church, USA.  If you get English Society, do get the second edition, as the first edition is both a bit outdated and historiographically polemical in a way that the second edition is not.  Clark argues against any easy identification of the 18th century with rationalism (or, for that matter, non-Anglican Dissent) or skepticism.  And, I think that even if you want to look at the growth of natural theology and ideas of fixed natural laws, these are rarely divorced from a fairly thick theological framework.  So, 18th century “rationalism” was by no means secular (although in some instances it was heterodox - and Clark discusses that at length).

As for “modernistic progressives”, who are you referring to?  I confess that I tend to stay away from books written in the seminaries, as these are often - but not always - rather far afield from contemporary scholarship.  (There are exceptions, of course; in the USA, Sewanee has people that continue to put out landmark - and, in some cases, award-winning - volumes.)  Again, I do commend Richard Hooker and the Construction of Christian Community as a fantastic set of secondary sources on the Anglican great.  The only monographs that I would recommend are W. J. Torrance Kirby’s Richard Hooker’s Doctrine of the Royal Supremacy (isbn: 9004088512) are Nigel Voak’s Richard Hooker and Reformed Theology (isbn: 0199260397).  My complaint with both is that they do absolutely nothing to place Hooker in the context of medieval English political theology, and locate him with reference to continental theological debates, which are seen as divorced from political ideas of either revolution (the Calvinist option) or passive obedience (the Anglican preference).  Nonetheless, they are good books.  Kirby also has a collection of essays entitled Richard Hooker, Reformer and Platonist (isbn: 0754652882), largely reprinted from journal articles and other sources.  It, too, is a good book, although the aforementioned criticism applies here as well, I think.  However, all three of these will cost you a pretty penny.  For what it is worth, I am unimpressed by the work of Nigel Atkinson.  Hooker studies is in an exciting place right now, I think, but I also think that it has not quite yet come into its own.

All of this to say, of course, that your best bet is to simply read Hooker yourself, and then move on from there.  =)

It occurs to me that I operate from a “hermeneutic of the ‘evangel’.” My eye is drawn to the parts of the story that capture what is for me an in-breaking from the outside, into the the place of cold deadness, a word of power and change. So I think of the work of John Wycliffe and William Tyndale (and from this perspective, these two are the real fathers of Anglicanism). You could argue that the rest of the story is dealing with the fallout of giving the people the Bible in their own language. The power that is unleashed is misused maybe more than it is used well. Hooker can be seen as one who seeks to steady the ship (you all have argued before about Hookers place in the debates with the Puritans, and about his relationship to the monarchy). I would agree that order is better than disorder, so the work of theology is important. But that work must always be seen to be in the service of the Gospel.

[Might it be that Hooker and Laud can be seen as trying to bring order from chaos in two different ways: Hooker through thoughtful persuasion, and Laud through sheer force of might? We think we prefer Hooker, but we are always tempted by Laud.]

And so the story goes that periods of intense fervor are followed by scholastic periods of tidying up. And added to a desire to get theological ducks in a row is the (justifiable) horror of what kinds of things we do to each other when we think we are right. So in the wake of the English Civil war (and the 100 Years war on the Continent) there arises a desire to make sure that nothing ever comes along to raise our passions.

But (thank God) there comes again a new in-breaking of power. A line stretches from Whitefield and Edwards to Wilberforce. And of course the Wesleys play a major role.

[Interesting to note that the time it takes for things to “settle down” gets shorter and shorter. No doubt this has something to do with the advance of travel and communication technologies.]

Modern evangelicalism (the late 1800’s is not the period of the rise of Evangelicalism, that is the 1700’s) arises as a response to both the fundamentalism and late modernism of the early 1900’s. But for my money it is Pentecostalism that is the fresh thing that God did in response to impasse of the last century (like all the past cases there was the precursor seen very early which is followed by the main act later - the Charismatic movements into the mainline churches, bringing the core idea of Pentecostalism into the mainstream).

Henry Ford said that history was “one damn thing after another.” And so goes the view of history from a secular point of view - pessimistic and ultimately nihilistic.

Instead we need what I can call an Ignatius view of history - continually asking the question “What is God doing?” Then, yes it is important to understand Hooker, but what was God doing *in* Hooker, and how should that inform what we do and say?

Katie’s reply in another thread belongs in this thread.