In Search of Richard Hooker

By Philip B. Secor

Book Overview

Richard Hooker (1554-1600) is the premier theologian of the Church of England, famed for his prophetic apologia of what would later be called Anglicanism in his Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0860122891
• ISBN13: 9780860122890
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Anglican Book Centre
• Length: 362 Pages
• Weight: 1.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

VERY RELEVANT IN LIGHT OF CURRENT EVENTS

This book is very relevant in light of current events in the Episcopal Church in the United States. Since the Ordination of Canon Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, as Bishop of New Hampshire, a vociferous Donatist faction has sought to provoke schism in the Episcopal Church. An exploration of Hooker's life and thought in the pages of Secor's biography provides readers with a useful counterweight to this Donatist heresy.

Anglican Christian Thinker Reborn in New Biography

Not for over three hundred years has a full-length biography of Richard Hooker appeared. The man who wrote the defining work of Anglican Christianity in its infancy certainly deserves renewed attention as Christian traditions, striving for ecumenical unity, must first come to grips with their own unique identities. Professor Secor's biography admirably addresses the need and remedies the neglect of a great man who will be 400 years dead in November. His extremely readable account of Hooker's life makes Hooker and his times come alive for a modern reader. Though Secor frequently alludes to the inaccuracies of Hooker's 17th century biography by Walton, a biography which turned Hooker into a plaster saint, he certainly is no Hooker debunker but rather leaves his readers with an abiding admiration and even affection for Hooker. Blemished only by some typographical errors overlooked in editing, Secor's Hooker biography is an outstanding contribution to a twenty-first century reflection on the English Reformation.

At the Heart of the Anglican Church

Richard Hooker was without question the seminal thinker in the development of the Anglican Church as "The Via Media" - or what became known as the Elizabethan Settlement. Secor's book gives true insight into the influences that shaped the thinking of this man who contributed so much. For such an important academic work, the book is quite readable by the interested layman, as well.