This book considers the work of Charles Taylor from a theological perspective, specifically relating to the topic of ecclesiology. It argues that Taylor and related thinkers such as John Milbank and Rowan Williams point towards an “Aesthetic Ecclesiology,” an ecclesiology that values highly and utilizes the aesthetic in its self-understanding and practice. Jamie Franklin argues that Taylor’s work provides an account of the breakdown in Modernity of the conceptual relationship of the immanent and the transcendent, and that the work of John Milbank and radical orthodoxy give a complementary account of the secular from a more metaphysical angle. Franklin also incorporates the work of Rowan Williams, which provides us a way of thinking about the Church that is rooted in a material and historical legacy. The central argument is that the reconnection of the transcendent and the immanent coheres with an understanding of the Church that incorporates the material reality of the sacraments, the importance of artistic beauty and craftsmanship, and the Church’s status as historical, global, and eschatological. Secondly, the aesthetic provides the Church with a powerful apologetic: beauty cannot be reduced to the presuppositions of secular materialism, and so must be accounted for by recourse to transcendent categories.

How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls "your hitchhiker's guide to the present" -- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times. Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book is a compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers. Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who "we" are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on.

Dimensions of his intellectual commitment - dimensions left implicit in his philosophical writing.

Charles Miller's rigorous and sensitive examination of Richard Hooker's theology makes a valuable addition to the field of study of the cleric, one of the founding theologians of modern Anglicanism. Miller examines Hooker's works in detail, leading the reader through different facets of his vision of God: creation, Scripture, the sacraments, and practices of Christian devotion. Hooker's theology challenges an increasingly time-bound, relativistic approach to doctrine and truth; his sources were as wide, as ancient, and as modern as Hooker could make them. Miller's thoughtful analysis is informed throughout by an understanding of the context of Hooker's theological development against the backdrop of continental Calvinism and the remnants of Roman Catholicism in England. The growth of interest in Hooker among specialists has been accompanied by an abandonment of the serious study of Hooker's thought among theological students, clergy and theologians. Miller's work addresses thislack; Hooker's insights must not be forgotten in the daily distribution of theological food to Christian people. A study which attunes readers to Hooker's particular theological 'voice' and teaches its value both in his own context and as a present-day interlocutor, this volume will be of great interest to Christians and theological students alike.

In The Origins of Anglican Moral Theology Peter H. Sedgwick shows how Anglican moral theology has a distinctive ethos, drawing on Scripture, Augustine, the medieval theologians (Abelard, Aquinas and Scotus), and the great theologians of the Reformation, such as Luther and Calvin. A series of studies of Tyndale, Perkins, Hooker, Sanderson and Taylor shows the flourishing of this discipline from 1530 to 1670. Anglican moral theology has a coherence which enables it to engage in dialogue with other Christian theological traditions and to present a deeply pastoral but intellectually rigorous theological position. This book is unique because the origins of Anglican moral theology have never been studied in depth before.

Confirmation has sometimes been described as a sacrament in search of a theology. In Perfective Unction, theologian and bishop Jeremy Taylor embraces that search, carefully sifting through the wisdom of patristic theology, the prayers of liturgical manuscripts, and the authority of conciliar decrees. In this way, Taylor not only defends confirmation as a central, sacramental rite of the Christian life, but he also manages to model an Anglican theological method, one that takes seriously the example of the early church, even as it meets the heart of the individual believer with pastoral compassion and generosity. "This is that power from on high which first descended in Pentecost," Taylor writes of confirmation, and it is the mission of the Church to share this immense gift with the world. About the Author Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) was born the son of a barber and died as Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland. Known for his devotional writings, especially Holy Living and Holy Dying, Taylor can also be numbered among the Caroline Divines for his eloquent defense of many Anglican hallmarks--including episcopacy, liturgical prayer, and the riches of sacramental life. About the Editors Reginald Heber (1783-1826) was Bishop of Calcutta. In addition to editing Jeremy Taylor's Whole Works, he was a passionate hymn-writer, best known today for "Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!" Charles Page Eden (1807-1885) served as a priest in the Church of England and contributed his skills as an editor to The Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology and Taylor's Whole Works. Eden is also the author of Tract 32, "The Standing Ordinances of Religion," in Tracts for the Times. About the Library of Anglican Theology Published by Seminary Street Press, the Library of Anglican Theology seeks to provide newly typeset editions of important works from the Anglican tradition for a wide array of contemporary readers--Christian laypeople, historians of the Church, seminary students, bishops, priests, deacons, catechists, and theologians. The Library will provide a rich foundation on which to build as Anglicans continue to theologically engage with the pressing questions of our time.

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.