Saturday, April 18, 2009

Dr. Ashley Null on Thomas Cranmer

http://acl.asn.au/resources/dr-ashley-null-on-thomas-cranmer/

[Anglican Church League] 18 Apr 2009--In September 2001, ACL News spoke with Dr. Ashley Null while he was visiting Moore College.

Here’s what we published (in two instalments) at that time –

Un-noticed by many Anglicans around the world, 2002 brings the 450th anniversary of the publication of the second Prayer Book of Thomas Cranmer (pictured), the Reformation Archbishop of Canterbury.

It was the Prayer Book of 1552 (with minor modifications) that was used in the Church of England during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I. With further modifications, it was to become the most widely used edition of the Book of Common Prayer, that of 1662, which is still the standard for all Anglican worship. In the light of the uncertainty among many over what constitutes genuine Anglicanism, it’s more important than ever to know something of the origins of the Anglican Church.

Dr. Ashley Null is an ordained Episcopal minister of the Diocese of Western Kansas. He holds a Cambridge Ph.D. and did his initial theological work in Yale Divinity School. His special area of interest is Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and primary author of the Book of Common Prayer.

ACL News caught up with Dr. Null while he was in Sydney lecturing on Thomas Cranmer at Moore Theological College. After leaving Sydney he went on to Germany to begin a long term research project producing a critical edition of Cranmer’s private theological notebooks.

1 comment:

Jay Gober said...

My primary professor, The Rt. Rev. Bishop Terence Kelshaw and I are only about half way through Dr. Null's fantastic PhD thesis turned book ["Thomas Cranmer's Doctrine of Repentance: Renewing the Power to Love"] and we've found it to be the most powerful, insightful representation of Cranmer and his "theological growth" that has so affected what Orthodox, Conservative, Evangelistic Anglicanism is today. Dr. Null in presenting Cranmer the theologian, has defined in a magnificant insightful way what it means to be "elected" "justified", "sanctified" in the true Protestant Reformed "style." Dr. Null's careful, thorough analysis and presentation of the Archbishop's personal, private "notebooks" [Great Commonplaces] provides both exciting narrative and sound Anglican doctrine "hammered out" during the English version of the Protestant Reformation.

We are left with a number of questions however and would very much like to submit them to Dr. Null. Is this blog the way to accomplish that?