ESSENTIAL TRUTHS FOR CHRISTIANS: A Commentary on the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles and an Introduction to Systematic Theology. Classical Anglican Press, $24.95 paperback, $49.95 hardcover.
With the publication of his new book, orthodox Anglicans are doubly indebted to Bishop John Rodgers. In January 2000, along with Chuck Murphy, he was consecrated as a founding bishop of the Anglican Mission in America, a bold stroke which galvanised the struggle against false teaching in the Anglican Communion. The subsequent emergence of GAFCON, the Jerusalem Declaration and the Anglican Church in North America have vindicated that action and now, after many years’ work, Bishop John has produced a book which will be truly essential for all those committed to rebuilding global Anglicanism as a confessing Communion with a confident and clear witness to the gospel.
The Jerusalem Declaration articulates the key commitments of confessing Anglicanism and in clause 4 it is affirmed that ‘We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today’. Unfortunately, at least in the Churches of the West, the Articles, are commonly regarded as merely historical whatever their formal status, but ‘Essential Truths’, following Gerald Bray’s excellent but briefer survey The Faith we Confess: An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles (London: Latimer Trust, 2009) will go a long way to rectify this confessional deficit.
Bishop John writes in his introduction ‘there is a pervasive ignorance of our Anglican Reformation heritage on the part of many in active leadership in Anglican Churches today. This condition makes it crucial to provide a book that can be read or referred to easily in the midst of busy lives.’ I believe he has achieved his aim admirably
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