Recommended resources: Anglicans

BOOKS

For an introduction to the Anglican story, see John Booty, Jonathan Knight, and Stephen Sykes, The Study of Anglicanism (1988); Mark Chapman, Anglicanism: A Very Short Introduction (2006), and Winfield Bevins, Simply Anglican: An Ancient Faith for Today’s World (2020). For more in-depth study, see Colin Buchanan, Historical Dictionary of Anglicanism (2015) and Mark Chapman, Sathianathan Clarke, and Martyn Percy, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Anglican Studies (2015). 

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Anglicanism is covered in Oxford University Press’s five volumes about Anglicanism, The Oxford History of Anglicanism (2017–2019), edited by Rowan Strong; as well as Brill’s Anglican-Episcopal Theology and History series (2015–2025), edited by Paul Avis. 

Find the general history of the church in the United Kingdom, from its ancient beginnings to the twentieth century, in John Moorman, A History of the Church in England (1980); John Howe, Our Anglican Heritage (2010); Henry Chadwick et al., Not Angels But Anglicans: A History of Christianity in the British Isles (2010); and Gerald Bray, The History of Christianity in Ireland (2021). 

Many excellent books also exist on specific eras of the church in England and on Anglicanism beyond England. For pre-Reformation English church history, see Robert Norman Swanson, ed., Catholic England (1993); Christopher Harper-Bill, The Pre-Reformation Church in England 1400–1530 (1996); Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars 1400–1580 (2005); and Nicholas Orme, Going to Church in Medieval England (2022). 

Move on to the English Reformation in A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (1964); Christopher Haigh, English Reformations (1993); Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England (1547–1603) (2001); G. W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church (2005); Eamon Duffy, Reformation Divided (2017); and Peter Marshall, Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (2017). 

Additionally, read more on the history of the Book of Common Prayer with Charles Helfling and Cynthia Shattuck, eds., The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer (2008); Brian Cummings, The Book of Common Prayer: A Very Short Introduction (2018); and Alan Jacobs, The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography (2019). 

Discover Anglicanism in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries in John Moorman, The Anglican Spiritual Tradition (1983)—which we excerpted in this issue on p. 10; Andrew Foster, Church of England 1570–1640 (1994); William Gibson, The Church of England 1688–1832 (2000); Calvin Lane, The Laudians and the Elizabethan Church (2013); and Sarah Ward Clavier, Royalism, Religion, and Revolution: North-East Wales, 1640–1688 (2021). You may also find C. S. Lewis’s analysis of Anglicanism in British literature during this time period useful. See his volume English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (1954).

Turn to the evangelical Anglicans with Kenneth Hylson-Smith, Evangelicals in the Church of England 1734–1984 (1989); David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A history from the 1730s to the 1980s (2004); and Randle Manwaring, From Controversy to Co-Existence; Evangelicals in the Church of England 1914–1980 (2002). Dig deeper on the Clapham Sect in Karen Swallow Prior, Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More (2014), and find more on Methodists and Anglican evangelicals in Ryan Danker, Wesley and the Anglicans (2016).

Get to know the Oxford Movement with Geoffrey Rowell, The Vision Glorious: Themes and Personalities in Catholic Revival in Anglicanism (1983); John Shelton Reed, Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism (2000); George Herring, What Was the Oxford Movement? (2002); C. Brad Faught, The Oxford Movement: A Thematic History of the Tractarians and Their Times (2003); Michael Chandler, An Introduction to the Oxford Movement (2003); Stewart Brown and Peter Nockles, eds., The Oxford Movement (2014); and Christopher Dawson, The Spirit of the Oxford Movement (2023).

Trace Anglicanism in America with David Holmes, A Brief History of the Episcopal Church (1993); Pamela Darling, New Wine: The Story of Women Transforming Leadership and Power in the Episcopal Church (1994); Harold Lewis, Yet with a Steady Beat: The African American Struggle for Recognition in the Episcopal Church (1996); Gardiner Shattuck Jr., Episcopalians and Race: Civil War to Civil Rights (2003); David Hein and Gardiner Shattuck Jr., The Episcopalians (2005); and Robert Prichard, A History of the Episcopal Church (2014). 

Finally, explore the story of missions and global Anglicanism with Titus Presler, Horizons of Mission (2001); Ian Douglas and Kwok Pui-Lan, eds., Beyond Colonial Anglicanism: The Anglican Communion in the Twenty-first Century (2001); Kevin Ward, A History of Global Anglicanism (2006); Bruce Kaye, An Introduction to World Anglicanism (2008); and Stephen Burns, Bryan Cones, and James Tengatenga, eds., Twentieth-Century Anglican Theologians: From Evelyn Underhill to Esther Mombo (2020).

PAST CH ISSUES

Many issues of CH reference the Anglican story, but here are some of the most relevant to this issue: 

#2 and #69: John and Charles Wesley

#7, #88, and #140: C. S. Lewis 

#16: William Tyndale

#23: Spiritual Awakenings in North America

#38: George Whitefield

#41: American Puritans

#48: Thomas Cranmer & the English Reformation

#49: Everyday Faith in the Middle Ages

#53: William Wilberforce and the Century of Reform

#60: How the Irish Were Saved

#81: John Newton

#89: Richard Baxter and the English Puritans

#100: 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible

#113: Seven Literary Sages

#120: Calvin, Councils, and Confessions

#156+: Fasts and Feasts

VIDEOS FROM VISION VIDEO

Vision Video has several films related to this issue, including the History of Worship series and This Changed Everything. Find specific figures such as John Wesley in Encounters with John Wesley, John Wesley: The Faith That Sparked the Methodist Movement, Wesley: A Heart Transformed, and John Wesley: The Man and His Mission; C. S. Lewis in The Shortest Way Home, The Most Reluctant Convert,  Shadowlands, and Through a Lens Darkly; John Wycliffe in John Wycliffe: The Morningstar and Morningstar; and William Tyndale in God’s Outlaw: The Story of William Tyndale. Our Torchlighters series for children has episodes on William Tyndale, John Wesley, John Newton, Richard Allen, and John Bunyan.

Find many of these titles and more on Vision Video’s streaming service, Redeem TV.

WEBSITES 

See the usual collections at Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Gutenberg.org, and Internet Modern Sourcebook for access to primary sources; but add Project Canterbury for specifically Anglican collections. Virginia Theological Seminary’s Bishop Payne Library offers an online guide to Anglicanism as well. 

Explore further the major Anglican traditions with these denominational and organizational websites: The Episcopal Church; Anglican Church in North America;  Church of England; Reformed Episcopal Church; Anglican Communion; and Global Anglican Future Conference.  The Anglican Compass website, aimed at people new to the tradition, can also help you navigate Anglicanism in general. 

Finally, find everything you’ve ever wanted to know about all editions of the Book of Common Prayer at justus.anglican.org. Get more specific with the 1979 BCP used by ECUSA and the 2019 one used by the ACNA.    CH