Jonathan Dean’s eloquent and enlightening portraits of ten ‘icons of faithfulness’ from the Reformation - clerical and lay, male and female, Protestant and Catholic - are intended to facilitate a dialogue between modern Christians and their forebears from a fractured and traumatized age. This is ecumenism of a robust and courageous kind, not looking to erase or minimize past differences, but holding out the hope that sincere efforts to understand Christian integrity in an era of conflict can help illuminate our own difficult path to unity. -- Prof Peter Marshall
Dean’s book is subtitled ‘Portraits from the English Reformation.’ He has created ten finely-wrought biographical essays of key religious leaders and writers, ranging chronologically from Thomas More (b. 1478) to Thomas Traherne (d. 1673). Collectively, this produces a comprehensive summary of the religious turmoil, the passions and the tragedies of England in the 16th and 17th centuries, as Anglicanism emerged from its bloody birth throes. Some relatively familiar ground is covered – for example in the essays on Archbishop Cranmer and George Herbert – but other chapters are fresh and intriguing such as the account of the early Protestant martyr Anne Askew; or the valuable insight into Mary Tudor’s reign through the career of Nicholas Harpsfield, the last Catholic Archdeacon of Canterbury. The influence of royalty is covered well, with penetrating and convincing sketches of Queens Katherine Parr and Elizabeth I; these brilliant, highly educated ladies each left a substantial written legacy including private prayers, freely quoted here. Written by a Methodist historian with a strong ecumenical bent, this precise and thoughtful account of the English Reformation is warmly recommended. -- The Reader, Winter edition
