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Our Church: A Personal History of the Church of England
For most people in England today, the church is simply the empty building at the end of the road, visited for the first time, if at all, when dead. It offers its sacraments to a population that lives without rites of passage, and which regards the National Health Service rather than the National Church as its true spiritual guardian. In Our Church , Scruton argues that the Anglican Church is the forlorn trustee of an architectural and artistic inheritance that remains one of the treasures of European civilization. He contends that it is a still point in the center of English culture and that its defining texts, the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer are the sources from which much of our national identity derives. At once an elegy to a vanishing world and a clarion call to recognize Anglicanism's continuing relevance, Our Church is a graceful and persuasive book.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
14 people are currently reading
253 people want to read
About the author
Roger Scruton
139 books1,347 followersSir Roger Scruton was a writer and philosopher who has published more than forty books in philosophy, aesthetics and politics. He was a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He taught in both England and America and was a Visiting Professor at Department of Philosophy and Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington D.C.
In 2015 he published two books, The Disappeared and later in the autumn, Fools Frauds and Firebrands. Fools Frauds and Firebrands is an update of Thinkers of the New Left published, to widespread outrage, in 1986. It includes new chapters covering Lacan, Deleuze and Badiou and some timely thoughts about the historians and social thinkers who led British intellectuals up the garden path during the last decades, including Eric Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband.
In 2016 he again published two books, Confessions of A Heretic (a collection of essays) and The Ring of Truth, about Wagner’s Ring cycle, which was widely and favourably reviewed. In 2017 he published On Human Nature (Princeton University Press), which was again widely reviewed, and contains a distillation of his philosophy. He also published a response to Brexit, Where We Are (Bloomsbury).
In 2015 he published two books, The Disappeared and later in the autumn, Fools Frauds and Firebrands. Fools Frauds and Firebrands is an update of Thinkers of the New Left published, to widespread outrage, in 1986. It includes new chapters covering Lacan, Deleuze and Badiou and some timely thoughts about the historians and social thinkers who led British intellectuals up the garden path during the last decades, including Eric Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband.
In 2016 he again published two books, Confessions of A Heretic (a collection of essays) and The Ring of Truth, about Wagner’s Ring cycle, which was widely and favourably reviewed. In 2017 he published On Human Nature (Princeton University Press), which was again widely reviewed, and contains a distillation of his philosophy. He also published a response to Brexit, Where We Are (Bloomsbury).
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 28, 2017
I don't care what people say, I like Roger Scruton. I particularly love him in the field of aesthetics. This book, a kind of elegy for the church of England, was more challenging. But I learned quite a few things reading it. Recently, attending matins at Westminster Abbey in London, as an American it felt a bit strange to witness a national state church service--which included the singing of the national anthem and readings by the mayor of Westminster (who stayed to greet members afterward). The sermon was filled with references to goings-on in the city and I felt stunned at this interconnection between civic and religion. Roger Scruton is really interesting on this topic.
Another topic he is interesting on is the formation of the Anglican compromise. In the age if memes, people talk about the church of England as basically being founded so that the king could get his divorce. It makes the theology seem not just heretical but sleazy. Scruton was great on this. After visiting some of England's greatest cathedrals and attending both matins and evensong in many places there, I really enjoyed Scruton's book--only just as an eye-opening account of the Church of England. I definitely recommend it, though I imagine it will be less interesting to anyone not from England! This was my second read.
Another topic he is interesting on is the formation of the Anglican compromise. In the age if memes, people talk about the church of England as basically being founded so that the king could get his divorce. It makes the theology seem not just heretical but sleazy. Scruton was great on this. After visiting some of England's greatest cathedrals and attending both matins and evensong in many places there, I really enjoyed Scruton's book--only just as an eye-opening account of the Church of England. I definitely recommend it, though I imagine it will be less interesting to anyone not from England! This was my second read.
August 21, 2019
A book which has moments of clarity followed by pages of musings and wandering which never quite clarify the point. In the end there is a melancholic and fatalistic underpinning to the writing. It is as though Scruton is saying to the reader ‘I know the Church is no longer, but I do not and cannot let it go, for I cannot see anything better.’
April 12, 2024
Scuton, Sir Roger. Our Church.
Sir Roger’s memoir, if one could call it that, tells of a church’s story, of how the identity of the Anglican Church intertwined itself with that of the English nation. Our first response is naturally to “tsk-tsk,” seeing the low fortunes today of both Britain and the Church of England. That may indeed be the correct response, but such a response would miss something: the church–a specifically Protestant church–managed to seep into the very essence of a people, even if they at times no longer believed in that essence. Sir Roger tells us that people who fail to see the Anglican church as England’s national church will also fail to understand England’s identity.
The Church managed to do this primarily through the tools of liturgy and the Book of Common Prayer, along with the King James Version. Church rites are “‘points of intersection of the timeless/With time,’ moments at which eternity is made manifest in rituals.” Indeed, “when it comes to the transcendental, trust is all we can give.”
While the Christian Nationalism phenomenon will (blessedly) soon fade from the scene, the Anglican church is probably the best example of a successful Christian nationalism. “The Church of England is heir to the conciliar tradition and to the alliance between secular government and doctrinal conformity that was forged in the early councils.” If Christian Nationalists were smart (they aren’t), they would settle for something like an earlier Anglicanism. It comes with a price, though: the king must be the judicial head of the church. That rules out Baptists and Presbyterians. Why the king, though? This is only a guess (and since Christian nationalism will never get off the ground, it remains only a theory). The monarch (or monarchy) is the focal point of the people, providing a unity for the nation that a General Assembly just cannot give.
Is it still possible to have non-monarchical/non-Erastian Christian nationalisms? I suppose it might be, though one would be hard-pressed to find workable examples today.
The American Anglican church descended from the Episcoal Church of Scotland, bypassing the need to acknowledge the king as head of the church.
“English churches tell of a people who for several centuries have preferred seriousness to doctrine and routine to enthusiasm–people who hope for immortality but do not really expect it, except as a piece of English earth.”
“God, as represented in the tradition of the Anglican Church, is an Englishman, uncomfortable in the presence of enthusiasm, reluctant to make a fuss, but trapped into making public speeches.”
“The Anglican church, by contrast, is a place of light and shade, of tombs and recesses, of leaf mouldings and windows decked with Gothic tracery and leaded glass.”
The Book of Common Prayer
“Words like ‘almighty’ and ‘everlasting’, phrases like ‘the author of peace and lover of concord, transfigure the things and situations to which they are applied. They are familiar, dignified words, which lose nothing from repetition.”
The Church and Politics
“Wesley himself showed no tendency to political radicalism, ending his life as he had begun it, a settled Tory.”
“While it may have been true at the end of the nineteenth century to describe the Anglican Church as the Tory Party at prayer, it would be more correct to say, of its leaders today, that they represent the Labour Party trying to remember how to pray, while not really understanding the point of it.”
Church and Culture
Speaking of public schools: “And the quarantining of female sexuality meant that women were divided, in the thinking of Victorian schoolboys, into two classes: virgins and whores, both forbidden.”
“J. K. Rowling’s Hogwarts, for all its pagan accessories, is an Anglican institution, as Gothic a settlement as any chaplain-haunted public school.”
Criticisms
Despite his legendary status as a conservative philosopher and cultural critic, Sir Roger was not a theologian, and that is painfully evident in places. He freely admits towards the end that his view of the church and Christian life would not “stand under the rigor of Calvinist scrutiny.” The book should not be read as theology, though. It is a memoir, with all of the strengths and foibles of the narrator.
Sir Roger’s memoir, if one could call it that, tells of a church’s story, of how the identity of the Anglican Church intertwined itself with that of the English nation. Our first response is naturally to “tsk-tsk,” seeing the low fortunes today of both Britain and the Church of England. That may indeed be the correct response, but such a response would miss something: the church–a specifically Protestant church–managed to seep into the very essence of a people, even if they at times no longer believed in that essence. Sir Roger tells us that people who fail to see the Anglican church as England’s national church will also fail to understand England’s identity.
The Church managed to do this primarily through the tools of liturgy and the Book of Common Prayer, along with the King James Version. Church rites are “‘points of intersection of the timeless/With time,’ moments at which eternity is made manifest in rituals.” Indeed, “when it comes to the transcendental, trust is all we can give.”
While the Christian Nationalism phenomenon will (blessedly) soon fade from the scene, the Anglican church is probably the best example of a successful Christian nationalism. “The Church of England is heir to the conciliar tradition and to the alliance between secular government and doctrinal conformity that was forged in the early councils.” If Christian Nationalists were smart (they aren’t), they would settle for something like an earlier Anglicanism. It comes with a price, though: the king must be the judicial head of the church. That rules out Baptists and Presbyterians. Why the king, though? This is only a guess (and since Christian nationalism will never get off the ground, it remains only a theory). The monarch (or monarchy) is the focal point of the people, providing a unity for the nation that a General Assembly just cannot give.
Is it still possible to have non-monarchical/non-Erastian Christian nationalisms? I suppose it might be, though one would be hard-pressed to find workable examples today.
The American Anglican church descended from the Episcoal Church of Scotland, bypassing the need to acknowledge the king as head of the church.
“English churches tell of a people who for several centuries have preferred seriousness to doctrine and routine to enthusiasm–people who hope for immortality but do not really expect it, except as a piece of English earth.”
“God, as represented in the tradition of the Anglican Church, is an Englishman, uncomfortable in the presence of enthusiasm, reluctant to make a fuss, but trapped into making public speeches.”
“The Anglican church, by contrast, is a place of light and shade, of tombs and recesses, of leaf mouldings and windows decked with Gothic tracery and leaded glass.”
The Book of Common Prayer
“Words like ‘almighty’ and ‘everlasting’, phrases like ‘the author of peace and lover of concord, transfigure the things and situations to which they are applied. They are familiar, dignified words, which lose nothing from repetition.”
The Church and Politics
“Wesley himself showed no tendency to political radicalism, ending his life as he had begun it, a settled Tory.”
“While it may have been true at the end of the nineteenth century to describe the Anglican Church as the Tory Party at prayer, it would be more correct to say, of its leaders today, that they represent the Labour Party trying to remember how to pray, while not really understanding the point of it.”
Church and Culture
Speaking of public schools: “And the quarantining of female sexuality meant that women were divided, in the thinking of Victorian schoolboys, into two classes: virgins and whores, both forbidden.”
“J. K. Rowling’s Hogwarts, for all its pagan accessories, is an Anglican institution, as Gothic a settlement as any chaplain-haunted public school.”
Criticisms
Despite his legendary status as a conservative philosopher and cultural critic, Sir Roger was not a theologian, and that is painfully evident in places. He freely admits towards the end that his view of the church and Christian life would not “stand under the rigor of Calvinist scrutiny.” The book should not be read as theology, though. It is a memoir, with all of the strengths and foibles of the narrator.
June 21, 2020
Just read this a second time. There's lots to love, quite a lot to disagree with, in this very personal account of Englishness and the place of religion - in the form of the Church of England - in it. I don't know whether I think this is a hopeful or a pessimistic assessment? Certainly, it makes me (want to) love the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible even more than I already do. Whether they can be the foundation of a surviving Church, I don't know. Dinosaur Power!
October 15, 2024
A charming and impassioned tribute to the Church of England, the church that Sir Roger Scruton ended his days in as religion became an increasingly important topic for him (this book came out on the heels of his book 'The Face of God' which had had its genesis as the Gifford Lectures and would be followed by 'The Soul of World' in 2014). The book's title notes that this is "a personal history of the Church of England" and for Scruton, the Anglican Church has sustained the spirit of English culture while navigating the Scylla of Roman Catholicism and the Charybdis of unaesthetic and dogmatic Nonconformist Protestantism found among Puritans, Wesleyans, and other low-church Protestants. He writes for the layman, not offering a heavy tome of ecclesiology a la Paul Avis but instead a wise rumination on the Church of England's history and impact. Scruton offers a broad overview of Anglican history, commenting on notable figures and their achievements (I was surprised that in his discussion of Anglicans who converted to Catholicism he failed to mention G.K. Chesterton, who himself is Scruton's forefather in championing and loving England and its culture).
From the Reformation, Anglicanism championed the power of the word over sacramental mystery and thus, vernacular language and explanation. The King James Version of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and 'Hymns Ancient and Modern' have become so woven into English culture that they provide a spiritual 'lingua franca' for millions. Scruton notes that:
"St Anselm of Canterbury had famously broached the topic of mystery in the remark 'credo ut intelligam' - I believe in order to understand. Only through faith, itself a gift of God's grace, could a mere mortal be raised to the point of comprehending the divine plan, and seeing what was intended and achieved by Christ's sacrifice. Wyclif was one of many Englishmen of his time who were of the opposite persuasion, holding that the promises of Christianity should be understood in order to be believed. And this is the root of Protestant spirituality, the real reason not only for the use of the vernacular language, but also for eschewing any ritual or ceremony that is not necessary to explaining God's purpose. By understanding the Bible, Christians, according to the Protestant way of thinking, enter into a direct relation with their Saviour, and the Church exists not to clothe this fact in mystery but on the contrary to reveal it, and to implant it in the heart of the believer" (p. 49).
Scruton is an aesthete and he laments the devaluation and even destruction of beauty wrought by the Puritans (he spends considerable time commenting on the hymnody of the English and church architecture) but as a philosopher (one especially indebted to Immanuel Kant), he also appreciates Protestantism's demand for explanation. We can never fully comprehend God, as Scruton himself acknowledges towards the end of the book (indeed, Scruton's openness to mystery and the ineffable ultimately prevent him from becoming as dogmatic as I think a Christian ought to be). Scruton's point about Protestantism's penchant for explanation reminds me of how Catholics often tout the stained glass images in their churches, pointing to them as visual representations of Scripture for those who could not read the Bible for themselves. Yet Dutch historian Johan Huizinga long ago pointed out that this has inherent dangers for “An abundance of pictorial fancy, after all, furnished the simple mind quite as much matter for deviating from pure doctrine as any personal interpretation of Holy Scripture.” Scruton later contrasts Roman Catholicism with Protestantism generally before honing in on Anglicanism's genius middle-way. Like ancient religions like Hinduism:
"The Roman Catholic Church inherited from antiquity a similar habit of consecrating life through pious observances: the lighting of lamps, the laying out of offerings, the genuflecting, crossing, bowing and whispering that change the place where they occur from an empirical to a transcendental location. But the Protestant spirit rebels against those habits. And it rebels on behalf of the word.
The word is the instrument of thoughts. For the Protestant spirit, gestures and rituals conceal reality, words reveal it. Words are the enemy of superstition and the torch that lights our spiritual path. For the extreme Protestant, therefore, words are enough, and a dialogue of friends in the Meeting House is all the holiness that a Quaker requires. The Anglican Church is more cautious, and also more subtle. It recognizes that, when it comes to worship, words must CONJURE their subject and not just describe it. They must be lifted out of their everyday and conversational use, to become ritual gestures, invocations rather than descriptions" (p. 98).
Anglicanism values words, whether it is immortalized phrases from the KJV, Cranmer's beautiful collects, or hymns sung on Sundays that have sustained worshippers for centuries. Yet Anglicanism strategically implants words into its liturgy in ritualistic ways that one does not find in Nonconformist Protestantism.
Another way that Anglicanism unites the best of Catholicism and Protestantism is its mass appeal to the English people. Especially today, especially as evangelicals, we can become discouraged at what seems to be a frail Church and inveigh against antinomian Anglicanism but Scruton points out:
"For it is difficult for a church to minister to the spiritually second-rate. The temptation is to demand of everyone the enthusiasm that the many can simulate, but only the few possess. The genius of the Roman Catholic Church has been in catering for the majority, drawing the ordinary malefactor into the shared need for sacramental moments, and requiring penance, atonement, and forgiveness of everyone, without disdain towards those who find it hard to say sorry or who are quick to take revenge. This feature, which to the ardent Puritan is a profound spiritual fault and a sign of corruption, is - from another and more lenient perspective - a social and political virtue. No church can hope to be a national church if it does not emulate this aspect of the Catholic tradition. And that is what the Anglican Church has done. It is why it prompts continuous rebellion from the Nonconformist and the Puritan, and also why it has had the support of ordinary people aware of their weakness" (p. 87).
Anglicanism, like Catholicism, has ardent believers who pour their time, money, energy, and devotions into their faith but there are also many believers who are "culturally Christian" and whose church attendance is limited to Easter and Christmas. Yet Anglicanism has been able to engraft these lukewarm people into itself, at least exposing them to faith through national ceremony (think of the American Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry's acclaimed homily at the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle) and cultural inheritance.
The Anglican Church has two polarizing wings - low-church evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics - but despite Anglicanism's reputation as a "broad church," Scruton points out that for all its latitudinarianism, it was not able to completely retain the evangelical John Wesley (who remained a lifelong Anglican even as he founded Methodism) and the high churchman John Henry Newman who eventually converted to Catholicism and rose to the rank of cardinal (p. 62).
Scruton writes as a layman and a philosopher rather than as a theologian and their are times when his doubts pain me as an evangelical. Sometimes one wonders if, were the ancestral religion of the English Buddhism or Judaism would Scruton have adhered to it because of its embeddedness in English culture. Yet he is also the typical Anglican in that, compared to an American South Baptist or pentecostal, he is never quite so dogmatic as the former and not as exuberant and extemporaneous as the latter:
"The Anglicanism to which I am attached is like Orthodox Judaism and Hinduism - not abstract doctrine but ritual performance, though a performance through which the profoundest truths of human life are enacted and acknowledged. My kind of Anglicanism would not stand up to the interrogating zeal of an ardent Calvinist. It is a quiet, gentle, unassuming faith that makes room beneath its mantle for every form of hesitation" (p. 185).
In his final years Scruton would play the organ at All Saints Church in Garsdon. No doubt he is now in Heaven playing the organ and worshipping alongside Charles Wesley, Benjamin Britten, and the other saints of the Church of England.
From the Reformation, Anglicanism championed the power of the word over sacramental mystery and thus, vernacular language and explanation. The King James Version of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and 'Hymns Ancient and Modern' have become so woven into English culture that they provide a spiritual 'lingua franca' for millions. Scruton notes that:
"St Anselm of Canterbury had famously broached the topic of mystery in the remark 'credo ut intelligam' - I believe in order to understand. Only through faith, itself a gift of God's grace, could a mere mortal be raised to the point of comprehending the divine plan, and seeing what was intended and achieved by Christ's sacrifice. Wyclif was one of many Englishmen of his time who were of the opposite persuasion, holding that the promises of Christianity should be understood in order to be believed. And this is the root of Protestant spirituality, the real reason not only for the use of the vernacular language, but also for eschewing any ritual or ceremony that is not necessary to explaining God's purpose. By understanding the Bible, Christians, according to the Protestant way of thinking, enter into a direct relation with their Saviour, and the Church exists not to clothe this fact in mystery but on the contrary to reveal it, and to implant it in the heart of the believer" (p. 49).
Scruton is an aesthete and he laments the devaluation and even destruction of beauty wrought by the Puritans (he spends considerable time commenting on the hymnody of the English and church architecture) but as a philosopher (one especially indebted to Immanuel Kant), he also appreciates Protestantism's demand for explanation. We can never fully comprehend God, as Scruton himself acknowledges towards the end of the book (indeed, Scruton's openness to mystery and the ineffable ultimately prevent him from becoming as dogmatic as I think a Christian ought to be). Scruton's point about Protestantism's penchant for explanation reminds me of how Catholics often tout the stained glass images in their churches, pointing to them as visual representations of Scripture for those who could not read the Bible for themselves. Yet Dutch historian Johan Huizinga long ago pointed out that this has inherent dangers for “An abundance of pictorial fancy, after all, furnished the simple mind quite as much matter for deviating from pure doctrine as any personal interpretation of Holy Scripture.” Scruton later contrasts Roman Catholicism with Protestantism generally before honing in on Anglicanism's genius middle-way. Like ancient religions like Hinduism:
"The Roman Catholic Church inherited from antiquity a similar habit of consecrating life through pious observances: the lighting of lamps, the laying out of offerings, the genuflecting, crossing, bowing and whispering that change the place where they occur from an empirical to a transcendental location. But the Protestant spirit rebels against those habits. And it rebels on behalf of the word.
The word is the instrument of thoughts. For the Protestant spirit, gestures and rituals conceal reality, words reveal it. Words are the enemy of superstition and the torch that lights our spiritual path. For the extreme Protestant, therefore, words are enough, and a dialogue of friends in the Meeting House is all the holiness that a Quaker requires. The Anglican Church is more cautious, and also more subtle. It recognizes that, when it comes to worship, words must CONJURE their subject and not just describe it. They must be lifted out of their everyday and conversational use, to become ritual gestures, invocations rather than descriptions" (p. 98).
Anglicanism values words, whether it is immortalized phrases from the KJV, Cranmer's beautiful collects, or hymns sung on Sundays that have sustained worshippers for centuries. Yet Anglicanism strategically implants words into its liturgy in ritualistic ways that one does not find in Nonconformist Protestantism.
Another way that Anglicanism unites the best of Catholicism and Protestantism is its mass appeal to the English people. Especially today, especially as evangelicals, we can become discouraged at what seems to be a frail Church and inveigh against antinomian Anglicanism but Scruton points out:
"For it is difficult for a church to minister to the spiritually second-rate. The temptation is to demand of everyone the enthusiasm that the many can simulate, but only the few possess. The genius of the Roman Catholic Church has been in catering for the majority, drawing the ordinary malefactor into the shared need for sacramental moments, and requiring penance, atonement, and forgiveness of everyone, without disdain towards those who find it hard to say sorry or who are quick to take revenge. This feature, which to the ardent Puritan is a profound spiritual fault and a sign of corruption, is - from another and more lenient perspective - a social and political virtue. No church can hope to be a national church if it does not emulate this aspect of the Catholic tradition. And that is what the Anglican Church has done. It is why it prompts continuous rebellion from the Nonconformist and the Puritan, and also why it has had the support of ordinary people aware of their weakness" (p. 87).
Anglicanism, like Catholicism, has ardent believers who pour their time, money, energy, and devotions into their faith but there are also many believers who are "culturally Christian" and whose church attendance is limited to Easter and Christmas. Yet Anglicanism has been able to engraft these lukewarm people into itself, at least exposing them to faith through national ceremony (think of the American Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry's acclaimed homily at the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle) and cultural inheritance.
The Anglican Church has two polarizing wings - low-church evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics - but despite Anglicanism's reputation as a "broad church," Scruton points out that for all its latitudinarianism, it was not able to completely retain the evangelical John Wesley (who remained a lifelong Anglican even as he founded Methodism) and the high churchman John Henry Newman who eventually converted to Catholicism and rose to the rank of cardinal (p. 62).
Scruton writes as a layman and a philosopher rather than as a theologian and their are times when his doubts pain me as an evangelical. Sometimes one wonders if, were the ancestral religion of the English Buddhism or Judaism would Scruton have adhered to it because of its embeddedness in English culture. Yet he is also the typical Anglican in that, compared to an American South Baptist or pentecostal, he is never quite so dogmatic as the former and not as exuberant and extemporaneous as the latter:
"The Anglicanism to which I am attached is like Orthodox Judaism and Hinduism - not abstract doctrine but ritual performance, though a performance through which the profoundest truths of human life are enacted and acknowledged. My kind of Anglicanism would not stand up to the interrogating zeal of an ardent Calvinist. It is a quiet, gentle, unassuming faith that makes room beneath its mantle for every form of hesitation" (p. 185).
In his final years Scruton would play the organ at All Saints Church in Garsdon. No doubt he is now in Heaven playing the organ and worshipping alongside Charles Wesley, Benjamin Britten, and the other saints of the Church of England.
September 19, 2021
This book is a description and analysis of the Church of England by Sir Roger Scruton. His discussion of religion is not my favorite part of his overall philosophy, but the care he has towards the church is lovely. It does not pretend to be a thorough history, but as he says in the subtitle, a personal history. It combines his own journey back to the faith along with elements of history of the Church itself. When it comes to theology proper, the author veers close to heresy at times, especially in the last chapter. Some part of that is due to his reliance on modern philosophers (Kant especially) for understanding Christianity. Nevertheless his love for the Bible, The Book of Common Prayer, and the wellspring of Anglican wisdom from other sources is abundantly clear. He loved the Church of England in a way few people love their church, and that should be commended.
August 9, 2021
Lovely book that gives a personal view of the church of England and touches on the church's evolution and compromise. The book includes some material from the book England an Elegy (another of Scruton's works). Reading this book is vital for those attempting to orientate and introduce themselves to the Church of England's rich history and tradition. However, it is not an exhaustive text and can probably be read in a small number of sittings due to its short length and readability. I would recommend this book be read in conjunction with the aforementioned England an Elegy (despite this meaning that a section of this book would become redundant) and be seen as part of a larger contextualisation of England and the British isles.
August 16, 2013
Not an easy read, but a very rewarding one..... this has explained (to me, at any rate) the history of the Church of England in such a way that I now know why we're in the mess we are.....
November 27, 2023
A very good and honest apology for the Anglican religion, which is the model of a secularised Christian church. I appreciate Scruton very much, but his extension of the 'English Church,' as established following the Glorious Revolution, back into history (and past the wars of religion and the protestant rebellion) cannot to my mind be defended. But it's interesting that he repeatedly places the watershed moment as the years following the Glorious Revolution, to which he dates the Anglican settlement, between 'catholicism' and puritanism. The Anglican religion was then established progressively by the Tudor monarchs Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I, but only truly became separated and nationalised after the final dispatch of the Stuart line, when the Church of England truly became nationalised.
This book provides a useful window to look upon the compromise between church and state, evangelical and 'catholic,' low church and high, that characterises the CofE, and upon the almost reluctant attachment of most Englishmen to the remaining ceremonial of that institution.
This book provides a useful window to look upon the compromise between church and state, evangelical and 'catholic,' low church and high, that characterises the CofE, and upon the almost reluctant attachment of most Englishmen to the remaining ceremonial of that institution.
November 15, 2023
Distasteful and poorly reasoned views on homosexuality. Scruton seems to believe it is somehow degenerate or hedonistic in a way that heterosexuality is not, which I vehemently disagree with. Scruton offers little to defend this view other than a vague allusion to the natural purpose of marriage lying in procreation, but I don't really believe in natural law to that degree, and in any case can't gay couples adopt?
Otherwise, though, a very compelling take on the place of tradition, christianity, and the sacred in modern England and in modern life.
Otherwise, though, a very compelling take on the place of tradition, christianity, and the sacred in modern England and in modern life.
February 10, 2023
Although he did necessarily mean to do it, this is one of the best defenses of Catholic Christianity that I have ever read. The author’s style is immensely readable and learned without being pompous. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and the insights into Christian faith that it has provided.
October 13, 2025
enlightening and depressing
A great summary of what has happened to our national church, the way the leaders of the Church of England have slowly chipped away at this most brilliant of institutions, seeking for the worldly, seeking to make it modern and relevant, and failing to realise its attraction is that it is holy and otherworldly, not just another place
A great summary of what has happened to our national church, the way the leaders of the Church of England have slowly chipped away at this most brilliant of institutions, seeking for the worldly, seeking to make it modern and relevant, and failing to realise its attraction is that it is holy and otherworldly, not just another place
November 9, 2017
A good introduction in the religious thinking of Sir Roger Scruton. The book is a philosophical and historical view of the Church in England. Both the Low Church and the High Church are discussed as well the Catholic Church. Scruton argument is one for an established Church.
April 10, 2018
A real mixture. Moments of clarity and wisdom, and then confusion.
May 8, 2019
unintended observations of the shortcomings of the C. of E.
January 15, 2025
Mildly interesting. Loyal indifference pretty much sums up my attachment to the C of E as well.
April 11, 2016
Very interesting read and an insight to how our culture developed through the christian church
April 13, 2014
Good. Sad. Like Athens, England has been a gift to the world. Another Elegy from Scruton.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews