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English Spirituality Volumes 1 & 2

Author:	Gordon Mursell
Published By:	SPCK (London)
Pages:	500
Price:	£19.99 ea
ISBN:	See below

Reviewed by Chris Skilton.

Volume 1: ISBN 978 0 281 05991 1

Volume 2: ISBN 978 0 281 05992 8

In 2000 Gordon Mursell edited The Story of Christian Spirituality for Lion Books, overseeing an ambitious project surveying 2000 years of Christian spirituality, embracing the church in both the West and the East. This was an attractively produced coffee table book introducing the main themes and movements in spiritual development in the life of the church from the beginning to the present day. It is still an excellent way into the subject.

He has now written two volumes surveying English spirituality over the same sweep of time.First published in 2001, this paperback version now makes a masterful survey available to a wider readership. The two volumes follow the story of spirituality chronologically, and each follows a similar pattern. Each chapter presents a social, historical and theological context for the given period, identifies key movements and themes of the time, and then offers a detailed study of some key figures from the relevant century. This is an extraordinarily valuable resource to dip into and through which to deepen and broaden one’s knowledge. He does not just write about different authors, but, by way of examples, includes several passages of original text.

Mursell, having been Dean of a Cathedral, Tutor at an Anglican Theological College and now Bishop of Stafford, naturally shows his Anglican roots and bias. It’s inevitably easy to think of names that are not here. For example, Baptists would perhaps have liked Dan Taylor and William Carey to feature, although both Bunyan and Spurgeon are given careful consideration. He is also less sure on some figures than others: Simeon and Ryle are probably worth more than the few lines they receive and twentieth century evangelical spirituality doesn’t get much of a look-in (which may say more about the nature of the subject than it does about the author!). It is true of the twentieth century section that we are still too close to the subjects to really know who or what will be of lasting value.

I particularly enjoyed some of the earlier writings and was delighted to fill in some of the gaps of my knowledge for the period 1066-1500, although here too I was surprised not to find more about for instance the Ancrene Wisse or Piers Plowman, both of whom played a significant part in English medieval spirituality. The volumes are also what they say they are - 'English' spirituality and, while some might welcome similar treatment of Welsh, Scottish and Irish writers, that would be a suitable subject for treatment elsewhere. There are extensive footnotes at the end of each chapter (and by extensive, I mean running into several hundred each time and in some cases over a thousand!). Each chapter also carries a full and accessible bibliography of both primary and secondary sources.

Of course, the game of who else might be included and who is lucky to have got in could always be played. Suffice to say that these volumes are a magnificent achievement and the ?40 that these two books together will cost would be an excellent investment and a source of pleasure, information, education and spiritual nourishment. If a church wants to show in a practical way how it treasures its minister, it should buy them these two volumes.