The Wisdom of Richard Hooker

We are two Anglican churchmen united in this book by a single passion: to bring the wisdom of Richard Hooker, the founding theologian of the Anglican religious tradition, before the attention of the clergy and laity of Anglican and Episcopal churches throughout the world in a form that will make his helpful and healing insights widely available in our troubled and fractured age.  The need is especially acute as Anglicans, in the face of schism, are looking back to their intellectual roots and to the primary apologist of their branch of the Church. 

One of us is a priest and scholar in the Episcopal Church who is one of the editors of the authoritative Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker (1974-1995) as well as the author of many scholarly articles and more popular tracts on Hooker’s theology.[1]  The other of us is a life-long church layman who is the author of the only full biography of Hooker, first published in 1999, and of two modern editions of large segments of Hooker’s writings that present some of his most important ideas in contemporary English.[2]  Both of us have preached, written, and lectured for many years, inside the Church and without, in order to bring Hooker’s wisdom to as wide an audience as possible.

In this volume we have joined forces to offer what we think are the most compelling and helpful of Hooker’s insights in a form that we hope will make them readily available to seminarians trying to make sense of Hooker’s sometimes beautiful but often arcane prose, ministers preparing sermons, laypeople in their devotional readings, and anyone seeking some help in leading their lives in our troubled times.  The selections we have chosen are arranged alphabetically by topic.  An easy to use index is provided so that subjects of interest can be found quickly.  In a few instances we have repeated selections that seemed to belong under more than one heading.

We have “translated” Hooker’s often-difficult prose into modern English, taking care not to distort his meaning or rob his dynamic style of its vigour.  In most instances, the changes are made only to modernize grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and to make some of Hooker’s long sentences more succinct.  Since the book is not intended for professional theologians or other scholars, we have not given page references for our selections.  We have, however, provided book and chapter references for those who wish to read further in either the Folger Edition or Secors’s modern editions of the sermons and Book V of the Laws. 

Hooker, of course, was a man of his times and not ours.  We have not attempted to sanitize his ideas to make them more compatible with modern sensibilities.  When he discusses such issues as clergy qualifications--which he thought often needed to be kept low in order to have at least warm bodies in the sanctuary--or preaching, which he was inclined to denigrate because he felt the Calvinist extremists of his day placed far too much emphasis on that part of the worship service--he was addressing issues specific to his time.  Although his view of women was surprisingly enlightened for his day, many will find him condescending or even offensive.  One of the few allowances we have made for modern convention is to render Hooker’s use of the male pronoun non gender-specific whenever that does not alter his meaning or make a garble of his sentences.

For readers not familiar with Hooker, this much may suffice as an introduction.  He was born in 1554 in the village of Heavitree, just outside the walls of the city of Exeter in western England.  This was the year when Mary Tudor, known to history as “Bloody Mary”, became Queen, re-established Roman Catholicism in Protestant England and unleashed terrible persecution of reformed clergy--about as horrendous as that committed against Roman Catholics several years earlier by her half-brother, Edward VI.  A member of the poor branch of a prominent Exeter family, young Hooker was a bright lad, did well in grammar school, went to Oxford under the patronage of John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury and the first major apologist of the Church of England.  At Oxford he earned his bachelor’s and masters degrees, was ordained a priest in the Church, and soon became a renowned professor and scholar, teacher of the sons of some of the most England.

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Softcover

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