Living With History [Paperback]

Fredrica Harris Thompsett offers a lively, engaging introduction to Anglican history and demonstrates its significance for the contemporary church.Living with History is well titled. It's about life, and it's conversationalFredrica Thompsett has some great one-liners. In this fifth volume of the New Church's Teaching Series, she has made history accessible to non-historians. . . . We can thank Professor Thompsett for reconnecting us to our rich and speckled past, a human path infused with the divine.Each denomination has its own history and related perspectives, and Living With History is written from a particularly Anglican slant. It should prove to be a valuable resource for Anglicans interested in the forces that have shaped the denomination, as well as reminding us that history is relevant.Living With History . . . is a fascinating book, not of the details of history but of how we interpret and use it, how we remember past events in order to deal with present questions.Fredrica Harris Thompsett . . . 'looks backward in order to move forward.' Using ten touchstones of history ranging from Common Prayer to the civil rights movement, she provides context for contemporary controversies by examining ancient ones. . . . Thompsett has created a valuable primer, written in an accessible anecdotal style for those who seek to renew their knowledge of the historical church even as they shape its future.Even longtime Episcopalians should find material in Living with History which will make them think and ask questions about their church and their faith. . . . Thompsett's book is written for the inquirer with late twentieth-century sensibilities. It begins with the author's personal views, and in its contents includes as wide a spectrum of the church as possible. It should encourage readers to continue their investigations of a variety of aspects of church history.Fredrica Harris Thompsett, a scholar of the English Reformation, introduces us to the role that history has plal£"