Search results for ""Author Ian Ker""

This full-length life of John Henry Newman is the first comprehensive biography of both the man and the thinker and writer. It draws extensively on material from Newman's letters and papers. Newman's character is revealed in its complexity and contrasts: the legendary sadness and sensitivity are placed in their proper perspective by being set against his no less striking qualities of exuberance, humour, and toughness. This book attempts to do justice to the fullness of Newman's achievement and genius: the Victorian 'prophet' or 'sage', who ranks among the major English prose writers; the dominating religious figure of the nineteenth century, who can now be recognised as the forerunner of the Second Vatican Council and the modern ecumenical movement; and finally, the universal Christian thinker, whose significance transcends his culture and time.

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John Henry Newman, one of the towering figures of the early Victorian Church of England, caused shock and outrage in equal measure when he announced his espousal of Roman Catholicism in 1845. His Apologia, written nearly twenty years later in response to a scurrilous public attack by Charles Kingsley, is a superbly crafted response to those who criticized his actions and questioned his motives, and traces his spiritual development since boyhood, his close involvement in the high church Tractarian Movement and his agonizing decision to reject the church he had been born into. Ostensibly an autobiography and a speech for the defence, the Apologia transcends self-justification to explore the very nature of Christianity and its place in the modern age.

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An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, reprinted from the 1878 edition, “is rightly regarded as one of the most seminal theological works ever to be written,” states Ian Ker in his foreword to this sixth edition. “It remains,” Ker continues, "the classic text for the theology of the development of doctrine, a branch of theology which has become especially important in the ecumenical era.” John Henry Cardinal Newman begins the Essay by defining how true developments in doctrine occur. He then delivers a sweeping consideration of the growth of doctrine in the Catholic Church from the time of the Apostles to his own era. He demonstrates that the basic “rule” under which Christianity proceeded through the centuries is to be found in the principle of development, and he emphasizes that throughout the entire life of the Church this principle has been in effect and safeguards the faith from any corruption.

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