Cranmer’s Church Then and Today

By Chuck Collins

Pembroke Street Press 137pp $5.99

Available from Amazon Cranmer's Church: Then and Today: Collins, Chuck, Pearson, Andrew: 9780999290484: Amazon.com: Books

Reviewed by David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

June 25, 2025

Few books on church history, especially Anglican Church history, are as concise, readable and brief as this fine volume by reform thinker and theologian/historian Chuck Collins.

The author brings to this slim volume decades of thinking about Anglican issues; its history, its theology and how it has been practiced over the centuries. It has not always been ‘guns n’ roses’. Broad Church Anglicans, progressive/liberal/revisionist Anglicans, Anglo-Catholics and Reformation Anglicans have duked it out over the centuries with less than commendable results. These positions remain entrenched to this day.

In this book, Collins introduces us to the history and doctrine of the Anglican Church from a Reformation Anglican perspective. He prioritizes the Anglican confessional statements and defining liturgical documents. It is clear that the author believes strongly that a true understanding of the Anglican Church is rooted in the Reformation and his hero Thomas Cranmer.

I can do no better than to quote the author himself. “The English reformers were willing to die for certain doctrinal beliefs that are core to Christianity. They were a diverse bunch, to be sure, but they were united in their commitment to the supremacy of Holy Scripture, to the central doctrine of the New Testament – justification by grace alone through faith – to the priesthood of all believers, and to a sacramental understanding that the grace of Holy Communion is Christ’s spiritual presence in the hearts and affections of the faithful recipients. These inviolable Anglican doctrines are enshrined and preserved in the Elizabethan Settlement and the recognized formularies of the English Reformation.”

Collins is happy to point out that our unity is not some invented connection with the Archbishop of Canterbury, nor does the church’s origin have anything to do with Henry VIII’s divorce to look for a male heir, and its concomitant break with Rome.

Collins does not shy away from controversy. He is happy to take on Rome over the issue of justification and sanctification, the nature of the Eucharist, salvation and much more. He addresses issues of Baptism, Holy Communion, Prayer and the needed place of the Bible in our daily lives.

His hard-hitting, take no prisoners style, I found appealing especially as we live in a time when we are exhorted to be tolerant, diverse and inclusive. Collins will have none of it. “It is when we speak of the gospel that the wonderful peculiarities of what it means to be a Protestant Christian are seen,” he writes. “Job’s question is our question, and the question of every human heart: how can sinful men and women have fellowship with a holy and righteous God?”

How Catholics and Protestants answered this question represents the greatest divide between the two – a divide that still exists today. The Reformation’s biggest discovery, after the Bible, was finding and experiencing a way of righteousness and justification that was all but forgotten in the Middle Ages.

Collins has done the Anglican Communion and its many breakaways a great service in writing this book. It can be read by students of Anglicanism and by clergy and laity in developing countries with even a reasonable knowledge of English. It will provide anchors for your life, soul and worship. I heartily commend it.

Available from Amazon Cranmer's Church: Then and Today: Collins, Chuck, Pearson, Andrew: 9780999290484: Amazon.com: Books