The Piety of John Flavel

2008

The largely illiterate laity of eleventh-century England have left few hints of their internal spirituality. We simply do not have the same kind of evidence for this period as we have, for example, for the seventeenth century when Puritans kept spiritual diaries, documenting their inner religious lives. This lacuna, I believe, has led to an over-emphasis on the evidence of the external aspects of their piety, particularly on pious gift-giving, which has left more abundant evidence in the form of charters, wills, and obituary lists. This over-emphasis is often accompanied by the anachronistic assumption that their gifts were disingenuous or incongruous to true piety and that the churches and abbeys receiving them were more concerned with contributions than catechizing. Moreover the elite laity of this period of Anglo-Saxon history were becoming increasingly wealthy and among the various outlets for their conspicuous consumption was pious giving to the Church, which serves to eclipse ...

2004

This book is designed to introduce general readers to a wide range of influential Puritan writers and a representative work for each that pushes through stereotypes to the heart and soul of these Christian pastors and theologians. With a clear grasp of the historical contexts in which these Puritan works were written, these twenty essays illuminate the vibrant spirituality of the Puritans, which transcends their sometimes surprising political, ecclesiastical and religious differences. The 18 contributors include J. I. Packer, Sinclair Ferguson, Mark Noll, Leland Ryken, Philip Graham Ryken, Richard Lovelace, Kelley Kapic and John Coffey.

Graduate Diploma Dissertation - Queen's Foundation, 2017

An exploration of the ethical call of John’s Gospel to become one with God, imitate Jesus, and do ‘greater works’ of compassion through God’s Holy Spirit.

Textual Cultures

This essay explores an artifact at the Newberry Library Chicago; cataloged as a copy of Thomas Becon's Pomaunder of Prayer (c.1560), this artifact is in fact a number of texts bound together for the personal use of an eighteenth-century owner, one John Buck. The anthologized texts are briefly examined, and an attempt made to sketch a preliminary portrait of John Buck based on his choice in devotional material and his own social context. This essay concludes that Buck's appropriation of early modern Protestant propoganda into his own eighteenth century Anglican identity provides a unique and helpful window into the early development of "polite religion" in England, which would come to define the Romantic period.

Textual Cultures: Text, Contexts, Interpretation, 2016

This article details the contents of a personal eighteenth-century devotional anthology, owned by one John Buck. By exploring the histories of the texts contained within, as well as Buck's own marginal notes, the author attempts to sketch a possible portrait of Buck, theorizing the ways in which he may have put these texts to use in the maintenance of his personal piety. Ultimately, this paper concludes that Buck stands out as an example of disciplined piety in a religiously turbulent time, with his own practices signaling the developments of Methodism and "polite religion" as the century progressed.

Published in Church History and Religious Culture, 97:3-4 (2017), 526-28

This chapter introduces the post-Reformation turn to inward ‘heart religion’ by discussing the relationship between Puritanism, Pietism, and evangelicalism. It emphasizes the deep sources of Protestant affective piety, taking note of Robert Wilken’s assertion that ‘nothing is more characteristic of the Christian intellectual tradition than its fondness for the language of the heart’. Building on the findings of the contributors and other historians, it shows how eighteenth-century evangelicals drew on a variety of sources: the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican devotional literature (Reformed, high church, and latitudinarian); Puritan practical divinity; Reformed and Lutheran Pietism; as well as Catholic mystical writers. The mingling of these different sources was a significant factor behind England’s Evangelical Revival. However, ‘heart religion’ was also refracted through the lenses of denomination, doctrinal tradition, region, gender, and social status. This resulted in a diverse set of trajectories among eighteenth- and nineteenth-century evangelicals.

A brief exploration of Salesian spirituality, largely based on Wendy Wright's study in the Classics of Western Spirituality series.