About This Newsletter
Welcome to "A Mere Christian on the Anglican Way," a newsletter that explores the rich heritage of Christian faith through the particular lens of Anglicanism.
In his introduction to Athanasius' "On the Incarnation," C.S. Lewis made a compelling case for reading old books. He wrote that "every age has its own outlook" and is "specially liable to make certain mistakes." The remedy? "Keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds," which can be done "only by reading old books."
Lewis continues, explaining that when we read “time-tested” books we become increasingly intimate with the great theological consensus shared by all faithful christians through the ages. Lewis calls this theological consensus, “Mere Christianity” and describes it as follows:
Measured against the ages "mere Christianity" turns out to be no insipid interdenominational transparency, but something positive, self-consistent, and inexhaustible. I know it, indeed, to my cost. In the days when I still hated Christianity, I learned to recognise, like some all too familiar smell, that almost unvarying something which met me, now in Puritan Bunyan, now in Anglican Hooker, now in Thomist Dante….
We are all rightly distressed, and ashamed also, at the divisions of Christendom. But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them. They are bad, but such people do not know what it looks like from without. Seen from there, what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity.
As a professor of theology, Anglican priest, and now seminary president, I’ve spent my career following Lewis’s advice and commending old books to my students and anyone willing to listen. I’ve created this Substack as a way to put my recommendations to paper, commending not only great books but the consequential ideas found in them, and their realization in the Anglican Way.
Exploring the Anglican tradition, I delve into the works that have shaped it—not merely reading what others have said about Augustine, Cranmer, or Hooker, but engaging directly with their writings. As Lewis observed, "firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than secondhand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire."
But why focus specifically on the Anglican Way? In "Mere Christianity," Lewis used the metaphor of Christianity as a house with many rooms:
I hope no reader will suppose that 'mere' Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions... It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms... It is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals.
The Anglican Way is my room in this great house, and although I recognize it as just one expression of the broader Christian faith - I believe it offers an excellent way to be Merely Christian. As Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher wrote,
The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.
The Anglican Church in North America expresses this beautifully when it says that to be Anglican "is not to embrace a distinct version of Christianity, but a distinct way of being a 'Mere Christian,' at the same time evangelical, apostolic, catholic, reformed, and Spirit-filled."
This newsletter explores that distinct way—its beauty, wisdom, and spiritual depth—while remaining grounded in what Lewis called "mere Christianity," that "positive, self-consistent, and inexhaustible" faith that has endured through the centuries despite denominational divisions.
As Lewis remarked, those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily disheartened by these divisions. "Seen from without," he wrote, "what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity."
About Me
My ecclesiastical title is The Very Rev'd Canon Dr. Bryan Hollon, and I am the 8th Dean & President and Professor of Theology at Trinity Anglican Seminary. Before joining Trinity, I served for sixteen years as a Professor of Theology at Malone University in Canton, Ohio and as Resident Theologian and City Director for the C.S. Lewis Institute of Northeast Ohio. In 2017, along with my wife Suzanne, I planted St. John's Anglican Church in North Canton, Ohio.
As a scholar, I have tended to specialize in ressourcement theology, which is best exemplified in the work of Henri de Lubac. As a seminary Dean and President, I am keenly interested in the ways that Christians and Christian churches engage contemporary culture and remain faithful to the gospel in different contexts. Most importantly, I am a proponent of the great consensual tradition that C.S. Lewis referred to as "Mere Christianity."
I have been married to Suzanne since 1993. We grew up on opposite ends of the great state of Texas and met at Baylor University. We have three grown children: Harrison, Claire, and John.
About Trinity
For those who do not know of Trinity, we are located in the Pittsburgh area and have approximately 250 students as well as thousands of alumni serving in churches and ministries all over the world, on every continent besides Antarctica. Our seminary was founded to reform and renew The Episcopal Church and was, for many years, one of the eleven official episcopal seminaries. However, we are no longer affiliated with The Episcopal Church but with the Anglican Church in North America, a Province developed by faithful Anglicans from across the globe, many of them Trinity alumni and friends.
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