Public Lecture
Who is Richard Hooker and Why Does He Matter for the Church Today?

Date: Sunday, October 20th, 2024

Time: Evensong  7 PM; Lecture 7:30 PM

Location: Historic Chapel

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Lutherans have Martin Luther, Calvinists have John Calvin…but what about Anglicans? Who do we have?

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Less well-known than either Luther or Calvin, but just as significant for the Anglican Tradition as Luther and Calvin are to their traditions, Richard Hooker has been described as the ‘prophet of Anglicanism’.

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Of the second generation of English Reformers, Hooker gave voice to a moderate, judicious, and even compassionate form of Christianity in an age riven with religious conflict and division.

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Richard Hooker (1554-1600), was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, served as Master of the Temple Church in London, and later as the rector of St. Mary-the-Virgin in Bishopsbourne, Kent. He is the author of a massive defense of the English Church, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Several of his sermons also survive. Hooker has been claimed variously by Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals, liberals and conservatives, as their ecclesiastical influence. Yet, a close reading of Hooker’s work defies easy classification.

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What is clear, is that that Hooker developed and set forth a theological method that is still helpful as we deal with conflict in the church today.

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This public lecture will introduce Richard Hooker to attendees with a brief outline of the late-Elizabethan world in which he operated, an assessment of his work, and what he can still offer us as Anglicans today.

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Father Dan Graves has recently co-edited a new book, Richard Hooker and the Christian Virtues (Leiden: Brill, 2024); he previously co-edited Richard Hooker: His Life Work and Legacy—Essays in Honour of W. David Neelands (Toronto: St. Osmund, 2014), and authored a variety of academic articles on Richard Hooker. He is currently working on a biography of Hooker.