We have an important huge announcement to make:
Akenside Press will reissue Martin Thornton’s books!
Akenside Press has received permission to reissue all thirteen of Martin Thornton’s books. We have received this permission directly from the Thornton family. Previously, Thornton’s work has been published by the likes of S.P.C.K., Hodder and Stoughton, and in the United States, by Cowley Publications. All of his books are currently out of print, although Wipf and Stock has made available six of his books in reprint form, which is certainly better than nothing.
What Akenside Press will do is gather together the different versions of his books and offer them in single, correct form. Yes, there are notable textual differences between, for example, the UK and US versions of Christian Proficiency from 1959 and Prayer: A New Encounter from 1972. Sometimes Thornton’s own text was altered; other times the prefatory materials differed. In nearly all cases, the footnotes he provides to key sources reference out of date versions of those texts (such as in the case of his voluminous citations in Prayer: A New Encounter of John Macquarrie’s Principles of Christian Theology, the 1st edition not the revised 2nd edition). We will gather the texts together, removed any discrepancies, update the citations, collect all prefatory material (forewords, prefaces, which also differ between versions) and release authoritative editions of each of his books, working directly with his family in the process. Yes, this will be an enormous task, one that will require my travel over to England, which I will do this summer (stay tuned for that news coming soon).
As we prepare for releasing his titles, what Akenside Press will do first is publish a medium-length volume of “Selected Writings” of Thornton. These selected writings will be taken from each of his 13 books. Many Thornton fans have read one or more of his “big four” books: English Spirituality, Pastoral Theology, Christian Proficiency, and Spiritual Direction. Yet he has nine more, each of which is brilliant in its own right. And none of the “big four” was Thornton’s own favorite. That prestige belongs to Margery Kempe: An Example in the English Pastoral Tradition from 1960. He wrote this as part of his research for English Spirituality. He pointedly regarded as “a poor mystic but an excellent parishioner” who can teach us today. His interpretation of Kempe’s Book must be read by more Anglicans, and Akenside Press will make that happen, first through excerpts (along with excerpts from the other 12 books) and later in its full, complete form.
What will begin the collection of selected writings will be a substantial introduction to Thornton’s biography and theology written by, well, me. I will be meeting with Thornton’s wife Monica and his daughter Magdalen this summer, along with other people. What is important with any significant theological figure is not only the biography and theology, but the milieu in which the person lived: the wider environment. When a picture of the milieu is grasped, then the biography and theology become all the more poignant and incarnational. I’m going to England to gain an understanding of that milieu, look through Thornton’s collected papers, interview his family members, and be awash in the parts of England that Thornton himself lived in.
We hope to publish “Introduction and Selected Writings” within one year’s time. After that, we will bring out one Thornton book at a time until all 13 have been reissued.
Why do this? Because Akenside Press holds strongly that it is through the guidance of the prophetic theology of Martin Thornton and John Macquarrie that the renewal of Anglicanism lies. Their work is thoroughly infused with Catholic imagination. Macquarrie is the dogmatic theologian of the catholic imagination, and Thornton is the ascetical theologian of the catholic imagination. Their theologies go hand in hand with each other, as the latter half of Thornton’s corpus directly indicates. And so to reissue Thornton’s work is to bring this Catholic theology in front of Anglican eyes and to invite a deeper and wider response to Christ according to the traditions of Anglican Christianity.
The Anglican world desperately needs the voice of Martin Thornton to be heard wider and louder. It is one of the most brilliant, articulate, erudite pastoral and ascetical voices in the entire history of Christianity. We believe he is a doctor of the Church and a saint (as we believe Macquarrie to be both doctor and saint). We believe that Thornton understands Anglican theological identity better than anyone before him. Each of his books remains relevant to our situation today. And it will be our honor and profound privilege to help to educate others with his theology, to help the Anglican Church as well as the wider Catholic churches, and to continue the conversation about the heart of Anglican Christianity that Thornton’s own voice has helped to keep alive.
So, Thornton fans rejoice!
And please pray for Akenside Press. We need your support!