William Carter: Earle Backen: Sacred Art Full colour art book in hard back. 

Earle Backen (1927-2005) was a distinguished artist and an influential teacher at the College of Fine Arts, Sydney whose work is held in private collections and galleries at home and abroad. An oblate of the Anglican Benedictine Community of St Mark at Camperdown in Victoria, his two great passions were Art and Christianity.  William Carter (1944-2011) surveys the artist’s religious works, etchings and icons, and the vibrant paintings in the Orthodox Art Series, which hang in Christ Church St Laurence, Sydney.

Fr James Murray SSC: The Divine Companionship (2009)

This meditative collection of prayers which accompany full colour reproductions of Earle Backen’s paintings from the Orthodox Art Series is a beautiful gift and suitable for posting. 

28 pages, soft cover. ISBN: 978-0-9587512-54 $10 + postage. 

St Laurence Tract No. 1 (March 2011)

Anthony Miller: How to be a priest: George Herbert’s Country Parson 

Like the poetry of George Herbert (1593-1633) The Country Parson is written in a style that expresses the modest piety, common sense, and tolerance that have come to be associated with the traditional Anglican clergyman. Indeed, it helped create this image. At a time when an Anglican parson would come from a higher social class and be much better educated than almost all his parishioners, Herbert shows in touching detail the ways in which he must enter into their everyday lives. This intimacy is necessary to successful religious teaching and moral guidance.

 The Country Parson makes high claims for the religious and social role of priesthood. It includes a beautiful passage in praise of the sacrament of the Eucharist, and it assumes that the parson will take political and social as well as religious leadership in his parish. In a book written around 1630, these claims take their place in the sharpening debate between mainstream Anglicans and puritans over the role of priesthood and the nature of the church itself. Herbert navigates this debate in ways that do not align him exclusively with either side.

Anthony Miller was formerly Associate Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at the University of Sydney. He has degrees from Cambridge (MA) and Harvard (PhD), and held visiting positions at the University of Minnesota, the University of California, Berkeley, and St John's College, Oxford.

St Laurence Tract No. 1: 32 pages, soft cover. ISBN: 9-780958-751292

$7 + postage.

St Laurence Tract No. 2 (September 2011)

Barry Spurr: ‘The world shall come to Walsingham’: The Blessed Virgin Mary in English Poetry

Spurr particularly focuses on some twentieth-century representations of Mary in verse, such as Robert Lowell’s ‘Our Lady of Walsingham’ and T.S.Eliot’s ‘Lady whose shrine stands on the promontory…’ from Four Quartets. But the tract ranges widely and, both in generous quotation and close analysis, will stir the reader’s discovery of many wonderful poems about Mary in the English language, revealing in the process how the expression in poetry of religious ideas and spiritual experience can produce the most telling, evocative and memorable insights. 

 Barry Spurr is Professor of Poetry and Poetics (Personal Chair) in the University of Sydney. His most recent books are See the Virgin Blest: The Virgin Mary in English Poetry (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007 and a study of T.S. Eliot’s Christianity, Anglo-Catholic in Religion (Lutterworth, Cambridge, 2010).

St Laurence Tract No. 2: 34 pages, soft cover. ISBN: 9-780987-134202

$7 + postage.

St Laurence Tract No. 3 (November 2011)

Anthony Miller: The Genesis of Catholic Anglicanism: John Jewel and Richard Hooker

Jewel and Hooker established the terms that the seventeenth-century divines and the nineteenth century Oxford Movement would develop in their definition of Catholic Anglicanism.

As the Anglican church took shape in the reign of Elizabeth I, its nature was called into question from two sides, as it still is. The Roman church argued that it had forfeited the title of catholic; the puritan movement campaigned to make it more protestant in doctrine and practice. In answer to the Roman arguments, John Jewel wrote An Apology or Answer in Defence of the Church of England (1564), arguing the church is based on catholic tradition in the form of ‘God’s holy Gospel, the ancient bishops, and the primitive Church’.

Richard Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity (1593-97) is a massive treatise that answers puritan objections to the church’s organization, the content of its prayer book, and its continuity with catholic tradition. 

St Laurence Tract No. 3: 36 pages, soft cover. ISBN: 978-0-9871342-2-6

ST LAURENCE TRACT 4   Derek Sankey:  Science and Christian Faith: Meeting the Challenges Ahead  

The central task of Christian theology has been to interpret the gospel for each new age, beginning with the early church as it strove to comprehend the momentous events of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Mostly throughout history, theology has attempted to harmonise the message of faith with the prevailing thought-forms of the day.  But from the onset of modern science in the seventeenth century, the aim of achieving harmony was progressively replaced by a need to resolve conflict.  Much of this conflict was avoidable. If we are to meet the challenges ahead those committed to the Faith need to examine their theology and reinterpret the gospel in the light of  the coming new age of complexity science and neuroscience.

Derek Sankey completed a Bachelor of Divinity Honours Degree at the University of London in 1977, followed by a Master’s degree, in 1979, at the University of Kent, Canterbury in the History and Philosophy of science.  From 1983-86 he directed a prestigious national project at the Farmington Institute, Oxford, on the Teaching of Science and Religion in Schools.  From 1986-95 he lectured at the University of London, where he also obtained his PhD, and from 1995-2006 at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, before moving to Seoul National University, Korea. He came to Sydney with his wife Dr. Minkang Kim in 2010.  He is an Honorary Associate of the University of Sydney.

44 Pages     $7 + postage

ST LAURENCE TRACT 5  Marianne Dorman: Lancelot Andrewes, the Mentor of Classical Anglicanism

Commemorating Andrewes’ death in his diary, William Laud wrote, “About 4 o’clock I the morning died, Lancelot Andrewes, the most worthy bishop of Winchester, the great light of the Christian World”. That day was the 25^th September 1625.

Andrewes’ ministry from catechist to bishop is often dismissed by historians who have regarded his friend, Richard Hooker, also a defender of the faith, as the first in the line of great Anglican theologians. Marianne Dorman makes the claim that “when one compares him with Hooker, and the influence he had among his contemporaries during the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign, it is clear that the English Church is far more indebted to Andrewes, for turning the tide against Puritanism”.

Marianne Dorman, B.A. M. Litt., M.A. (Hons),  Ph.D., Th. A. and Dip. Ch. Ed is a Eucharistic and Pastoral minister. Her publications include Lancelot Andrewes: Mentor of Reformed Catholicism; Lancelot Andrewes: the Perennial Preacher; Lancelot Andrewes: Teacher and Preacher; Lancelot Andrewes—Sermons (2 vols.);

Mark Frank and His contribution to the Caroline Church, and Seven Whole Days on George Herbert’s poetry. These books are available from Belltower Books at Christ Church St Laurence.

Symposium Papers - 2009

Papers presented at the CCSL Symposium and edited by Helen Hewson.

 Peter Crawshaw: ‘The Camden Society Chalice and Paten at CCSL.’ —Justin Karl Arnold: ‘The origins of liturgical revival in the Church of England during the nineteenth century’ — J.R. Nethercote: ‘Henry Adams and the Cathedral Church of Notre Dame de Chartres’ — Gwynn Roberts: ‘Theological and liturgical references in the works of James Joyce’ — Anthony Miller: ‘Michael Haig and “the poetry of experience”’ — Michael Haig: Four Poems — Craig Wilcox: ‘Breaker Morant’s biblical epitaph’ — Craig Johnston: ‘The Anglican Mission at Gona’. 

Symposium Papers - 2007

Barry Spurr: ‘John Donne and the Poetry of Meditation’ — Hilary Vallance: ‘Charles Kingsley and The Water Babies. A children’s book?’ —Anastasia Webster-Hawes: ‘Musing upon Mary in a New Millennium. A feminist critique of Marian doctrine’ — Helen Hewson: ‘A reading from Noel Rowe’s “Magnificat” in Barry Spurr: See the Virgin Blest’ — Brendon Stewart: ‘Carl Jung: Religion as a Psychological Phenomenon’ — Neil McEwan: ‘Interpreting the Word – the Mystery behind the Music’.

68 pages, soft cover. ISBN: 978-0-9587512-3-0 $7 + postage.

Symposium Papers - 2005

Papers presented for The 160th Anniversary of CCSL, 1845-2005

Ed: Helen Hewson — Joseph Waugh: ‘“Discord among Brethren”: evidence of dissent at Christ Church, 1838 -1894.’ — Philip Gissing: ‘Science and Faith in the nineteenth century’ — Colin Bannerman: ‘Eating in Sydney – Now and Then.’ — William Carter: ‘The Sacred Art of Earle Backen’ — Anthony Miller: ‘“Your original face”: a Zen-Catholic encounter’ — Anne Boyd: ‘Music as the Voice of God? A composer reflects’. 

72 pages, soft cover, colour supplement. ISBN: 978-0-9587512-2-3

$7 + postage.

‘what sweeter music’ 

Glorious choral and organ music celebrating the Seasons of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany.

Commemoration, Ritual and Performance — The Iberian Connection

 Medieval and Renaissance music from The St Laurence Chamber Choir performed in conjunction with a Symposium conducted by the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Sydney focusing on music as it was celebrated on the Iberian Peninsula before 1600. Included are works by Peñalosa, Guerrero, Morales, Victoria and others.

$12 + postage.

Earle Backen

Greeting Cards Pack 

8 glossy cards

CCSL Tea Towel

Pure Linen.

Made in Australia.

The St Laurence Apron