Candlemas , Conversion and Christian Doctrine

 It looks like it was around last Candlemas, so just about a year ago, that I started reading Cardinal JH Newman's An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.   A year later almost to the day, I have got to the last page.   I've been trying to figure out for a few days how to write about the book; it seems to call for an approach suited to its particular style.   I may not be the one to do that, however!   There are some very notable theologians who have studied Newman.   Ian Ker, Aidan Nichols, and Louis Bouyer are a few who come to mind.  

I'll start by linking to the posts where I talked about the book, mostly from a year ago.   Since I haven't written consistently on here for a while, perhaps that will also give me a chance to review what I was thinking when I started reading it.

January 27:  Councils, Controversies and Communio.   This is probably the line of thinking that made me decide to read the book in the first place.   There are several links to articles by Newman scholars and other commentators.   It was a long and rambling post but I'll put it here for the sake of completeness, and also for the links to helpful resources. 

January 30:  For Which Our Nature is Made.    This post discusses an article by Dr Martin Bruske, in Communio, about Newman's Essay.   

Oh, and he mentioned Newman's sermon on Candlemas, from 1843.   This was Newman's earlier thinking on doctrinal development through a reflection on Mary.  At the time he was still an Anglican.  

February 1:  Cultivating the Soil.   Looks like I had started reading by St Brigid's Day, if not before!  

February 7:  Living and Real Ideas.    About Chapter 1.  

February 15:   The Full Comprehension and Perfection of Great Ideas.  

February 29:  Development and Illumination

March 4:  Impressions

March 15:  Testimony of our Predecessors .  Not about Newman's essay directly, but a look at an article by Dr Larry Chapp.    The short version is that true development will be focused on Christ rather than culture.

It looks like I stopped there and didn't resume reading until this fall.     In fact, until recently I wasn't reading much at all beyond fiction, which is probably part of the reason for how quiet this blog has been.  

I wrote about that, and about development of doctrine, on January 7 2025:

  Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.   

Now that I've listed past thinkings on the book, I will try to add links to any new posts on here.