An Anglo-Catholic Visionary for Modern America: Gordon Butler Wadhams and "The Way of Christ" - Hardcover

by Joseph F. Byrnes (Author)

"Anglo-Catholic" is not an abstract label for Father Gordon Butler Wadhams, the vibrant personality whose life is narrated and whose writings are anthologized here. In the Episcopal (Anglican) Church, Anglo-Catholicism attracts, repels, confuses, and has a variety of meanings that Wadhams sorted out across the years as an Episcopal and a Roman Catholic priest. Joseph F. Byrnes here presents and clarifies his writings on the church and ecumenism, the liturgy, the Bible, and Christian mission. The lifelong Anglo-Catholic vocation of Gordon Wadhams was marked by inspiring family experiences, enlivened by his own youthful experiments with churchgoing and focused by his friends and mentors, Episcopal and Catholic. His timeline cannot be our own, but it serves as a template for our own search to understand how the church is built up by ecumenism, how its liturgy develops by acculturation of timeless traditions, how it valorizes the biblical writings for each generation, and how it inspires the rejection of war, elimination of racism, and dedication to the intellectual and physical well-being of all.

Author Biography

Joseph F. Byrnes has a PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School and is professor emeritus of modern European history at Oklahoma State University, with both ministerial and academic experience. His most recent books are Catholic and French Forever: Religious and National Identity in Modern France, Priests of the French Revolution: Saints and Renegades in a New Political Era, and God on the Western Front: Soldiers and Religion in World War I.