That Blessed Liberty: Episcopal Bishops and the Development of the American Republic 1789-1860

The past two decades have seen great convulsions within North American Anglicanism due to the fracture of the Episcopal Church and the formation of the Anglican Church in North America. Along with this has come the question: what constitutes real Anglicanism here in the United States? Until now, little attention has been paid to the historical past of American Anglicanism in providing an answer, with instead a primary focus placed on English roots.

Miles Smith and Adam Carrington seek to change that with this new volume, delving into the past of the fledgling Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America via the most influential bishops of its founding era. In these 10 men we find a coherence, not in personality or temperament, but of vision in building up an Anglican Church that had been laid waste by the American Revolution and disestablishment.

Any discussion of Anglicanism's future must begin with its past. Carrington and Smith have given us an insightful window into that past via That Blessed Liberty.