The Protestant Tradition, An Essay in Interpretation (from the library of early female minister Rev Kathleen M Hendry)

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Good. First edition. Hardback, bound in the original cloth with gilt titling to spine. 19.5 × 13cm, xv + 360pp. This copy comes from the library of the Rev Kathleen M Hendry and there is a gift inscription to her to the front pastedown. Kathleen M Hendry (nee Hall, b. 1906) was an early female minister for the United Reformed Church, gaining the parish of Shaw and Heyside in Lancashire in 1931. She trained for the Congregational Ministry (her father was a Methodist minister) but has to resign her ministry when she married in 1938. She returned to pastoral charge after the death of her husband. The original receipt from 1959 from the Independent Press is loosely inserted. This book was intended to offer a new interpretation of early Protestantism and, against this background, a searching treatment of modern religious issues. The Protestant tradition stems mainly from Luther, Calvin, and the Sectarians. Luther was the revolutionary genius; because of his acute sense of paradox his teaching is difficult to understand, but Dr Whale's summing-up makes it a good deal easier. After him Calvin, with his remorseless logic, may seem an unsympathetic figure; but here he is shown in his proper light as the great statesman and doctrinarian of the young church. The Sectarian movement was steadily gaining strength in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; Dr Whale examines its teachings and tells of its later development. He speaks with conviction and vigour about issues including religious tolerance and intolerance and the conflict between Church and State; he closes with a plea for unity the Church. Condition: A good plus copy. There is some foxing to the page edges and prelims but the book remains in strong readable condition.