Book Review: Christian Dogma by Darwell Stone
Darwell Stone, Expanded by Thomas Plant. Christian Dogma: Outlines of Orthodox Anglican Theology. Anglican House, 2025.
What Great Tradition?
It is very common to hear Anglicans appeal to a solid body of doctrine that existed in the past. Christians have referred to it by various names: the ancient faith, the “little-c” catholic Faith, the Great Tradition, First Millennium Christianity, and the Faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). This appeal is meaningful in itself, as it reveals a desire to root the doctrine in the consensus of the past, with continuity to the Apostles, rather than in what is new, philosophical, and contemporary. It is the instinct that C.S. Lewis commends in his “why to read old books”; it is deference to Chesterton’s ‘democracy of the dead’.
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We find the same principle enshrined for us, as Anglicans, in the Jerusalem Declaration, which repeatedly appeals to formularies of the distant past and places a core element of a faithful biblical hermeneutic in respect for “the church’s historic consensual reading.” This is a robust and beautiful rule of faith, and has lately been deftly expounded in the currently-developing Global Anglican Commentary.
Doctrines “Once for All Delivered”
But as many times as not, when we hear this appeal made, the question of exactly what the substance of this Faith is (what its definite doctrines are and are not) is left somewhat fuzzy. We always find a vague apprehension that it includes a higher sacramental theology than we often see among heirs of the Reformation today. That liturgy is involved, and maybe a few other things that Evangelicals generally find suspiciously Catholic, but the appeal itself doesn’t answer the question: What did the Ancient Church believe? What are the doctrines that were “once for all delivered”?
We can find some clarity in a slowly built composite case constructed from reading many old books, having well-read conversation partners, and belonging to a robust local parish, but even then, some fuzzy edges will likely remain, and the idiosyncratic preferences of any particular priest can often have a slightly distorting effect. We can find the question further complicated by the reality that the largest portions of the Church that care about their connection to the Church of the past, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, have both added novel elements to the Faith once for all delivered, but still market their teaching as one and the same with it.
The Faith Once For All Delivered
Into these difficulties, enter Darwell Stone. Stone died in 1941; however, among the gifts he bequeathed to the church during his ministry tenure (which was significantly given to shaping the minds of seminarians) was a book he titled Outlines of Christian Dogma, published in 1900. Prior to the last decade, a microscopic few remembered this book, and its enormous value lay hidden, collecting dust in old libraries. But it could not lie hidden forever, because it provides, better than any other single book, the answer to the question I have been raising: What are the doctrines of the catholic faith? What is the Faith once for all delivered?
In 275 pages (in Stone’s original), followed by 75 pages of notes on historically controverted theological points, Stone puts forward the full contours of the Catholic Faith. Stone frames the doctrines (or, as Stone calls them, ‘dogmas’) of the Church in such a way that only that which is truly the consensus of the Fathers, and which has been clarified and agreed to, is put forward—no opinions or speculations.
If St. Peter and St Paul, St. Cyprian, and St. Athanasius; St. John Chrysostom, and St. Augustine; St. Maximus and St. John Damascene were to read this book, I believe they would all give a hearty “Amen!” to its statement, with no misgivings whatsoever. I say this with confidence, not only based on my own reading of these Apostles and Fathers, but because Stone cites them on nearly every page of his Outlines. Stone, as a theological librarian by professional training, is judicious in citing the best patristic authorities for all of his claims.
A New Edition with New Features
This book was out of print for a century and only available in facsimile copies (from Nashotah House Press, which I co-edit) for the last decade. Why write about it now? Because a new edition has been published that ought to be read by everyone who appeals to the Faith once for all delivered. While a footnote citing “Greg. Mag. Ep. 81” is useful to the scholar and, as far as the author is concerned, trustworthy, it does not demonstrate the continuity between Stone’s claims and the doctrine articulated by the Church Fathers. In this skeptical age, the point needs to be brought home more fully. This is actually not a new need. Leo the Great, in defending the hypostatic union of the person of Jesus Christ against the Nestorians and the monophysites, in his Letter to Bishop Proterius, exhorted:
You must so diligently exhort the laity and clergy and all the brotherhood to advance in the Faith as to show that you teach nothing new but instil into all men’s breasts those things, which the Fathers of revered memory have with harmony of statement taught, and with which in all things our epistle agrees. And this must be shown not only by your words but also by actually reading aloud of previous statements, that God’s people may know that what the Fathers received from their predecessors and handed on to their descendants, is still instilled into them in the present day.
Patristic Enhancement in the New Edition
The previous statements of the Fathers of the Church ought to be examined by the faithful, so they can see the continuity with which the catholic Faith has been handed down. This is where the new edition of Stone’s Outlines comes in. Fr. Thomas Plant, a faithful priest in the Church of England who recently served several years in Japan, has reviewed each of Stone’s citations, grabbed the full text of the quotations from the Church Fathers in a public-domain translation, and inserted them in-line and in the relevant footnotes. This way, the reader can read Stone’s dogmatic summary and compare it against the actual words of the Fathers for themselves. This makes for an incredible reading experience: the ability to feast on the very words of the fathers, arranged and synthesized by a master of patristic thought, the inimitable Darwell Stone.
Father Plant’s labor of “expanding” the text, together with the fresh type-setting by Anglican House, renders this book an invaluable theological resource for all Christians curious about the Great Tradition. Here is solid-ground from which vantage the innovations of the Church of Rome can be clearly seen and set aside. Here is a body of doctrine that is life-giving to the mind in the perspicacity with which it expounds the salvation Jesus Christ has wrought for us.
Anglican or Anglo-Catholic?
Darwell Stone was the principal of Pusey House, a bastion of Anglo-Catholic thought. Therefore, one objection that might be raised about this work is that it represents only the ‘Anglo-Catholic’ perspective of doctrine. But this work cannot be so easily dismissed by a simplistic partisan hand-waving.
In the first place, High Church and Low Church hold 95% of the Faith in common, so there is plenty in Stone for all churchmanships.
Second, where high and low disagree—a disagreement centered on the sacraments—Stone demonstrates powerfully that Anglo-Catholics stand in continuity with the Church Fathers on these points. Therefore, if one concludes in disagreement with Anglo-Catholic sacramental theology, the disagreement is not with Stone (or any other Anglican), but with the Fathers. Such disagreement can and has been candidly and fairly directed at the Fathers, but it’s important to know the origin and gravity of the ideas one opposes.
Third, if the reader seeks to learn the substance of the great tradition on these controverted points, an Anglo-Catholic such as Stone is surely a trusty field guide.
Lastly, even if one is not persuaded of the high view of the sacraments, there is still benefit in understanding the “other side” with clarity and charity. Such understanding is surely a prerequisite to pursuing the oneness of mind to which God calls us (Phil 2:2).
For Anglicans and Beyond
Coming in at a very manageable 424 pages, this new edition of Stone’s Outlines, ever so slightly re-titled, is an easy read and a must-have for all Anglicans. Anglican House Publishers is to be commended for bringing forward such efforts. Hopefully, this will inspire them or other Anglican publishers to acquire and edit additional treasures from our rich theological tradition (Full disclosure: I also work part-time for Anglican House Publishers). Beyond Anglicanism, it will be of great benefit to all who are curious about the Faith of our Fathers. Thanks to Darwell Stone and Thomas Plant, there is now no excuse for ignorance regarding exactly what is meant by “The Faith once for all delivered.”
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