In John Locke's Theology: An Ecumenical, Irenic, and Controversial Project, Jonathan S. Marko offers the closest work available to a theological system derived from the writings of John Locke. Marko argues that Locke's intent for The Reasonableness of Christianity, his most noted theological work, was to describe and defend his version of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity and not his personal theological views. Locke, Marko says, intended the work to be an ecumenical and irenic project during a controversial time in philosophy and theology. Locke described what qualifies someone as a Christian in simple and irenic terms, and argued for the necessity of Scripture and the reasonableness of God's means of conveying his authoritative messages. The Reasonableness of Christianity could be construed as personal, but mainly in the sense that it puts the burden of understanding Scripture and arriving at theological convictions on the autonomous individual, rejecting the notion that one should base one's doctrinal opinions on so-called authorities. His work was inadvertently controversial partly because then, like today, readers typically failed to make a distinction between Locke's personal and programmatic positions. Marko also points to places in Locke's corpus where he avoids advocating for a particular sectarian position in his treatment of theological doctrines. What is more, it shows why attempting to categorize Locke--a philosopher, theologian, and political scientist all at once--according to traditional Christian paradigms is a dangerous misstep and a difficult scholarly feat.

Medieval western theologians considered the Johannine comma (1 John 5:7-8) the clearest biblical evidence for the Trinity. When Erasmus failed to find the comma in the Greek manuscripts he used for his New Testament edition, he omitted it. Accused of promoting Antitrinitarian heresy, Erasmus included the comma in his third edition (1522) after seeing it in a Greek codex from England, even though he suspected the manuscript's authenticity. The resulting disputes, involving leading theologians, philologists and controversialists such as Luther, Calvin, Sozzini, Milton, Newton, Bentley, Gibbon and Porson, touched not simply on philological questions, but also on matters of doctrine, morality, social order, and toleration. While the spuriousness of the Johannine comma was established by 1900, it has again assumed iconic status in recent attempts to defend biblical inerrancy amongst the Christian Right. A social history of the Johannine comma thus provides significant insights into the recent culture wars.

History has not been kind to Symon Patrick. His fifty years of ministry spanned the closing years of Cromwell’s rule and the start of Queen Anne’s reign, and ranged from service as a Church of England minister in two fashionable London parishes to appointment as the “latitudinarian” Bishop of Ely. He influenced a major change in the character of the Established Church, as it moved from a confrontational fundamentalism to the broad tolerance that exists today. Patrick, recognised by his contemporaries as one of the three or four leading clergy of his generation, wrote over one hundred books that helped to define his Church, such as his pastoral work The Heart’s Ease, his devotional The Parable of the Pilgrim and his biting polemic against nonconformism, A Friendly Debate. This book assesses the significance and quality of Patrick’s contribution to the Church of England, carefully placing it against the background of the history and politics of the time and suggesting why his reputation faded after his death. Puritanism, Latitudinarianism, pilgrimage, women’s religion and spirituality, and prose style are all topics touched on here.