Fr. Robert Miller has published a new article on an important early figure in maritime ministry in The Mariner’s Mirror journal. Miller, long a member of the Society for Nautical Research, has published several books on the work of the church and the merchant seafarer from the earliest Christian centuries until the nineteenth century. He…
Book Review: Vom Wartesaal zwischen den Meeren zum modernen Seefahrerzentrum
by Jason Zuidema, ICMA/NAMMA Christiane Sengebusch, Vom Wartesaal zwischen den Meeren zum modernen Seefahrerzentrum: Chronik der Deutschen Seemannsmission Westküste e.V., Brunsbüttel, 2020. 60pp. This small hardcover volume traces the history of the Deutschen Seemannsmission Westküste in Brunsbüttel, Germany. Written by Christiane Sengebusch, the book helps understand the growth and development of this seafarers mission organization…
Book Review: At Sea, Awaiting Orders
by Jason Zuidema, ICMA This beautiful, short book recounts the ministry of a Stella Maris chaplain in Immingham, UK. Fr. Colum Kelly, a priest in the Diocese of Leeds, tells his stories of 16 years as port chaplain. Editor Josie Edwards makes the text engaging and illustrations are added by current Immingham chaplain, Bryony Watson.…
Book Review: Father Taylor, Boston’s Sailor Preacher
by Dr. Jason Zuidema, NAMMA William Armstrong brings together this great collection of stories about the well-known 19th century seafarers’ minister in Boston, Rev. Edward Thompson Taylor. Armstrong is a retired minister of the United Church of Christ, having degrees from Union Theological Seminary and The Lutheran Theological Seminary. He has authored a number of…
Book Review: Saving Jack
David Hurrell and Alexander Campbell. Saving Jack: The Story of the Seamen’s Mission of the Methodist Church, The Queen Victoria Seamen’s Rest. London: QVSR, 2018. Of value to Methodist and non-Methodist alike, this handsome, full-colour album was put out to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Methodist mission to seafarers in London and its flagship…
Book Review: The Liquidation of the Church
Kees de Groot, The Liquidation of the Church. New York: Routledge, 2018. 191pp. In many popular venues we hear either that religion is dying out or that personal spirituality is becoming the norm. Professor Kees de Groot argues that both of these ideas are inadequate understandings of religion in modern Western societies. De Groot is…
Book Review: A Christian Theology of Chaplaincy
John Caperon, Andrew Todd and James Walters, ed. A Christian Theology of Chaplaincy. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2017. 176pp. This book is a collection of essays originally presented at a symposium on chaplaincy at Westcott House, Cambridge in April 2015. The editors and most of the presenters in the volume are associated with the Church of…
Book Review: Multifaith Chaplaincy in the Workplace
Fiona Stewart-Darling, Multifaith Chaplaincy in the Workplace: How Chaplains Can Support Organizations and their Employees. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2017. 176pp. This book is a case study in building a workplace chaplaincy program. Fiona Stewart-Darling, an Anglican priest, explains the history and formation of the chaplaincy program she has led in the Canary Wharf district of…
Book Review: Sailors’ Society, 200 Stories from the Sea, 1818-2018
Nick Churchill, Melanie Warman, Charis Gibson, and James Leslie. 200 Stories from the Sea, 1818-2018. Southampton: Sailors’ Society, 2018. This is a commemorative book with 200 short vignettes about the work of the Sailors’ Society on the occasion of its 200th birthday. The source of most of the stories is the Society’s magazine, Chart & Compass founded in 1879,…