An excellent source on Margery Kempe
Thornton appears in a book of Eugene Peterson’s, where he lists some of his own favorite books in the area of spirituality (do check out this treasure of a book!) Peterson is a professor of spiritual theology at Regent College, and a prolific writer in that field. From a blog: “Peterson’s suggestions about who/what you should read are, of course, subjective. He admits that. But I like his breadth, and depth. His favorite authors: Barth, Bonhoeffer, Buechner, Chesterton, Kierkegaard, Kenneth Leech, C.S.Lewis, Martin Luther, Martin Thornton, von Balthasar. Now that’s some list!”
My observation: I don’t know about any of Thornton’s other books, as I haven’t read them. But this one shows an uncommon mixture of pastoral wisdom, psychological and theological insight, and historical knowledge, especially about “the English tradition” of spirituality–stretching back through the medieval era. Especially useful is Thornton’s careful survey of the theme of prayer in Margery’s book–he attends to the particular, systematically used language about prayer: the many different terms Margery uses for kinds of prayer she experiences, and their meanings. Also golden is the “classified skeleton commentary” of Margery’s whole book, included as an appendix. In brief entries that breathe his own enjoyment and close engagement with Margery’s thought, Thornton lays out for us some wonderful keys to Margery’s experience, thought, and background.
This book of Thornton’s was first published in 1960 by SPCK and has apparently long since gone out of print. But I recommend it highly. In fact, I’m going to go off and write an email to Wipf & Stock right now, recommending that they reprint it! (If you don’t know about Wipf & Stock’s yeoman service to all thinking Christians–reprinting countless classic texts related to Christian history and theology–you owe it to yourself to browse the catalog on their website.)
Some of his other books, as listed on Amazon.
