Philip Secor

Richard Hooker and the Via Media Philip Secor

RICHARD HOOKER (1554-1600) is the pioneer theologian of the Anglican/Episcopal religious tradition. To the present day, his advocacy of a broad tolerant middle way (via media) between the extremes of fundamentalist Protestantism and the more rigid expressions of Roman Catholicism is a hallmark of Anglicans and Episcopalians around the globe. For all of his importance, little has ever been known about Hooker's life and the manner in which his ideas developed. With the appearance of Dr. Secor's biography, thoroughly researched over many years, yet written in a style that makes Hooker accessible to the general reader, this great figure emerges at last into the light of history as a full-blooded Elizabethan character endowed with all of the very human strengths and weaknesses of that dynamic and formative age.