Archbishop Fisher, 1945–1961: Church, State and World, by Andrew Chandler and David Hein

Abstract

The aim of Ashgate’s ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury Series’ is to present ‘authoritative studies’ on each holder of the office. The idea is to combine biographical, historical, theological, social and political analysis with original source material drawn from archiepiscopal correspondence, speeches and writings, both published and unpublished. The book’s structure makes this dual objective explicit, being divided into two parts, ‘Life’ (the longer segment) and ‘Documents’. Andrew Chandler edits the entire series and his American co-author of this volume, David Hein, has previously published a monograph on Fisher. The authors argue that the 99th Archbishop of Canterbury has tended to be ignored by professional historians, though it is not clear whether they mean merely that (unnamed) historians of twentieth-century England ignore its established church, and hence whoever leads it, or whether they believe that historians who do write post-Second World War English ‘church history’ have been particularly negligent. Either way, so far as it is true, neglect arises from a variety of factors. Geoffrey Fisher could not be a William Temple, and left-leaning opinion after 1945, in Church and state, thought this reprehensible. Similarly, it has frequently been said that, by not selecting George Bell, Churchill saddled the Church with an ordinary man when a courageous visionary was available. It has also been observed that Michael Ramsey, his successor, was not an ordinary man. And so on. All along, therefore, Fisher’s centrality has been brushed aside because it has been thought unfortunate that he was in Lambeth Palace at all. Theological and ecclesiastical radicalism in the 1960s, in this reading, was in justified revolt against the sterile, stifling establishment conservatism of the Fisher era. There had been a great opportunity for the Church of England in 1945, but Fisher’s obscurantist enthusiasm for canon law reform, to take but one example, ensured that it was lost. His own verdict, on retirement, that he was leaving the church ‘in good heart’ was taken to show how out of touch he was.