Churchmanship and Personal Happiness: A Study among Rural Anglican Clergy

Abstract

The Church of England embraces several contrasting theological and cultural streams or ‘churchmanships’. These include one shaped by its Catholic roots (Anglo-Catholic) which contrasts sharply with the stream shaped by its Reformed roots (evangelical). Other groups within the Church of England today are conservatives, whose theological and cultural outlooks contrast with those of the liberal stream, and the charismatic stream with its non-charismatic counterpart. Between these contrasting pairs of theological and cultural streams stands the Broad Church or Middle Way. In a pioneering study, found that clergy shaped within the evangelical stream experienced lower levels of psychological well-being than clergy shaped within the Anglo-Catholic stream, and it was hypothesised that evangelical clergy may experience a greater sense of alienation from the predominantly secular culture that tends to characterise the context of their ministry. The present study tests the Francis and Randall hypothesis among a sample of 658 rural Church of England clergy. It was found that clergy ministering in rural areas who embrace a liberal theology experience higher levels of psychological well-being than do clergy of a conservative conviction, but that there was no significant difference between levels of subjective well-being for the other two pairs of contrasting theological streams.