Anglican Ministry Research Articles

The Reshaping of Christian Tradition: Western Denominational Identity in a Non-Western Context

In August 1841 George Spencer, great-grandson of the third Duke of Marlborough and second Bishop of Madras, entertained two house guests in his residence at Kotagherry. Both were seeking admission into the Anglican ministry. One was an Indian, a former Roman Catholic priest who had begun to question the catholicity of the Roman communion, had joined himself for a while to the American Congregational mission in Madura, but had eventually reached the conclusion, in Spencer’s words, that ‘evangelical doctrine joined to Apostolic Government were only to be met with in indissoluble conjunction with the Church of England’. Bishop Spencer, while keen to employ the Indian as a catechist, felt it premature, ‘in a matter of such importance’, to receive him as a presbyter, even though the validity of his orders was unquestionable. The Indian is not named in the records, and it would appear that he never became an Anglican priest.

Late-Entrants to the Anglican Ministry: A Move into Marginality?

Late-Entrants to the Anglican Ministry: A Move into Marginality?

REVIEWS

Books Reviewed in this Article: Personal Identity. By Godfrey Vesey. Personal Identity. By Godfrey Vesey. Truth and Dialogue. Edited by John Hick. Formalism in Ethics and Non‐Formal Ethics of Values. By Max Scheler. Translated by N. S. Frings and R. L. Funk. Beyond the New Morality. By Germain Grisez and Russell Shaw. The Interaction of Law and Religion. By Harold J. Berman. This Man Jesus: An Essay toward a New Testament Christology. By Bruce Vawter. London, Geoffrey Chapman. Exodus: A Commentary. By Brevard S. Childs. Structure and Meaning in the Fourth Gospel. A Text‐Linguistic Analysis of John 2:1–11 and 4:1–42. By Birger Olsson. Actualité de la Révélation Divine. By Richard P. Hardy. Reason and Belief. By Brand Blanshard. The Ministry of Reconciliation. By J. D. Crichton. The Story of the Anglican Ministry. By Edward P. Echlin. New Testament Christianity for Africa and the World. Essays in Honour of Harry Sawyerr. Edited by Mark E. Glasswell and Edward W. Fasholé‐Luke. The Rise of Christianity. Prepared for the Course Team by Francis Clark. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Vol. 2. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600–1700). By Jaroslav Pelikan. The Religion of Isaac Newton. The Fremnntle Lectures 1973. By Frank E. Manuel. God's Blueprints. By John McKelvie Whitworth. The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, Vol. XXVI. Edited by C. S. Dessain and Thomas Gornall. Il Problema Religioso nel Risorgimento e il Pensiero di Geremia Bonomelli. By Giuseppe Gallina. The Vatican and the Americanist Crisis: Denis J. O'Connell, American Agent in Rome 1885–1903. By Gerald P. Fogarty. L'Institut Saint‐Serge: De I'académie d'autrefois au rayonnement d'aujourd'hui. By Alexis Kniazeff. Connaissance du Vatican: Histoire—Organisation—Activité. By Paul Poupard.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F. L. Cross: Second Edition, revised by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford University Press. London, New York and Toronto, 1974. xxxi + 1518 pp. £13·50.

Book Review in this Articles:THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, edited by F. L. CrossTHE VIRGINAL CONCEPTION AND BODILY RESURRECTION OF JESUS, by Raymond E. BrownTHE FIRST CHRISTMAS: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED? by H. J. RichardsTHE THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, by W. G. KümmelSTUDIES IN PAUL'S TECHNIQUES AND THEOLOGY, by Anthony Tyrrell HansonTHE STORY OF ANGLICAN MINISTRY, by Edward P. EchlinSOCIAL SECURITY AND SOCIETY, by Victor GeorgeCURRENT ISSUES IN COMMUNITY WORK. A Study by the Community Work Group, The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Routledge end Kegan Paul

The Story of Anglican Ministry, by Edward P. Echlin. St. Paul Publications, Slough, 1974. 174 pp. £2·95.

The Story of Anglican Ministry, by Edward P. Echlin. St. Paul Publications, Slough, 1974. 174 pp. £2·95.

The Uniate Model and Anglican Ministry

Anglicans and Roman Catholics are exploring the Uniate analogy as a model for reunion of their Churches. In this paper we propose to discuss briefly the development of the Uniate analogy and, thereafter, to suggest a way for Roman recognition of Anglican ministry.Proponents of the Uniate model point to an impressive precedent in Gregory the Great’s commission to Augustine in 597. They argue that Gregory favoured a distinctive patrimony for the Church of the Angles. Obviously this precedent should not be pressed too far. Subsequent Popes, such as Vitalian and Gregory VII, were less favourable to pluralism and more inclined to uniformity than was the first Gregory. Nevertheless, Gregory’s commission to Augustine of Canterbury does provide a useful precedent that might well be endorsed today.‘My brother, you are familiar with the usage of the Roman Church, in which you were brought up. But if you have found customs, whether in the Roman, Gallican, or any other Churches that may be more acceptable to God, I wish you to make a careful selection of them, and teach the Church of the English, which is still young in the Faith, whatever you can profitably learn from the various Churches. For things should not be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things. Therefore select from each of the Churches whatever things are devout, religious and right; and when you have arranged them into a unified rite, let the minds of the English grow accustomed to it.’The pallium given to Augustine by Gregory connoted recognition of a Roman primacy, a recognition that continued for nearly a millenium. Since the Reformation the Archbishop of Canterbury has served as a pastoral centre of unity for the Church of England and, later, for the world-wide Anglican communion.

Patterns of Occupational Recruitment: The Anglican Ministry

Recruitment can be viewed as a process of withdrawal of an increasingly homogeneous group from the population, affected by a complex of sociological variables. The Anglican ministry shows this same process both historically and today, but demonstrates interesting divergences. It is argued that although the pattern of recruitment has changed markedly between the 1870s and the 1960s the present recruitment pattern is an amalgam of two distinct groups and processes—a shrinking, `normal', first-choice group (stable in characteristics throughout the period) and a `late', second-choice group that displays somewhat different characteristics, and that has grown markedly since 1945. There is evidence that the same phenomenon is to be seen in other ministries, and it is postulated that this is linked to decreasing prestige, and the logic of selection procedures.

The Origins of the Anglican Ministry

The distinctive position of the Anglican communion consists in its claim to be at once Catholic while non-Roman, Reformed while non-Protestant. For the maintenance of this claim nothing is more crucial than the vindication of the reality of its Orders and Sacraments. The more the importance of the idea of the Church is re-discovered and reappreciated, the more important is seen to be the reality of the Eucharist and the Liturgy. Hence Anglicans have come to realize that if their Orders and Eucharist are open to question, their very existence as a Church becomes equally problematical. The intervention of Pope Leo XIII in this question of the validity of Anglican Orders and the decision of his Bull Apostolicae Curae are familiar to all. Equally familiar is the fact that there are some who hold that neither the intervention nor the decision were final, either because they maintain that, in view of what some Catholic theologians themselves have said regarding the relative and practical character of the Bull, the judgment was not irreversible, or because they dispute the accuracy of the matters of fact on which the unfavourable judgment was based. In this way the majority of Anglican ecclesiastics and scholars are accustomed to contest the historical argument on which Catholics rely.