George Bell Research Articles

Book Review: Book Reviews

a Renewal Movement Be Renewed?: Questions for Future of Ecumenism. By Michael Kinnamon. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing, 2014. 167 pp. $24.00 (paper).andWhat Christians Learn from Other Religions. By J. Philip Wogaman. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.135 pp. $15.00 (paper).Ecumenism and interreligious relations begin world, lead us more deeply into world, and are proved vital or hollow by how they engage with world. These two new books by senior leaders of national and global Christian movements and churches explore starkly ways critical questions for a new century of interdependence and mutual and multifaith understanding.in 2000, at General Convention of Episcopal Church meeting Denver, Michael Kinnamon offered poignant insights into a bold experiment of bilateral shared communion and common mission proposed that summer with Evangelical Lutheran Church America. As an ecumenical guest, Professor Kinnamon, a minister and seminary teacher Christian Church/Disciples of Christ, assessed Episcopalians (and Lutherans) with compassion and insight, and asked questions that helped move agreement now known as Called to Common Mission to adoption. His method for engagement was threefold: make relationships with diverse partners and show up to work with them every day; ask good, informed questions; and, look with hope toward unimagined mission partnerships with a wide range of neighbors.The same tack is at core of Michael Kinnamon's recent collection of highly readable (and often quotable!) essays on future of Christian ecumenism. Each of fifteen chapter titles present a pressing question for church and for world watching followers of Jesus Christ today. Fellow preachers, try some of these as openers for a homily: Are Councils of Churches a Thing of Past?'; Can Tension Between Unity and Justice be Overcome?'; What Churches Say Together About Environment?; Has Ecumenical Movement Become Too 'Political'?Naming question is first frame for Kinnamon, but order to examine several problems with greater generosity and wisdom he presents propositions a nearly scholastic manner, offering patient reader a broad range of creative solutions to problems that long have separated and harmed church. In a chapter asking Is Ecumenical Movement a Movement for Peace? Kinnamon, a past president of National Council of Churches America, suggests that the churches need to focus less on top-down pronouncements and more on programs of congregational formation, and goes on to offer a list of corporate 'disciplines' that he believes may help form a peacemaking sensibility local communities (p. 31). These disciplines include: (1) praying regularly for people who are regarded as enemies by our nation or group; (2) practicing peace by committing ourselves to seek relationship with people we prefer to avoid; (3) partnering with a nearby congregation with different approaches to matters of war and peace; and (4) joining other congregations in a local activity that counters violence {pp. 31-32).Regrettably, we hear little about background of decisive agreements or of Great Ecumenists this slim volume. Anglicans will find both William Temple and Lesslie Newbigin, but not a word about George Bell or Stephen Bayne, to say nothing of Cynthia Wedell or Desmond Tutu. The essays do render trustworthy advice for engaged ecumenists, but lack potent illustrations of a deep spirit of ecumenism, that archetype so many Episcopalians first make connection with, and feel passion for, as they are led to new connections, networks, and partnerships. …

Ireland on a Plate: Curating the 2011 State Banquet for Queen Elizabeth II

Ireland on a Plate: Curating the 2011 State Banquet for Queen Elizabeth II

Ecumenical Dynamic: Living in More than One Place at Once by Keith Clements, and: Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes, with a Practical Guide ed. by Jooseop Keum, and: Can a Renewal Movement Be Renewed? Questions for the Future of Ecumenism by Michael Kinnamon (review)

Keith Clements, Ecumenical Dynamic: Living in More than One Place at Once. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2013. Pp. 222. $20.00, paper. Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes, with a Practical Guide. Edited by Jooseop Keum. Geneva: World Council of Churches Publications, 2013. Pp. 81, with DVD. $ 20.00, paper. Michael Kinnamon, Can a Renewal Movement Be Renewed? Questions for Future of Ecumenism. Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014. Pp. 167. $24.00. After Spring sparked by ecumenical dialogues in 1980's and 1990's, some now describe ecumenical scene as one of Winter. ecumenical accords hardly seem to have been noticed by churches. Cardinal Walter Kasper suggested that change may be result of unfulfilled expectations. But, dialogues are only part of ecumenism, and two works here reviewed, by Clements and Kinnamon, both with long ecumenical experience, offer suggestions leading to a broader ecumenical vision. Clements, an English Baptist, was active in Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland and Conference of European Churches. His Ecumenical Dynamic proposes transcending narrow confines and entering into and identifying oneself with a dynamic that unites people. central section of work, The Dynamic Illustrated, presents movements and individuals who represent this larger approach. Although 1910 Edinburgh Conference is acknowledged as beginning of ecumenical movement, Clements suggests that it was mutual visits, the peace exchanges of Anglo-German churches in 1908 and 1909, when, as war clouds were rising, historic voyages of two ships--one from England and other from Germany, each with hundreds of Christians visiting their brothers and sisters of other county--laid foundation for World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship. Other towering figures of this larger ecumenical vision were J. H. Oldham and the Moot, a group of British intellectuals founded to explore role of Christian belief in modern society and relation between social environment and gospel; and George Bell, the apostle of Unity, dean of Canterbury, for whom ecumenism was grounded in sovereignty of Christ and expressed in personal relationships. 1934 Barmen Declaration had ecumenical implications: It was not only a statement of faith but also an invitation to be identified with Confessing Church. last section, The Dynamic Continued, looks to future, one not dominated by ecclesial structures but with less-clericalized communities such as Taize, Bruderhof, Focolare, Iona, and Corrymeela. …

Forging Continuing Bonds from the Dead to the Living: Gothic Commemorative Practices along Australia’s Leichhardt Highway

Forging Continuing Bonds from the Dead to the Living: Gothic Commemorative Practices along Australia’s Leichhardt Highway

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

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.

The Church and Humanity: The Life and work of George Bell, 1883-1958, written by Andrew Chandler

The Church and Humanity: The Life and work of George Bell, 1883-1958, written by Andrew Chandler

Archbishop Fisher, 1945-1961: Church, State and World

Perhaps inevitably, Archbishop Geoffrey Francis Fisher's primacy has been overshadowed by a development that took place largely after his retirement: the religious crisis of the 1960s. In 1961 the mainstream press reported Fisher's resignation with enthusiastic praise for his achievements, but during the 1960s it became conventional to argue that Fisher incarnated a traditional form of ecclesiasticism that was intrinsically unsuited to the new “modernity” of postwar England. Neither of these conflicting views were simple historical assessments, but rather were bound up with partisan arguments about whether and how to modernize the Church of England. Yet subsequent ecclesiastical history on Fisher has often structured itself around tropes from this discussion; these include whether Fisher's style was too headmasterly, whether he lacked imagination, and whether Bishop George Bell of Chichester would have been a better choice. Andrew Chandler and David Hein are surely correct to argue that Fisher's “pivotal archiepiscopate” is “one that cries out for fresh examination” (p. 5).

The Church and Humanity: The Life and Work of George Bell, 1883–1958 by Andrew Chandler, ed.

The Church and Humanity: The Life and Work of George Bell, 1883–1958 by <i>Andrew Chandler, ed.</i>

Bishop George Bell: House of Lords Speeches and Correspondence with Rudolf Hess ed. by Peter Raina (review)

Bishop George Bell: House of Lords Speeches and Correspondence with Rudolf Hess ed. by Peter Raina (review)

Wordsworth’s Bibliographers

Review Essay: Wordsworth’s Bibliographers Mark Lafayette Reed. A Bibliography of William Wordsworth: 1787-1930. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2013. cxxvi+1238. $295. W ordsworth bibliography has remained in a curiously unsatisfactory state. Most of the earliest attempts, compiled in the late 19th century, were appendages to collective editions of Wordsworth’s poetry, and these are woefully lacking in the kind of bibliographical detail that booksellers, collectors, and scholars alike depend on.1 Twentieth-century bibliographies of Wordsworth are, on the whole, less unsatisfactory. Wise, Broughton, Patton, Healey, and Metzdorf offer fuller bibliographical de­ scriptions, Healey especially, but in each case the bibliographers compiled catalogues of particular collections—the Ashley Library, the Cornell Wordsworth collection, the Amherst Wordsworth collection, and the Tin­ ker Collection at Yale (Reed xi—xii).2 They were not attempting a comi . The earliest bibliography, “a Bibliography of the successive editions of the Poems which were published in Wordsworth’s lifetime,” was prepared by William Knight for the newly-formed Wordsworth Society in 1882. It was published as “Bibliography ofthe Poems of Wordsworth,” The Transactions oj the Wordsworth Society 1 (1882): 5—16, and contains no physical description, except for the occasional “4to.” or “8vo.” J. R. Tutin’s bibliography was appended to The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, ed. John Morley (Lon­ don and New York: Macmillan and Co., 1888), 897-912 (Reed, 692). Ernest Dowden also included a bibliography in his seven-volume edition of The Poetical Works of William Words­ worth (London: George Bell & Sons, 1892), 7:306—28 (Reed, 782—83). A more comprehen­ sive bibliography was included in William Knight’s The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, 8 vols. (London and New York: Macmillan & Co., 1896). It can be found in 8:327-432 (Reed, 829-31). 2. Leslie Nathan Broughton, The Wordsworth Collection Formed by Cynthia Morgan St.John and Given to Cornell University by Victor Emanuel (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1931). George Harris Healey, The Cornell Wordsworth Collection: A Catalogue ofBooks and Manuscripts Presented to the University by Mr Victor Emanuel Cornell 1919 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, J957)- Cornelius Patton, The Amherst Wordsworth Collection: A Descriptive Bibliography (Amherst, MA, 1936). Robert F. Metzdorf, The Tinker Library: A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Books and Manuscripts collected by Chauncey Brewster Tinker, Sterling Professor ofEnglish Litera­ ture, Emeritus and Keeper of Rare Books in the Yale University Library (New Haven: Yale Uni­ versity Press, 1959). Thomas J. Wise, A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Wil­ liam Wordsworth (London: privately printed, 1916); Two Lake Poets: a Catalogue of Printed SiR, 53 (Fall 2014) 457 458 BRUCE E. GRAVER prehensive bibliographical study ofWordsworth’s separate printed publica­ tions. To an Americanist, this would seem an almost incomprehensible situation: Americanists have the extraordinary Bibliography ofAmerican Liter­ ature to depend on, as well as fine individual bibliographies for most major American writers. But for scholars trying to study Wordsworth’s publica­ tion and reception history, both in his lifetime and especially in the years after his death, and for collectors and book-dealers trying to determine the rarity and value ofparticular books, there has been no single work to guide them. With the publication of Mark Lafayette Reed’s magnificent new Bibliog­ raphy of William Wordsworth 1787-1930, all that has changed. Over a career of some 50 years, Reed has not been a 250-page-monograph kind of a scholar; instead, he has always published in twos—two volume sets, every two decades. His two-volume Wordsworth Chronology, published in 1967 and 1975, totals 1050 pages; his two-volume edition of the 13-Book Prelude, published in 1991 and the centerpiece of the Cornell Wordsworth, con­ tains over 2350 pages; his two volume Bibliography, the crown upon his life­ time’s efforts, weighs in at something over half that, a mere 1238 pages, not counting the 125 pages of introduction and preliminaries. It is, and will re­ main, a foundational work for Wordsworth scholarship. No one, not even its reviewers, will read it straight through, cover to cover to cover to cover. But anyone serious about how Wordsworth presented himself to the public, or interested in how later publishers and editors...

The Church and humanity. The life and work of George Bell, 1883–1958. Edited by Andrew Chandler. Pp. xvi+227. Farnham–Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2012. £55. 978 1 4094 2556 4

The Church and humanity. The life and work of George Bell, 1883–1958. Edited by Andrew Chandler. Pp. xvi+227. Farnham–Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2012. £55. 978 1 4094 2556 4

The Church and Humanity: The Life and Work of George Bell, 1883-1958. Edited by ANDREW CHANDLER.

The Church and Humanity: The Life and Work of George Bell, 1883-1958. Edited by ANDREW CHANDLER.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors acknowledge with gratitude the guidance of Cressida Williams at Canterbury Cathedral Library and staff at Lambeth Palace Library in London. The work has been much encouraged by Margaret Pawley and by Virginia Johnstone, who typed most of the reports in Rome. It has also been greatly assisted by many conversations with other scholars and thinkers, particularly those who came to discuss Vatican II in its ecumenical context at a colloquium in George Bell House, Chichester Cathedral, in June 2013. The editors take full responsibility for any errors or omissions.

Civic and other public planting in ancient Greece

The Western tradition of civic planting originates in ancient Greece, and especially in ancient Athens. Civic planting — the planting of the public spaces of a city for the benefit of all the citiz...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906–1945. Martyr, thinker, man of resistance. By Ferdinand Schlingensiepen. (Trans. by Isabel Best of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906–1945. Eine Biographie, München: C. H. Beck, 2006.) Pp. xxix+439 incl 45 ills. London–New York: T&amp;T Clark, 2010. £19.99. 978 0 567 03400 7 - Bishop George Bell. House of Lords speeches and correspondence with Rudolf Hess. Edited by Peter Raina. Pp.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906–1945. Martyr, thinker, man of resistance. By Ferdinand Schlingensiepen. (Trans. by Isabel Best of <i>Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906–1945. Eine Biographie</i>, München: C. H. Beck, 2006.) Pp. xxix+439 incl 45 ills. London–New York: T&amp;T Clark, 2010. £19.99. 978 0 567 03400 7 - Bishop George Bell. House of Lords speeches and correspondence with Rudolf Hess. Edited by Peter Raina. Pp.

Bishop George Bell — The Lords and The Nazis

Bishop George Bell — The Lords and The Nazis

The sacred groves of ancient Greece

The sacred groves of ancient Greece

An Indian Looks at Bishop George Bell

An Indian Looks at Bishop George Bell

Barmen, the Ecumenical Movement, and the Jews: The Missing Thesis

Barmen, the Ecumenical Movement, and the Jews: The Missing Thesis

The ‘Revival’ in the Visual Arts in the Church of England, c.1935–c.1956

One fruitful organizing theme around which to write the history of the worship of the Church of England in the early part of the twentieth century might be that of the revival of ancient practice. In church music, for instance, the early years of the century saw the gradual readoption of plainsong, the rediscovery of the repertoire of the Tudor and Stuart Church, and the adoption of English folk-song, most visibly in the English Hymnal of 1907. In the placing of contemporary visual art in churches, however, the contrast is marked. Recent analysis of this period has tended to posit a Church largely indifferent to the visual arts, except for the activities of isolated individuals, and of two men in particular: George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, and Walter Hussey, Dean of Chichester and formerly Vicar of St Matthew’s, Northampton. This sense was shared by Sir Kenneth Clark, former Director of the National Gallery, in a retirement tribute to Hussey, with whose patronage Clark had collaborated since the early 1940s. ‘What’ he asked ‘has the Church done in the way of enlightened patronage of contemporary art in the present century?’ Only one man, Hussey, ‘has had the courage and insight to maintain – I wish I could say revive – the great tradition of patronage by individual churchmen’.