1st Edition

The Future Shapes of Anglicanism Currents, contours, charts

By Martyn Percy Copyright 2017
    230 Pages
    by Routledge

    230 Pages
    by Routledge

     

    To many people, the Church of England and worldwide Anglican Communion has the aura of an institution that is dislocated and adrift. Buffeted by tempestuous and stormy debates on sexuality, gender, authority and power – to say nothing of priorities in mission and ministry, and the leadership and management of the church – a once confident Anglicanism appears to be anxious and vulnerable. The Future Shape of Anglicanism offers a constructive and critical engagement with the currents and contours that have brought the church to this point. It assesses and evaluates the forces now shaping the church and challenges them culturally, critically, and theologically.

    The Future Shape of Anglicanism engages with the church of the present that is simultaneously dissenting and loyal, as well as critical and constructive. For all who are engaged in ecclesiological investigations, and for those who study the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion, this book offers new maps and charts for the present and future. It is an essential companion and guide to some of the movements and forces that are currently shaping the church.

    Introduction: The Future Shape of Anglicanism

    Part One: Currents, Contours, Charts

    1. Growth and Management in the Church of England – Some Charts

    2. New Currents in Executive and Archiepiscopal Leadership

    3. The Emerging Contours of Archiepiscopal Leadership

    Part Two: Money, Sex and Power – Divisions and Diversities

    4. Future Possibilities for Funding the Ministry of the Church of England

    5. Spartacus: Modelling Rebellion in the Church

    6. Power in the Church? Congregations, Churches and the Anglican Communion

    Part Three: Maps and Forecasts

    7. Future Directions of Travel

    8. Re-Charting the Church

    9. Old Maps for New Territories

    Conclusion: Back to the Future?

    Coda: The Churchgoer’s Charter

    Biography

    Martyn Percy is Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. He is a member of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford, where he also teaches in the Department of Sociology, and for the Said Business School. He also serves as a Professor of Theological Education at King’s College London and a Professorial Research Fellow at Heythrop College, University of London. He was formerly (from 2004-2014) the Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon, at Oxford. He writes on Christianity and contemporary culture, modern ecclesiology and practical theology. Recent books include Thirty-Nine New Articles: An Anglican Landscape of Faith (2013), Anglicanism: Confidence, Commitment and Communion (2013) and The Oxford Handbook of Anglican Studies (2015, and edited with Mark Chapman and Sathi Clarke). He was recently described in the journal Theology as the British theologian who is closest to being a ‘missionary anthropologist’.

    "Percy offers other pointed criticisms of his church. For example, he questions the way in which central authorities seem to be amassing more and more power. He traces this in part to the tendency in British evangelical circles to elevate leading clergy to superstar status. ... Readers will find that Percy’s writings contain many wonderful asides from someone who is a careful observer." -- The Rev. J. Douglas Ousley, The Living Church