{"id":29,"date":"2019-11-12T10:14:36","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T10:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/?page_id=29"},"modified":"2020-02-06T08:46:18","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T08:46:18","slug":"chairmans-introduction","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/chairmans-introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Chairman’s introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\nThe Rt Revd Graham James was Bishop of Norwich until 2019. At the time of this symposium he was the longest serving bishop in the Church of England.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI am very grateful to the\nSociety of the Faith for organising this day, and in\nadvance thank all our contributors. We are going to do a substantial\namount of listening, but I hope that, as well as listen, we will all\nbe here for a good discussion at the end. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nArchbishop Geoffrey Fisher may\nnot be remembered primarily as a great theologian, but we do owe him\nthe creation of what one may call the \u2018modern Church of England\u2019.\n It is fashionable nowadays to decry bishops as ecclesiastical\nmanagers, but if ever a church needed ecclesiastical management, it\nwas the Church of England in the early post Second World\nWar period. If the professionalisation of the clergy had only begun\na century earlier!  It was not until the 1950s that Anglican\nclergy had many \u2013 though not all \u2013 of the anomalies in their\nstipends ironed out, and pensions and retirement really made\npossible, and diocesan organisation developed to give substance to\nepiscopal leadership. Fisher may have thought the revision of\ncanon law was his greatest work, but it was his willingness to engage\nwith the structures of the Church of England and reshape\nthem, as well as create constitutions for largely autonomous\nprovinces of the Anglican Communion abroad, which I think has really\nproved to be his legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThat being said, we should not\nforget Fisher\u2019s respect for theological endeavour. Without that,\nwe would not be here today. He was willing to use the sharpest\ntheological brains in the Church of England at the time in the\ncause of Christian unity. He may not have been an original thinker;\nbut his understanding of Anglican identity and doctrine was wisely\nshaped \u2013 at least in my view \u2013 by the Lambeth Quadrilateral. \nThat was his reference point for any and every ecumenical discussion.\n What did Anglicans believe? What the Quadrilateral stated: The\nHoly Scriptures, as containing all things necessary to\nsalvation. The Catholic Creeds, as the sufficient statement of\nChristian faith. The Dominical Sacraments of Baptism and\nHoly Communion. The historic episcopate, locally adapted. Of\ncourse, Fisher\u2019s boldest ecumenical venture was to invite Free\nChurches into the system \u2013 a venture as yet unresolved. \nBut before doing that, he invited an illustrious galaxy of\nAnglican\u2011Catholic writers and thinkers to consider the conflict\nbetween Catholic and Protestant traditions, and to examine where\nfundamental points of doctrine were the greatest and whether a\nsynthesis was possible. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI think one of the most\nencouraging things about the publication seventy years ago of the\nreport Catholicity<\/em>\nis its origin in a request from the Archbishop of Canterbury acting\nalone. It was a very unusual initiative for any Archbishop of\nCanterbury. Back in the 1980s, when I worked at Lambeth, the\nArchbishop of Canterbury did have theological advisers who met\nregularly at Lambeth Palace. In more recent years, I fear there\nis little evidence of this sort of initiative, either because\narchbishops have not been captivated by theology or because they have\nbeen so competent theologically themselves that they thought they did\nnot need advice. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWhat was the response of\nMichael Ramsey, Austin Farrer, Lionel Thornton, Gregory Dix,\nT. S. Eliot, Robert Mortimer, all these other luminaries, all\nthese names, some of whom were still reverberating around the Church\nof England in my youth? How did they meet this request? It was not\nto dash off a brief essay each, or even to collaborate in a longer\none. This group of fourteen scholars, theologians and writers met\nfour times \u2013 and on two occasions for three consecutive days. \nThey took the Archbishop\u2019s request remarkably seriously. That puts\nthe time we are giving to today\u2019s Symposium into some sort of\nperspective; but at least we are taking the Catholicity of the Church\nseriously and believe it to be an issue worth considering in our own\nday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWhy do we believe it is still\nworth exploration? I just have one thing to say which strikes me\nabout that before we hear our first speaker. One of the largest\ncongregations in the city of Norwich is called Soul Church. It meets\nin a warehouse. They see around 1,200 people on an average Sunday. \nSoul Church is in the Charismatic Evangelical tradition, though it\nhas what may seem to some a surprising appeal to gay and\ntransgendered people. It is now affiliated (though still\nindependent) to the Hillsong movement. When a new pastor was\nappointed three years ago, and because I have had a relationship with\nSoul Church for some time, I was asked to go and welcome, anoint\nand commission him, and to preach one of three sermons in a\nthree\u2011and\u2011a\u2011half\u2011hour service. They do know\nhow to induct! But it struck me that what that they seemed to long\nfor \u2013 and this is not unique in that tradition \u2013 is a\nrepresentative figure of the wider church to anoint and lay hands on\nthose commissioned for ministry. A bishop is recognised as someone\nwho represents more than who he or she is. Their theology hardly\ncreates space for the episcopate, given the way their pastors emerge;\nbut they seem to have an instinct which I would call \u2018a longing for\nCatholicity\u2019 \u2013 though very inadequately expressed. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI see it, too, in our\ncongregations which have been most influenced or supported by\nHoly Trinity Brompton. For them, it is not simply that the\nChurch of England is the best boat to fish from \u2013 it is not always\nthe best these days \u2013 but they believe the Church must be grounded\nin scripture, universal in its mission, with an authentic and\napostolic ministry, accountable well beyond the local congregation. \nThat, I think, is what I believe to be part of \u2018a longing for\nCatholicity\u2019. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSome look at the Church of\nEngland at the present time and see a great Protestantisation of our\nlife. I am not sure they are looking closely enough. That is why I\nthink what we are doing today is so important. Those of us who\ncherish the Catholicity, not just of the Church of England but of the\nwhole church of God, have been remarkably quiet about it in recent\ndecades, or have seen it as something distinctive to ourselves; yet\nit is a gift of God to the whole church. If it is not, it is\nnothing. Perhaps it is actually time for a new theological response\nto that archiepiscopal request made seventy years ago. \nI hope it might be. It is just possible. When you think that\nthe Catholic movement in the Church of England was founded on\nthe opposition to Irish disestablishment, stranger things\nhave happened than a little group of people in Southwark Cathedral\nactually changing something in the wider Church. The time may have\ncome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWe are first of all going to\ntake a historical perspective in a more detailed way from Dr Andrew\nChandler, whose book with David Hein on Archbishop Fisher, published\nin 2012, gave a more rounded view of what Geoffrey Fisher represented\n\u2013 perhaps more rounded than the major biography by Edward Carpenter\nin 2012. Many of you will know Andrew\u2019s writings as a twentieth\ncentury church historian, not least his history of the Church\nCommissioners and the politics of reform in the post Second World War\nperiod, and of course his work on Bishop George Bell, the publication\nof which has coincided with Bell\u2019s renewed prominence in the public\nsphere. It is more than twenty-five years since I first met Andrew\nand became one of the founding trustees of the George Bell Institute,\nwhich he guided for a long time. There is no better twentieth\ncentury church historian to set the scene for the report on\nCatholicity and the questions it raises. Andrew, we look forward to\nall you have to say to us. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rt Revd Graham James was Bishop of Norwich until 2019. At the time of this symposium he was the longest serving bishop in the Church of England. I am very grateful to the Society of the Faith for organising this day, and in advance thank all our contributors. We are going to do a substantial amount of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-29","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29\/revisions\/220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}