{"id":33,"date":"2019-11-12T10:34:35","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T10:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/?page_id=33"},"modified":"2020-02-06T08:54:06","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T08:54:06","slug":"catholicity-anglicanism-history-adn-the-universal-church-in-1947","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/catholicity-anglicanism-history-adn-the-universal-church-in-1947\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Catholicity’: Anglicanism, history and the universal church in 1947"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Andrew Chandler is Professor in Modern History at the University of Chichester<\/a>. Dr Chandler is a Trustee of the Society of the Faith.<\/em>1<\/sup><\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn\nJuly 1947, a man barely known to church history named Bill Allen was\nputting down concrete floors in an address in Central London when he\nsuddenly found himself confronted by a tall figure in gaiters, knee\nbreeches, clerical hat and guy ropes fixing him with a curious stare.\n This almost exotic figure asked: \u2018Who are you?\u2019 Bill Allen\nreplied: \u2018I am the foreman for Concrete Limited. I am fixing Bison\nfloors.\u2019 \u2018Oh good\u2019, said the figure. \u2018And are you going to\nget results?\u2019 \u2018Yes, sir.\u2019 \u2018That is more than I can get. \nResults is what I cannot get.\u2019 To which Bill Allen replied: \u2018Well,\nsir, Concrete Limited gets them.\u2019\n2<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn\nthe same year in which Archbishop Fisher encountered Bill Allen in a\ncottage in the grounds of Lambeth Palace there was published a\nslender pamphlet bearing the bold title, Catholicity<\/em>.\n This created a stir in the church and provoked at least two\nrejoinders which were published in the following years. What had\nproduced such a pamphlet, what did it say, and why did it matter?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nArchbishop\nFisher<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nCatholicity<\/em>\nappeared in a distinctive context. To a large extent that context\nwas defined by the primacy of Fisher himself.3<\/sup><\/a>\n Fisher remains a figure often almost discreditably taken for granted\nby his own church, trivialised as nothing very much better than a\nheadmaster who materialized at Lambeth Palace as an archbishop and\nproceeded to treat the church altogether like a public school which\nneeded a serious dose of reorganization. There is something in this,\nof course. Certainly, Fisher could relax into an amiable\nauthoritarianism which was not always admired or enjoyed. But his\nachievements as Archbishop of Canterbury between 1944, when he\nappeared, and 1961, when he departed, were very formidable indeed. \nHe set himself the task of making the Church of England, from top to\nbottom, a viable basis for public Christianity in the new, modern age\nof reconstruction, welfare, nationalization and domestic mass\nmigration. He knew that he had inherited an office which had become\nheavily involved in ecumenical initiatives and he was determined to\nmaintain, and even extend, them. He bore at least some comparison\nwith the figure of Pope John XXIII, who by the end of Fisher\u2019s\narchiepiscopacy would be launching his own sustained venture in\nchurch reform, and in a spirit not so very different from that which\ncharacterised the ambitions of Archbishop Fisher. Indeed, in certain\nrespects they were not dissimilar. Bernard Pawley, Geoffrey Fisher\u2019s\nrepresentative at the Vatican in those early years of the Vatican\nCouncil, and a man very much in Fisher\u2019s image, met John XXIII soon\nafter he became Pope. He noted their conversation down for\nsubsequent recollection thus: John: \u2018Are you married?\u2019 Pawley:\n\u2018Yes.\u2019 \u2018Well, that need not divide us. So, after all, was St\nPeter. Are your parents still alive?\u2019 \u2018Yes.\u2019 \u2018Are they\nvery old?\u2019 \u2018No. Only in their seventies.\u2019 \u2018Are you a\ntheologian? Nor am I. It is theologians who have got us into the\nmess, and we have to get ourselves out of it. It is practical men\nlike you and me who will deliver us from it.\u20194<\/sup><\/a>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSuch\nan exchange raises a question as to what place may be claimed for an\nintellectual idea, or vision, of the Church at all. Can such a thing\nbe anything better than a hollow, if fascinating, theory? Must it\nalways invest dogmatic, even obscure, obstacles when a greater\ninvestment might be made in the kindly, pragmatic understandings of\nsensible people who find that they can enjoy each other and\ncollaborate fruitfully? Indeed, will the union of the Christian\nChurch become more likely when the intellectuals have fallen silent? \nChurch history, in almost any form and at any time, has tended expose\na quality of abrasion between these realities. Fisher knew this\nperfectly well. But he was more interested in the question which\narose from this: such abrasion could all too clearly prove\ndestructive. Could it become creative? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe\nCatholic movement within the Church of England<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nBeside\nthe archiepiscopacy of Geoffrey Fisher a second context in which to\nplace Catholicity<\/em>\nis, of course, the history of that Catholic tradition within the life\nof the Church of England. Many views are available about how that\nnarrative works from the earlier days, where the joie\nde vivre<\/em>\nof a certain quality of insurgency was almost jubilantly alive in the\ngrime of benighted urban parishes and chapels of ease built and\nfinanced by idealistic local patrons. In these years six candles on\nan altar no longer announced an insurrection and incense no longer\nprovoked riots. Public Anti-Catholicism had its last hurrah in the\nHouse of Commons during the Prayer Book crisis of 1927-8. \nAnglo-Catholicism now presented something far more settled; it was to\nbe found comfortably at home in Oxbridge colleges, in deaneries and\ncathedral closes, even bishop\u2019s palaces. Popularity had brought\ncomplexity: the movement was not at all coherent. Terminology was\ndifficult. Between the two world wars it was widely acknowledged\nthat there were liberal Catholics but not conservative ones.5<\/sup><\/a>\n Places mattered too: Spens was not alone in seeing a distinction\nbetween the Anglo Catholicism of Oxford and Cambridge. The movement\n(most still saw it as a movement) had respectable organizations like\nthe Society of the Faith, the creation of the Douglas brothers, and\nrespectable adherents like Will Spens, the Master of Corpus Christi\nCollege, Cambridge. In 1933 Spens himself could argue that Anglo\nCatholicism was never more popular and never before so widely\naccepted, inside the church and outside: \u2018The relations of the\nmovement with the Episcopate and with liberal minded members of other\nparties have never been so good.\u20196<\/sup><\/a>\n The weekly Church\nTimes<\/em>,\nedited by Sidney Dark, was no longer the trumpet of a campaigning\nparty but had come to represent a comprehensive view of the church at\nlarge. Subsequent scholarship has emphasized that the middle years\nof the twentieth century even brought the \u2018triumph\u2019 of Anglo\nCatholicism.7<\/sup><\/a>\n In his popular History\nof English Christianity<\/em>,\nAdrian Hastings wrote of a \u2018high summer of Anglo-Catholic\ntheology\u2019.8<\/sup><\/a>\n The intellectual credentials of the movement had long been growing\nricher and more productive. Essays\nCatholic and Critical<\/em>,\npublished in 1926, had earned sober respect without provoking\nindignation and been republished many times.9<\/sup><\/a>\n The journal Theology<\/em>\nwas edited in these years by two liberal Catholics, E.G. Selwyn and\nthen Alec Vidler. Liberal Catholicism, much like other forms of\nliberalism, was arguably beginning to wane. But the richness of\nAnglo-Catholic thought was still unfolding fruitfully. By 1945 a new\nbook showed the movement still at a height of provocative\nachievement: this was The\nShape of the Liturgy<\/em>,\na work which Hastings nicely described as \u2018a formidable and\nextremely influential piece of imaginative scholarship\u2019.10<\/sup><\/a>\n Dix occupied a striking place in the Catholic movement within the\nChurch of England. An Anglican Papalist, he was a Benedictine monk\nat Nashdom Abbey, a neo-Georgian immensity just outside Slough,\ndesigned by Lutyens for a Russian prince and princess exiled by the\nBolshevik revolution and subsequently acquired by the Order in 1924.11<\/sup><\/a>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThis\nflourishing represents a moment of English church history. \nCatholicity<\/em>\noccurred within that moment. It is arguable that by 1945 this was\nalready beginning to wane. The more Christian adherence altogether\ndeclined in post-war Britain the fewer felt bothered about what might\ngo on inside its churches anyway. Decline would deal more cruelly\nwith Anglo Catholicism than with any other party or tradition of the\nChurch of England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nReviving\nthe Ecumenical Age<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe\norigins of the Catholicity<\/em>\nreport lay in a conversation which took place in the middle of 1945\nand in the context of a controversy. This was about church union and\nthe specific case was that of the Church of South India.12<\/sup><\/a>\n The work of many missionaries and many years, the creation of a\nunited church in the southern dioceses of India had suffered\nfrustration because Anglo Catholics feared that the principle of\nepiscopacy must be compromised by such a union of ministers ordained\nin different ways, within one body. Fisher wanted this union to\nsucceed and in the theology of episcopacy he was no Anglo Catholic. \nIn 1945, there were many who felt this hung in the balance and there\nwere many, too, who regarded it as an abrasion between pragmatic,\nconstructional idealists, who sought to capture a future for a\nuniversal church that was viable, and others who were insistent on\nthe maintenance of a system even if it appeared to be inoperable or\ncounterproductive in a particular part of the world. Fisher was\ninclined to view it as an example of the destructive capabilities of\nAnglo-Catholicism within the Church of England at large. Caught up\nin this anxious debate was the figure of Dom Geregory Dix. In that\nyear Dix was working on his contribution to a new collection of\nessays edited by his friend the Bishop of Oxford, Kenneth Kirk. This\nwas The\nApostolic Ministry<\/em>.\n Also at work on this particular enterprise were Lionel Thornton of\nthe Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield and Austin Farrer of\nTrinity College, Oxford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAnglo\nCatholics of all kinds were sure that they looked eagerly to the\nunion of the Church. But they had proven ambivalent to the campaigns\nof the ecumenical movements which had given international\nProtestantism so much character if force in the twentieth-century\nworld. Quite simply, to move closer to Lutherans and Calvinists must\nbe to move further from the Church of Rome. For Protestantism at\nlarge, they had very little feeling indeed. This was widely shared\nacross the Church of England. Even Bernard Pawley found that he\npreferred continental Catholics to continental Protestants. Thus\nfar, the problem of union had provoked all kinds of stray initiatives\nin Britain itself. There had been meetings of different kinds of\nminds, consultations and conferences, publications of all sorts. But\nthey had achieved very little indeed, if anything at all. Fisher\ncould see that much of the momentum achieved between the wars, and in\nthe great international conferences of what was now a World Council\nof Churches in Process of Formation, had already been dissipated at\nhome. It was time to try another method. At some indistinct point\nin the summer of 1945, when Dom Gregory Dix and Archbishop Fisher\nwere at loggerheads over the Church of South India, the two men met. \nDix suggested that \u2018a group of Anglo-Catholics\u2019 might set to work\non the problem of church union, not as a part of some unsatisfactory\n\u2018round table\u2019 meeting of thinkers drawn from across the church,\nbut on their own.13<\/sup><\/a>\n Fisher saw something in this. Possibly he thought that it was about\ntime the Anglo-Catholics stopped getting in the way of everybody else\nand instead did something useful together. At all events, on 13\nNovember 1945 Dix wrote to Lambeth Palace to report that he had been\nbusy with this. They should need to have some terms of reference:\n\u2018As to what could happen next, who shall say?\u201914<\/sup><\/a>\n The Lambeth Conference lay before them all and this could be a\nuseful preparation for it. Fisher was content and duly provided\nthese terms of reference. He was attracted by the idea that other\nparts of the Church of England might also do something comparable,\nand was quick to think of the Free Churches and the Church of\nScotland too. On 27 November 1945 he wrote to F.J. Western of the\nFriends of Reunion, \u2018The Anglo-Catholics are quite clear that the\nround-table method got nowhere and I am satisfied the best thing they\ncan do is to work on their own and see whether they can hammer out a\nconstructive line. It doesn\u2019t follow that that method is best for\nother people. The question really is whether it is worth trying or\nnot.\u201915<\/sup><\/a>\n Western\nwas non-committal. Fisher persevered, writing to Robert Newton Flew,\nthe principal of Wesley House in Cambridge. Newton Flew was both\nnon-committal and busy. The Anglo-Catholics were to set to work\nalone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nArchbishop\nFisher now inaugurated the meetings with a document stating its terms\nof reference. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. \n\n\tWhat\n\tis the underlying cause \u2013 philosophical and theological \u2013 of the\n\tcontrast or conflict between the Catholic and Protestant traditions?\n\t<\/li>
  2. \n\n\tWhat\n\tare the fundamental points of doctrine at which the contrast or\n\tconflict crystallizes?\n\t<\/li>
  3. \n\n\tIs\n\ta synthesis at these points possible?\n\t<\/li>
  4. \n\n\tIf\n\ta synthesis is not possible, can they co-exist within one\n\tecclesiastical body, and under what conditions?\n<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    \nThis\ncertainly gave Dix and his confr\u00e9res much to work on. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nCatholicity\nand its authors<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nWhilst\nFisher thought of the new enterprise as one expressive of the mind of\n\u2018a group of Anglo-Catholics\u2019, the authorship of Catholicity<\/em>\nwas nothing quite so simple. It was much more a meeting of\nindividual minds alive and at work within a broad tradition. The\npurpose was not to produce a narrow, purposefully party document. \nDix himself certainly used the phrase \u2018a school of thought\u2019, but\nhe also knew that it represented a genuine diversity. He frankly\nadmitted to Fisher that his task was to carry such a group with him. \nDix himself modestly took the role of secretary. The chairing of the\nsessions fell to the emerging figure of Arthur Michael Ramsey, at\nthis time Van Mildert professor at the University of Durham.16<\/sup><\/a>\n These days, we tend to look back on the figure of Ramsey very much\nas an archbishop, but if we had encountered him in the period of\nCatholicity<\/em>\nthe impression might have been at least a little different. One who\nencountered him in January 1949 was a theologian, Karl Barth. Barth\nwrote to Ramsey shortly after their meeting to say that he had been\npointing him out to his relatives and friends in photographs that he\nhad taken of the ecumenical meeting which they had both attended. To\nRamsey he wrote he would explain with the words: \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And here you see my very good neighbour Canon Ramsay [sic] from Durham, an authentic Anglo-Catholic, with strange views concerning tradition, succession, ontology, and so on, but also with a very convincing twinkle in his eyes, broadminded but nevertheless always prepared to find out some particular point to fight some unexpected little battle, a man with whom I more than not agreed notwithstanding \u2026 the outstanding symbolic figure in the picture of my first ecumenical experience!<\/em>17<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nIn\ntime it would come to include his co-authors in The\nApostolic Ministry<\/em>,\nLionel Thornton and Austin Farrer, V.E. Demant at St Paul\u2019s\nCathedral, the Warden of Keble College, Oxford, H.J. Carpenter, the\nDean of King\u2019s College London, Eric Abbott, F.W. Green of Norwich\nCathedral, A.G. Hebert of the Society of the Sacred Mission at\nKelham, the bishop of Southampton, Edmund Morgan, R.C. Mortimer,\nRegius Professor of pastoral Theology at Oxford, the Rector of\nLiverpool, Ambrose Reeves, Charles Smyth at Westminster Abbey, and,\nin prose but not in person, T.S. Eliot. Dix the recruiter had every\nreason to be proud of such an ensemble. Adrian Hastings admired it\nas \u2018a remarkably brilliant group of men\u2019.18<\/sup><\/a>\n All of them were either at the height of their powers in 1947 or\nwell on the way to attaining it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nThe\ngroup first met on 15 January 1946. It was a success. Dix ensured\nthat Ramsey was the guiding authority and in this he evidently\nperformed well. Dix himself reported to Fisher:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It was obvious that the Group had a \u2018common mind\u2019 from the beginning (though by no means an \u2018Anglo-Catholic\u2019 mind altogether, as the term is commonly understood). The label of the group in Your Grace\u2019s letter to me is something of a misnomer \u2026 There was a real sense of constructiveness about the whole discussion, and an obvious intention to try to put the whole question on a new footing now that we have at last the opportunity to leave a purely \u2018defensive\u2019 attitude. For this chance I think we owe Your Grace a great deal of gratitude.<\/em>19<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nOn\nthis first occasion it was Demant who appeared the decisive\nintellectual ingredient. Demant, Dix wrote enthusiastically, had\ndrawn attention to argument that the Western Church was not simply\ndivided in two, but that \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u2026there are really three elements, not two, in the matter – Catholicism, Protestantism and Liberalism \u2013 and the two latter are only accidentally united. Insofar as there exists a true synthesis of Protestantism and Liberalism it is Catholicism. Liberalism historically is, broadly speaking, a secularised version of those elements of Catholicism which Protestantism rejected and it can only cause confusion in the analysis of the problem to ignore this\u2026<\/em>20<\/sup><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nIf\nnothing else, this certainly shows how Dix and his peers were\nbeginning to relish the opportunities presented by their subject. \nThe great intellectual enterprise was underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nThe\nshifting context: Fisher\u2019s Cambridge Sermon of 1946<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nOn\n3 November 1946 Archbishop Fisher preached a sermon before the\nUniversity of Cambridge which at once became known as \u2018A Step\nForward in Church Relations\u2019. In it he observed that the era in\nwhich the different traditions had come to achieve a measure of\nunderstanding and to explore together what might be possible in\nschemes of unity had been abruptly ended by the war. \u2018How,\u2019 he\nasked, \u2018shall we begin again? I sense a certain reluctance to\nbegin at all.\u2019 A \u2018distinguished theologian\u2019 had even told him\nthat all such activity should cease until \u2018further study,\ntheological thinking and prayer in all Christians communions have led\nthem to a recovered apprehension of the integrity and balance of\nChristian truth\u2019. But Fisher himself thought that waiting for\ntheologians to agree must mean that they would wait forever. \nTheology was something led by life itself and Christ was alive in the\nwhole church now. They had been too preoccupied with constitutional\ndebates, too fearful that identity might be lost through negotiations\nand compromises. Fisher looked not to a constitutional unity on one\nhand or a mere federation on the other, but \u2018a process of\nassimilation, of growing alike\u2019. Distinctness might remain, but\nwithin \u2018a free and unfettered exchange of life in worship and\nsacrament\u2019, as indeed already existed in life and thought. They\nshould remove obstacles to the exchange of ministers and ministries\nand acknowledge that \u2018every church\u2019s ministry is defective\nbecause it is prevented from operating in all the folds of His\nflock\u2019. If some feared the abuses of episcopacy they could\n\u2018guard\u2019 themselves against such danger, and may do so more\neffectively by \u2018taking it into their own system\u2019. The Church of\nEngland had not so far discovered the \u2018finally satisfying use of\nepiscopacy\u2019, any more than had the Church of Rome.21<\/sup><\/a>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nThis\nsermon appeared to present a decisive moment. It was certainly a\nconsiderable one. It took Gregory Dix wholly by surprise. He almost\nwondered if there was any point in a group of Anglo-Catholics meeting\nat all if the Archbishop could simply make up his own mind, disappear\noff to Cambridge and talk broadly and invitingly like this. But in\nreturn Fisher was amiably emollient and the little group did continue\nto meet. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nThe\nwork in progress<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nAcross\n1946 there took place three meetings, two of them lasting for three\ndays. The papers accumulated and the ideas matured. As he read the\nreports of the discussions Fisher was cordial but also perceptibly\nwry, and slightly detached, in response. Once he protested. When he\nread of Ramsey\u2019s views as to what had been God-given and what had\nbeen merely the additions and accretions of history he wrote to Dix,\n\u2018I detect in your observations a tendency possibly to evacuate the\nProtestant tradition of any positive and reputable reason for\nexistence. It will not serve much purpose if you label all the\npositives of Protestantism as Catholic and leave it nothing but the\ndregs.\u201922<\/sup><\/a>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nThis\nambivalence emerged again when a final text was submitted to Fisher\nand he set to work on drafting a foreword for its publication. At\nfirst he introduced a gripe about those who had objected to the\nChurch of South India. This offended the group: Demant thought it\n\u2018decidedly unfair\u2019.23<\/sup><\/a>\n Fisher was persuaded to abandon it. Then came the matter of a\nsingle word, the significance of which might have been obvious to\nhim. The published version reads, \u2018Readers may wish to alter some\nof its proportions and to dissent from some of its judgments: but\nthey will profit by the survey.\u201924<\/sup><\/a>\n Cool praise indeed. The original draft read more caustically:\n\u2018Readers may well<\/em>\nwish to alter some of its proportions and to dissent from some of its\njudgments: but they will profit by it.\u201925<\/sup><\/a>\n Fisher\nobserved\nthat in many ways this report was more effective and impressive in\nanalysis than it might be in elaborating a right method. Members of\nthe group were not exactly happy about this either. Demant himself\nremonstrated to Ramsey, \u2018We should admit, I think, that we are weak\nin synthesis, as is everybody today\u2019,26<\/sup><\/a>\nwhilst Lionel Thornton grumbled of the archbishop: \u2018I think he is\nincapable of thinking in terms of anything except programmes of\nimmediate action.\u201927<\/sup><\/a>\n None of this would have nettled Fisher at all. The Foreword was\ndone, and only with mild editorial scuffles. The whole work was\ndispatched to the offices of the publishing house favoured by\nAnglo-Catholics at large, the Dacre Press in Westminster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nCatholicity:\nthe text itself<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nAlthough\nit presented itself as a Report, Catholicity:\nA Study in the Conflict of Christian Traditions in the West<\/em>\nwas more an essay in history than anything else.28<\/sup><\/a>\n It came in five chapters. The Introduction at once settled to a\nbrief analysis of the terms Protestant and Catholic, soon looking\nbeyond them to that other, earlier rupture between the Western and\nEaster Churches. This was fundamental: \u2018The West will hardly solve\nits own problems unless it recovers certain Christian perceptions\nwhich have been emphasized by the East, but which really belong to\nthe East and West in common.\u2019 Because a history of fragmentation\nhad produced distortions in understanding, it would be mistaken\nsimply to think that the broken pieces could now be put back\ntogether. Union must instead \u2018spring from a vital growth towards a\ngenuine wholeness or catholicity of faith, thought and life.\u201929<\/sup><\/a>\n There followed a discussion of \u2018The Primitive Unity\u2019 of the\nChristian Church, a church many sided, created by Christ himself,\ninhabiting still an age in which the Old Testament was fulfilled in\nthe New and \u2018wholeness\u2019 was achieved in the whole visible Church\ndevising its own rites of initiation and eucharist, kerugma<\/em>\nand practice. To be sure, this primitive unity possessed tensions,\nnot least between things temporal and things eternal and between the\ndivinity of the Church and the tendency of Christians still to sin. \nBut these tensions were still held within \u2018the authentic\nperspectives of apostolic ministry\u2019. Only the recovery of this\nwholeness could create the reunion of what had subsequently been\ndivided.30<\/sup><\/a>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nA\nsecond chapter examined \u2018the background of the western schisms\u2019. \nWith this, Catholicity<\/em>\nbounded into the sixteenth century rather in the fashion of a\ntheological college syllabus. This was the age in which the loss of\nwholeness became \u2018notorious and palpable\u2019. Yet what happened now\nwas not utterly new, but an extension of what had been wrong in the\nwestern church since the great divorce on the eleventh century, not\nleast the turning towards an administrative legalism which produced\nclericalism and theological rationalism and an increasingly\nindividualistic piety. All of this western morality the mysticism of\nthe Eastern Church might have corrected. But if the West had lost a\nsense of what it must learn from the East, the East was no better. \nIt had preserved its ancient tradition, certainly, but in part by\nignoring what had happened in the world at large. It was because of\n1054 that both traditions, existing in isolation from each other,\nwere \u2018defective\u2019.31<\/sup><\/a>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nThe\nWestern tradition now broke into three enduring \u2018types\u2019: orthodox\nProtestantism, Liberalism and post-Tridentine Catholicism. To\nOrthodox Protestantism the authors of Catholicity sought to be\n\u2018truthful and fair-minded\u2019. But it clearly required something of\nan effort: \u2018Our difficulty is that neither in the Reformation nor\nsince, have Protestants ever been able to agree on a positive\nstatement of their common convictions\u2019. Even so, Protestantism\npossessed \u2018great positive truths\u2019: \u2018the Gospel of the living\nGod\u2019; the authority of the Bible; the necessity of faith and \u2018the\ntruth of his justification through Faith\u2019; the active participation\nin the life and governance of the Church of the laity; the importance\nof preaching. But also manifest were two \u2018radical errors\u2019: \u2018the\ndissociation of Justification from the doctrine of Creation\u2019 and\nthe detachment of \u2018Justification from Sanctification\u2019. \nProtestantism had brought a loss of faith that man was made in the\nimage of God and that what was fallen in man could be restored by\nbaptism into Christ. The consequence was an immovable belief in\nman\u2019s \u2018total depravity\u2019 and a \u2018catastrophic pessimism\u2019\nabout the capacity which man possessed to be rational. Luther had\naffirmed grace while denying nature, and affirmed faith \u2018alone\u2019. \nLutheranism at large announced a repudiation of natural theology,\nsomething rooted in the Old Testament and in Greek philosophy. A\nneglect of the doctrine of Creation had brought a loss of the\nsacramental principle which was at work in the Incarnation and\nidentified the \u2018spiritual\u2019 with the \u2018non-material\u2019. \nProtestantism had missed the great sanctification of life itself and\nretreated to an inward piety, abandoning the world in the hands of\nprincipalities and powers. This constituted a \u2018retreat from\nhistory\u2019 itself, even a desire to \u2018contract out\u2019 of it. Yet\nwhile Protestantism had turned to \u2018activism and good works\u2019, it\nhad produced \u2018very little\u2019 ascetical or mystical theology. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nOrthodox\nProtestantism was divided from Catholicism by its doctrine of the\nChurch and Authority. Across Protestantism the individual came\nbefore the Church. For Catholics, it was the visible Church which\ncame first. Lutheranism was \u2018indifferent\u2019 to the principle of\nsuccession in the Church it could not think of it as a \u2018continuous\nhistorical society\u2019. For Luther, the Church existed wherever it\nbore the marks of the Gospel and was made up of those who believed;\nfor Calvin the church was constituted by the Gospel and the Law: it\nwas a society of those who believed and obeyed. When it came to\ndoctrines of Authority the Protestants had removed the Church and\nreplaced it with only the authority of Scripture. This distortion\nwas particularly \u2018notorious\u2019, \u2018for how are the Scriptures to be\ninterpreted? Lutheranism had subjected the reading of the Bible to\nthe requirements of a doctrine while Calvinists saw the Scriptures as\n\u2018a self-contained Divine volume\u2019, in no way related to a\nTradition of any kind. Accordingly, there was in Protestantism no\nsense of who had the authority to interpret, and why. It had become\na matter of the \u2018private judgement\u2019 of the individual. In all\nthese respects the Protestants had lost sight of the tradition of the\nprimitive church \u2013 the very thing to which the authors of\nCatholicity<\/em>\nlooked for the fulness of union. Such a distortion could only be\n\u2018grievously misleading\u2019.32<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nCatholicity<\/em>\nfound that the claims of the Renaissance and Liberalism together\nconstituted the \u2018second factor\u2019 in the division of Western\nChristianity. Both had done much to provide the \u2018common\npresuppositions\u2019 of the modern world. The Renaissance had affirmed\nthe dignity of man, the ideal of freedom and the idea of history as a\nprogress towards happiness and enlightenment. It possessed a\nreverence for man, as something created in the image of God, for\ngoodness and beauty as things born of God, and a reverence for Truth,\nwhether it be found in the Bible or anywhere else. But in the\nisolation of these ideas from \u2018other insights into man\u2019s relation\nto God\u2019 lay the \u2018tragedies of modern secularism and godlessness\u2019.\n Man had come to believe not in God but in himself.33<\/sup><\/a>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nThe\nliberalism of the nineteenth century had brought two essential\nstrengths: the critical study of the Bible and a refusal of\nliteralism. But such things could also be misused, and they had\nbeen. Man himself had moved to the centre of the picture and much\nhad now been placed outside any apprehension of the judgement of God.\n It was an \u2018ugly nemesis\u2019 of the understandings let loose by the\nRenaissance. Liberalism had also brought the theology of\nSchleiermacher, in whose work human discovery had replaced\nrevelation, the Word of God had been pressed aside by \u2018religious\nconsciousness\u2019 and sin had been dispatched by notions of mere\nimperfection. Hegel had proven a rich mine for Christian thought,\nbut in the long run a great \u2018source of corruption\u2019, for in\nHegel\u2019s thought man had forgotten what it was to fear God, was no\nlonger a creature of God and no longer dependent upon him. Then had\ncome Ritschl and the search for a Jesus merely of human history, a\nfigure divested of metaphysical questions and of arguments about the\nvery Being of God. Ritschl had inspired \u2018no little mischief\u2019,\nreducing the figure of Christ to the value judgements of man. This\nwas not the theological world of the New Testament at all. God\nhimself had ceased to be God, but become instead \u2018the loving\nFather, conceived after our own notions of love and without a word\nabout the Divine Judgement\u2019. Redemption had become a matter of\nspiritual progress within history. Resurrection had become merely\nthe survival of the goodness that was in man. Such ideas were now to\nbe found at large everywhere, in sermons, in hymns, in class-rooms. \nWhere Liberalism had preserved what was the \u2018primitive and\nessential being of Christianity\u2019 it had yielded positive insights. \nBut, like the Renaissance, Liberalism had become a world in itself. \nThe task was now to see how to reintegrate such strengths within a\ngreater picture. Yet there was much in Liberalism which was\n\u2018fiercely intolerant\u2019 of the faith of Evangelicals or the church\norder of the Catholics. Liberals must therefore recognize their\nplace and not assume that it was only within a liberal\nbroad-mindedness that every other insight and traditions must be\ndrawn together.34<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nWhat,\nthen, of the Post-Tridentine Papal Communion? Anglicans, as D\u00f6llinger\nhad once observed, had thought too little of this. For centuries\nChristians had been divided by politics, but now they could look to\nreason with each other on a primarily theological basis. The Church\nof the Counter-Reformation was in doctrine and organisation the\nsuccessor of the church which existed before the ruptures of the\nsixteenth century. The reforms of Trent had revived much that was\nancient and authentic in worship. They represented a sifting of\n\u2018haphazard accumulations\u2019 of history, which the Protestants had\ndeplored and repudiated. It was under a reformed Papacy that the\nRoman Catholic Church had achieved a new coherence. It began to show\ndiversity, a growing humanist-liberal tradition, a rich culture of\nlearning which showed spontaneity and vitality. It remained a part\nof social life and it had the power to launch missions in quite new\nlands. An organic, universal church appeared clearly to involve the\ninstitution of the Papacy, if only as a \u2018pragmatic necessity\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nYet\nthis was a church which still maintained a medieval structure which\nwas unsound and flawed and still it did not look to the East for an\nenlargement of its vision. It retained the \u2018whole vast\nelaboration\u2019 of a rigid scholasticism and \u2018the codification of a\nhuge syllogistic structure of reasoning\u2019 which had pressed Biblical\nrevelation with the teaching of the Roman Church itself: \u2018It would\nbe difficult to devise anything more likely to repulse the instructed\nProtestant at the outset.\u2019 The Church had become a \u2018closely\narticulated legal machine\u2019: \u2018It is a sheer perversion when the\nprocess of Christian salvation can be represented as fulfilled by a\nmerely mechanical human obedience to a human jurisdiction acting in\nthe name of an absentee Christ.\u2019 In all this, the revolt of the\nProtestants was surely a thing much needed. It was canon law, not the\npapacy itself, which had produced curial bureaucracy, centralisation,\npapal absolutism. Even Quakers, Catholicity<\/em>\nwryly observed, were liable to discover that \u2018close\ncentralization\u2019, and the bureaucracy which it demanded, achieved\nthe same effect. It was true that the Church of Rome had often come\nto behave as one church among others. But in the Papacy itself still\nlay the only Christian institution which could still \u2018command the\nattention and to a large extent secure the following of all\nChristians\u2019. It remained \u2018a mighty witness\u2019 to the central\nChristian truths of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Redemption,\n\u2018the strongest single bulwark of the historic tradition of\nChristian civilization\u2019, the foundation of modern Christian social\nteaching and of world mission.35<\/sup><\/a>\n \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nAll\nof these forms and categories Catholicity<\/em>\nnow sought to order and compress into a list of \u2018opposed\nconceptions\u2019 presented by the religion of Renaissance and\nReformation, juxtaposing Salvation by faith and Salvation by works,\nGrace and Reason, Justification and Sanctification, Christ as Saviour\nand Christ as pattern, History as sin and History as Divinely ordered\nprogress, God transcendent and God immanent. This list was developed\nin a discussion not only of what had divided Christians in history\nbut by a recollection of things which might well have brought\ndivision if they had thought of them. What Catholicity<\/em>\ndreaded quite as much as false division was a false synthesis, a\nunity of errors, which must only cause fresh disunity to break out. \n\u2018There can,\u2019 it stated, \u2018be no synthesis between a broken half\nand the original whole, but only a renewed unity between the parts\nwhich have been falsified by separation.\u2019 Christians must not now\nbegin the work of reunion on the basis of their own, present systems,\nbut go behind them to discover the fulness of tradition which yet\nsurvived in each of the \u2018sundered portions of Christendom\u2019. \nCatholicity<\/em>\nturned towards the wider world in which Christians of all kinds now\nlived, one which had slid by degrees into a \u2018mass-made pattern of\nlife\u2019 and one often shaped by \u2018an aggressively secularist\n\u201cconformism\u201d\u2019. In such a world the churches were now pressed\nto sink their differences and stand together against such a \u2018sweeping\ntide\u2019. But to do so could only bring the tearing up of dogmas,\ntraditions and patterns and foster new, distinctive forms of\ncorruption. This could not be the unity for which Christ had prayed.36<\/sup><\/a>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nWhat\nthen of the Church of the Anglican Communion? Its distinctive\ncomprehensiveness qualified it to be a \u2018school of synthesis over a\nwider field than any other Church in Christendom\u2019. Within the\nAnglican Reformation itself there had been \u2018some degree of return\nto the fulness of the Christian Tradition\u2019. Thereafter, \u2018the\nhistory of Anglican theology shows that it possesses a power of\nconstruction which has made for synthesis rather than for division\u2019.\n It had shown how to combine the appeal to Scripture with sound\nlearning. Hooker had preached the Incarnation; Lancelet Andrewes had\nprayed for the whole Church, East and West. Here was a biblical\nscholarship which acknowledged both the divine and human elements in\nScripture in a distinctive theology of the eucharist, in a \u2018blending\u2019\nof what was traditional and contemporary. Synthesis was the vocation\nof Anglicanism. It articulated, and sought to integrate, von H\u0171gel\u2019s\nelements of the institutional, intellectual and mystical. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nIf\nthe promise of these characteristic qualities of Anglicanism remained\nlargely unrealised, it was because they had been obscured by the\ndisputes and distortions of parties. There were Anglicans who\nthought hardly at all of the Church, preferring to think of the\nspiritual vocation of a community, while others practised \u2018an\nintroverted and pietistic ecclesiasticism under the name of\n\u201cCatholic\u201d churchmanship\u2019. Meanwhile, the Anglican Communion\nwas itself under strain. Once the Establishment of the Church of\nEngland had helped to hold together its different parties. The State\nhad also done much to govern its expansion abroad. Now this had\ngrown weaker. Once Anglicans had all worshipped by the Book of\nCommon Prayer. No longer was it the bond of their unity; Anglicans\ncould be found worshipping by different patterns and broader sources.\n Now the principles of the Lambeth Quadrilateral were a basis for the\nunity of Anglicans but this could not be enough. They must go behind\nthis, too, and learn to see it not as a formula sufficient in itself\nbut \u2018a symbol of the fulness of Tradition\u2019. What of episcopacy? \nIt was one thing to insist on bishops, and Catholicity<\/em>\ncertainly did. It was another to look to \u2018the recovery of the true\nplace of the Bishop in the Church, not as an organiser of a vast\nadministrative machine, but as the guardian and exponent of the\nfaith, as the bond of sacramental unity, and as an organ of the Body\nof Christ in true constitutional relation to the presbyters and\npeople.\u2019 A church which lived and worshipped by a united constancy\nin Scriptures, Creeds, Sacraments and Apostolic Succession offered\nstill \u2018the highest precondition of the task of theological\nsynthesis to which the Anglican Communion is, in Divine Providence,\ncalled.\u201937<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nAt\nthe last Catholicity<\/em>\nturned, and only briefly, to Fisher\u2019s final question: if synthesis\ncould not be attained, under what conditions could coexistence be\nachieved within one ecclesiastical body? \u2018We would shrink,\u2019 came\nthe reply, \u2018from any general answer.\u2019 But it was a question\nwhich Anglicans of all kinds might just as clearly ask of one\nanother.38<\/sup><\/a>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nThe\ntwo reports of 1950<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nCatholicity<\/em>\ndid, as Fisher had hoped, become the first point in a design of three\nparts. Once it had been published the other parties to which\nArchbishop Fisher had looked in 1945 found that there was a reason to\nstate their own, different cases, and not least because much of what\nthey cherished themselves had in one way or another been criticised\nor questionably represented. The\nCatholicity of Protestantism<\/em>,\nthe work of the Free Church leaders, appeared in 1950. The\nFulness of Christ<\/em>:\nThe\nChurch\u2019s Growth into Catholicity<\/em>\nwas the work of the Evangelicals of the Church of England. It\nappeared in the same year.39<\/sup><\/a>\n If Dix might have earned the right to congratulate himself on\nrecruiting men of some distinction and eminence then it was clear\nthat the Free Churches and the Evangelicals could certainly match\nthem in creative force and eminence. The group which produced The\nCatholicity of Protestantism <\/em>included\nthe Methodists T.W. Manson, Rupert Davies, Robert Newton Flew,\nKenneth Grayson and Gordon Rupp, the Congregationalists Nathaniel\nMicklem, John Marsh and R.D. Whitehorn and the Baptists Ernest Payne,\nRobert L. Child and P.W. Evans. The Fulness\nof Christ<\/em>\nbrought together another sterling cast including Henry Chadwick,\nDonald Coggan, Geoffrey Lampe, C.F.D Moule, Stephen Neill and R.R.\nWilliams. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nThe\nFulness of Christ<\/em>\nmade very little reference to Catholicity<\/em>,\npreferring to outline its own understandings and to pursue,\ngraciously, the construction of what was in many respects a quite\ndifferent approach. It was The\nCatholicity of Protestantism <\/em>which\npresented the firmer response to the worldview of Catholicity<\/em>.\n Here it was affirmed that the venture of 1947 had misinterpreted and\nmisrepresented Protestantism in almost every respect. In particular,\nit fixed its sights on the figure of Luther \u2013 and did so with\npower, not least because Watson was a formidable scholar of Luther\nand because in Franz Hildebrandt they had secured the additional\nservices of a Lutheran theologian who had been exiled from Germany by\nthe persecutions of the Third Reich. It would be very difficult for\na historian, or a historian of theology, to maintain that The\nCatholicity of Protestantism<\/em>\ndid not present a more secure understanding of the things which\nCatholicity had ventured to chastise. Yet its authors were as\npurposeful in seeking to affirm common ground with the authors of\nCatholicity<\/em>\nas they were in criticism. Turning to the authors of Catholicity<\/em>\nin their Foreword, Newton Flew and Davies wrote, \u2018We hope that the\nspirit of charity and candour, of penitence and of passion for\n\u201csanctification in the truth\u201d, which breathes through that\ndocument, will also be evident in ours. Our agreements with them are\nmany. Many also are our disagreements.\u2019 Significantly, they\nadded, \u2018We still know too little about one another, and this is\ntrue on the protestant side as well as on the catholic.\u201940<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nFisher\nsupplied an eirenic foreword to these two reports as he had to\nCatholicity<\/em>\nthree years before. He thought that all three of them, \u2018so\nadmirable in spirit and in substance\u2019 could only do good. Had they\ndiscovered or discerned anything which must preclude a \u2018steady\nadvance\u2019?41<\/sup><\/a>\n That he left readers to judge for themselves, but now they did so in\na landscape which had again been altered. November 1950 had brought a\nfurther significant publication, this time a decisive one. It was a\njoint report on \u2018Church Relations in England\u2019. This was the\nfruit of another succession of ecumenical meetings chaired by Bishop\nRawlinson of Derby and Nathaniel Micklem. With this the\nintercommunion of churches was claimed and almost realised. Fisher\nnow looked back to Catholicity\n<\/em>itself.\n They could now, he said, look towards a full intercommunion as\nsomething based on mutual recognition of \u2018the constancy of one\nsingle pattern\u2019.42<\/sup><\/a>\n This achievement of intercommunion was very likely as far as Fisher\nthought everything would go in his own time. Certainly, they moved\nno further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nRe-placing\nCatholicity<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nAll\nthese three reports were in their different ways studies in history. \nThe authors of Catholicity\n<\/em>alleged\nthat \u2018Protestantism has not really come to terms with the reality\nof History as the scene of the continuous presence of the Divine life\nthat flows from the Incarnation.43<\/sup><\/a>\n The authors of The\nCatholicity of Protestantism<\/em>\nreplied that Catholicity had not come to terms with Protestantism\naltogether. The authors of The\nFulness of Christ <\/em>declared,\n\u2018The Church owes its existence , and its power to grow, to the acts\nof God in history\u2019, adding that if they all could but penetrate\nmore deeply into the will and purpose of God, they should \u2018be able\nto establish criteria by which the Church in history can be judged\u2019.44<\/sup><\/a>\n\nAll three came to their own distinct conclusions not about what was\ntransient in Christian history but what was, to use the phrase\nventured in Catholicity<\/em>,\n\u2018constant and unalterable\u2019.45<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nBut,\nhowever the arguments fell, Catholicity<\/em>\nattempted a vast model of Christian history that was not only\nrestlessly and insistently creative but conspicuous in its scope and\nambition. It would surely have occurred to none of its authors that\ntheir work shared at least something with other more widely\nacknowledged, and equally debatable, tours\nd\u2019horizon<\/em>,\nlike Jean Jacques Rousseau\u2019s Discourse\non the Origins of Inequality<\/em>\nof 1755 or the Communist\nManifesto<\/em>\nof 1848 by Karl Marx. But, in its powerful integration of critical\nmethod and idealistic purpose, it achieved a comparable effect. \nCatholicity<\/em>\nrepresented a moment in the history of Christian thought, albeit a\nsmall one. It affirmed the intellectual possibilities which could be\nclaimed by the Catholic movement in the Church of England, and showed\nhow they might be offered to inspire the wider church to think,\nimagine and hope. It insisted that the vision of union was something\nfundamental to Anglicanism altogether and that the Anglican position\ncould hardly expect to be justified if it ever abandoned such a\nvision. It was a call not for shallow solutions but for profundity;\nan appeal to look beneath the surfaces and outward forms of Christian\nlife and to acknowledge that all Christians are caught up in\nsomething far greater, richer and deeper than they can truly\nunderstand. If the authors of Catholicity<\/em>\nwere found to understand important things well it was much to their\ncredit. If they misunderstood them creatively the debt which others\nowed was perhaps still greater because it stirred them to answer. If\ntheir evocation of primitive unity was inevitably to be criticised as\na myth, it was an important and eloquent one. Nobody who read\nCatholicity<\/em>\ncould rest content with the state of the Christian Church as it was\nnow to be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It\nwas Fisher\u2019s achievement to ensure that it happened: when at least\na side of him might well have preferred to get results to the\nproblems of history by putting down layers of ecclesiastical\nconcrete, he knew how to incite an intellectual contribution, how to\nirritate its authors into a firmer self-expression, and how to\ncommend what they had given him to the whole Church. To Ramsey, who\nshowed himself to be a steadfast and effective chairman, Catholicity<\/em>\nowed much. To Dix it owed most of all. In 1947 these three\nprincipal figures were launched, intentionally or unintentionally, on\ntheir own trajectories. Fisher, who had held Ramsey to be\nuncooperative over the Church of South India, would in retirement be\nas uncooperative in the later conversations with the Methodists for\nwhich Ramsey cherished such hopes. Both lived to be old. By 1950\nGregory Dix, now prior of Nashdom, had only two years to live. The\nscholar whom Kenneth Kirk once described as \u2018the most brilliant man\nin the Church of England\u2019 died from intestinal cancer on 12 May\n1952. Kirk himself wrote, \u2018He was one of the saintliest people I\nhave ever known, & though he died young the mark he left on the\nChurch of England will live for a long time.\u201946<\/sup><\/a>\n Late\nin his life, Nathaniel Micklem remembered a meeting which had taken\nplace in Mansfield College, Oxford late in 1949, between Free\nChurchmen and \u2018strong Anglo-Catholics\u2019:  \u2018We met for two\nor three days: we knew well that at some point there was profound\ndifference between us, but at the end of our sessions we were utterly\nunable to define that point.\u2019 The conclave had still left him with\none \u2018sacred memory\u2019: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It fell to Dom Gregory Dix to lead our devotions in the College Chapel. He called us to prayer, and then it was as if he forgot all about us. He began to speak to Jesus as a man speaks to his near friend: he poured out all his heart, all his longings in passionate spontaneous prayer. It filled me with awe.\u2026 Reunion will come when disunity has become intolerable to us. Officially, of course, I am bound to regard some of Gregory Dix’s opinions as quite outrageous but I held him in warm affection. He lived radiantly and triumphally<\/em> in Domino.47<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    ****<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There then followed a discussion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Footnote<\/em>s<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1.<\/em> \n\tThis paper was the last thing that I\n\tdiscussed with Geoffrey Rowell and I still owe much to him for the provision of materials. I am also particularly grateful to Stephen Tucker and Robert Gage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2.<\/em>\n\tAndrew Chandler, The\n\tChurch of England in the Twentieth Century: The Church Commissioners\n\tand the Politics of Reform<\/em>\n\t(Woodbridge, 2008), p. 137.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    3.<\/em>\n\tFor three biographical studies see William Purcell, Fisher\n\tof Lambeth<\/em>\n\t(London, 1969), Edward Carpenter, Archbishop\n\tFisher: His Life and Times<\/em>\n\t(Norwich, 1991) and Andrew Chandler and David Hein, Archbishop\n\tFisher<\/em>\n\t1945-1961:\n\tChurch, State and World<\/em>\n\t(Farnham, 2012).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    4.<\/em>\n\tSee Frederick Bliss, Anglicans\n\tin Rome <\/em>(Norwich,\n\t2006), p. 44. See too Andrew Chandler and Charlotte Hansen (eds.),\n\tObserving\n\tVatican II: The Confidential Reports of the Archbishop of\n\tCanterbury\u2019s Representative, Bernard Pawley, 1961-1964<\/em>\n\t(Cambridge, 2013), pp. 1-19. \n\t<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    5.<\/em>\n\tFor a significant study see Alan Piggot, \u2018An Educated Sense of\n\tFitness: Liberal Anglo-Catholicism 1900-1940\u2019, D. Phil thesis,\n\tUniversity of Oxford, 2004, particularly pp. 3-28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    6.<\/em>\n\tWill Spens, The\n\tPresent Position of the Catholic Movement in the Church of England:\n\tAn Address delivered at the Conference of the Diocese of New York at\n\tLake Mahopac on October 18, 1933<\/em>\n\t(1933), p. 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    7.<\/em>\n\tSee Mark Chapman, \u2018The evolution of Anglican Theology, 1910-2000\u2019,\n\tin Jeremy Morris (ed.), The\n\tOxford History of Anglicanism, Volume IV: Global Western\n\tAnglicanism, c. 1910-Present <\/em>(Oxford,\n\t2017), pp. 40-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    8.<\/em>\n\tAdrian Hastings, A\n\tHistory of English Christianity 1920-1985<\/em>\n\t(London, 1986), p. 298<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    9.<\/em>\n\tFor a broader picture of the context which produced the book, and\n\tother such statements, see Geoffrey Rowell, The\n\tVision Glorious: Themes and Personalities of the Catholic revival in\n\tAnglicanism<\/em>\n\t(Oxford, 1983), pp. 220-47.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    10.<\/em>\n\tIbid., p. 446.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    11.<\/em>\n\tFor an attractive, succinct overview of Dix see Kenneth Stevenson,\n\tDom\n\tGregory Dix<\/em>\n\t(London, 1983). Above all, see Simon Bailey\u2019s valuable\n\tbiographical study, A\n\tTactful God: Gregory Dix, Priest, Monk and Scholar<\/em>\n\t(Leominster, 1995). \n\t<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    12.<\/em>\n\tFor an overview see Bengt Sundkler, The\n\tChurch of South India: The Movement towards Union, 1900-1947<\/em>\n\t(London, 1954); for the debate which broke out in the Church of\n\tEngland see Eric Waldram Kemp, The\n\tLife and Letters of Kenneth Escott Kirk, Bishop of Oxford 1937-1954<\/em>\n\t(London, 1959), pp. 150-186.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    13.<\/em>\n\tAs recounted in Dix to Fisher, 13 November 1945, Fisher Papers, Vol.\n\t76, fol. 283.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    14.<\/em>\n\tIbid., fols. 283-6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    15.<\/em>\n\tFisher to Western, 27 November 1945, Ibid., fol. 289.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    16.<\/em>\n\tSee Owen Chadwick, Michael\n\tRamsey, A Life<\/em>\n\t(Oxford, 1990).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    17.<\/em>\n\tBarth to Ramsey, 3 January 1949, Ramsey Papers, Vol. 2, fol. 154.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    18.<\/em>\n\tHastings, A\n\tHistory of English Christianity<\/em>,\n\tp. 446<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    19.<\/em>\n\tDix to Fisher, 17 January 1946, Fisher Papers, Vol. 76, fols.\n\t293-5v.ns in Rome<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    20.<\/em>\n\tIbid, fol. 294 r. & v.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    21.<\/em>\n\tVariously republished, but here in Andrew Chandler and David Hein,\n\tArchbishop\n\tFisher, 1945-1961: Church, State and World<\/em>\n\t(Farnham, 2012), pp. 163-8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    22.<\/em>\n\tFisher to Dix, 19 January 1946, Fisher Papers, Vol. 76, fols. 296-7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    23.<\/em>\n\tDemant to Ramsey, 1 June 1947, Ramsey Papers, Vol. 2, fol. 132.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    24.<\/em>\n\tCatholicity:\n\tA Study in the Conflict of Christian Traditions in the West \u2013\n\tbeing a Report presented to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury<\/em>\n\t(London, 1947).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    25.<\/em>\n\tFisher to Ramsey, 11 February 1947, Fisher Papers, Vol. 76, fols.\n\t307-15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    26.<\/em>\n\tDemant to Ramsey, 1 June 1947, Ramsey papers, Vol. 2, fol. 132.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    27.<\/em>\n\tThornton to Ramsey, 29 June 1947, Ibid., fol. 138.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    28.<\/em>\n\tI have worked closely to the text in this section. For this reason I\n\thave adopted references to \u2018Man\u2019, made in the original. Because\n\tI have dealt with each chapter in turn, readers may easily trace\n\tparticular quotations without the adoption of needlessly intrusive\n\tpage references.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    29.<\/em>\n\tCatholicity<\/em>,\n\tpp. 9-10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    30.<\/em>\n\tIbid.,<\/em>\n\tpp. 11-17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    31.<\/em>\n\tIbid., pp. 18-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    32.<\/em>\n\tIbid., pp. 20-8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    33.<\/em>\n\tIbid., pp. 28-9<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    34.<\/em>\n\tIbid., pp. 29-32.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    35.<\/em>\n\tIbid., pp. 32-41.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    36.<\/em>\n\tIbid., pp. 42-8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    37.<\/em>\n\tIbid., pp. 49-55.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    38.<\/em>\n\tIbid., pp. 55-6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    39.<\/em>\n\tR. Newton Flew and Rupert Davies (eds.), The\n\tCatholicity of Protestantism being a report presented to His Grace\n\tthe Archbishop of Canterbury by a group of Free Churchmen <\/em>(London,\n\t1950) and The\n\tFulness of Christ: The Church\u2019s Growth into Catholicity being a\n\tReport presented to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury<\/em>\n\t(London, 1950).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    40.<\/em>\n\tNewton Flew and Davies (eds.), The\n\tCatholicity of Protestantism<\/em>,\n\tp. 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    41.<\/em>\n\tIbid., pp. 7-9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    42.<\/em>\n\tCatholicity<\/em>,\n\tp. 56.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    43.<\/em>\n\tIbid., p. 43.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    44.<\/em>\n\tThe\n\tFulness of Christ<\/em>,\n\tpp. 12-13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    45.<\/em>\n\tCatholicity<\/em>,\n\tp. 55.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    46.<\/em>\n\tEric Kemp, The\n\tLife and Letters of Kenneth Escott Kirk, Bishop of Oxford 1937-1954<\/em>\n\t(London, 1959), p. 204, 206.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\t

    47.<\/em>\n\tNathaniel Micklem, The\n\tBox and the Puppets (1888-1953)<\/em>,\n\t(London, 1957), pp. 139-40.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Andrew Chandler is Professor in Modern History at the University of Chichester. Dr Chandler is a Trustee of the Society of the Faith.1 In July 1947, a man barely known to church history named Bill Allen was putting down concrete floors in an address in Central London when he suddenly found himself confronted by a … 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-33","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33","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=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions\/222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}