Episcope for beginners

Tag: church

  • A balanced view of parish versus project

    Present in Every Place? The Church of England’s New Churches, and the Future of the Parish. Will Foulger, SCM, 2023, pp. xvi, 117.

    978-0-334-06203-5 paperback. Also available as an ebook.

    This timely and well-researched book examines the tensions between supporters of the parish ministry and those who have developed new patterns of congregation-building. Without taking sides, but by including his own research journey Will Foulger examines the current literature and adds his own objective interpretation. Foulger is Director of Mission and Evangelism at Cranmer Hall Theological College in Durham and Director of the Centre for Church Planting Theology and Research. As such he is one of the best placed people to offer such an analysis.

    Instead of beginning by describing each argument and its defence Foulger very wisely choses other criteria by which to conduct an analysis of the virtues or otherwise of the situation in which the Church of England and its leadership now find themselves. The examination is set out in only four chapters, but the Preface, Introduction and Postscript have substance and    give seven distinct contributions. In the first principal chapter, Foulger introduces a discussion of place, saying that it is the places we inhabit, or have inhabited, which shape us. Using a definition from the human geographer Geoff Malpas and drawing much on the seminal theological work of John Inge, he calls place ‘bounded openness.’

    From this he then explores space which he says is a concept full of choice and unlimited possibility. It is the limitedness of the parish system which its critics find a problem. Those who want more freedom of liturgical expression and want to break away from traditional Church of England worship and engagement styles find this mindset attractive. It is what has produced a new generation of Pioneer Ministers with their specialised theological and mission training.

    Foulger’s second chapter then goes to the debate. He explores the history and ecclesiological defence of parish and local settled congregations. This forms the focus of his title, asking why and if the Church of England should have a parochial presence in every community. In this he is honest about the effectiveness or otherwise of some parochial work. He sources those who have charted an over resourced rural ministry which was then slow to react to population movements as the industrial revolution exploded. Strangely, he seems unaware of the foundational work of Ted Wickham in Sheffield on this subject. Place is strong here, tinged with fantasised nostalgia. There is no discussion of how rural ministry might be sustained or developed for the future and an acknowledgement that many solutions are urban or suburban in nature.

    Only then is all this all set alongside the work arising from the 2004 report Mission Shaped Church and the subsequent outworking as Fresh Expressions. It is this movement which has spawned new congregations, creative church growth and church planting. Wisely, after a well-evidenced debate he concludes that this movement can be seen as an over-reaction towards space, experiment, and non-parochial innovation. He has also observed an equal over-correction in defence of the local parish which when it works well can be very effective but when it does not may plead for a partnership of experiment with grounded presence. In each case Foulger’s judgement is that, grafted or planted, effectiveness can only be judged by the earned local social capital which a Christian presence creates.

    Fundamental to Foulger’s analysis is his third chapter. It reminds protagonists and defenders of any established position that the places in which Christians and local churches operate are not the places they used to be. Social and economic change require emerging solutions. He says that that we have a God who is always there, with or without us and that we are a church of disciples who in the same image are always ‘becoming’ (p.80). In a time of clergy shortage and increasing lay responsibility he emphasises that collegiality and not isolated individualism is the way forward.

    There is an honesty which runs throughout the book about Foulger’s own journey. He has conducted some of his early research in Nottingham and now draws much of his own grounded experience from the Northeast and the Durham which he says is known by many residents not for its cathedral but for the diverse ways in which it has restored itself after the collapse of the mining industry. He says in the Introduction that he set out in his initial research with the intention of defending new churches against their critics. He then found that, as his research continued, he began agreeing with the premises of many of those critics. This questioning honesty led him to the examination of sources, local practice and theological justification which have resulted in this short but immensely valuable book. It reveals a Church of England which continues to be changed as this innovative but tension-filled discussion continues. Will Foulger’s book is an important contribution to a debate which needs to be well-informed and which has many more miles yet to travel.

  • The Save the Parish Debate

    The Once and Future Parish, Alison Milbank, SCM Press, 2023, pp. xxiv, 194. Paperback. ISBN 978-0-334-06313-1.

    This book makes the case for a revitalised parish ministry. Its author is unhappy about the centralising policies of the Church of England at diocesan and national level and criticises the balance of investment by the Church Commissioners where untried projects are favoured against investment in parishes and the clergy who serve them. Alison Millbank is Professor of Theology and Literature at the University of Nottingham. She is also Canon Theologian and Priest Vicar at Southwell Minster. This book is written as a follow-up to that by Alison Milbank and Andrew Davison, For the Parish published twelve years ago which influenced and inspired what has become the ‘Save the Parish’ movement.

    Alongside her critical commentary on the many recent Church of England reports and innovative initiatives in the sphere of evangelism, Millbank includes tremendously encouraging accounts of what can be achieved in lively Anglican parishes with dedicated congregations and committed local clergy. Her title is taken, for those who remember, from the initiator of support and research into parish ministry, Lauren Mead of the Alban Institute with his book The once and future Church. She refers equally strongly to the Arthurian Legend parallel of a ‘once and future king’ and his return when need became great. This is given its modern interpretation with a frontispiece cover of a painting by the Glasgow artist Peter Howson. It gives the book its central theme, that especially amid crises and in times of great human need basic inherited human and spiritual values become beacons of hope. Her argument is that we have a dearth of moral leadership in many parts of the world. One reason in England for this she says is that the once national church has retreated from being the church which is for everyone towards becoming a grouping of gathered communities with increasingly sectarian characteristics.

    In eight carefully researched chapters Millbank sets out the case for a renewal of locally based parish ministry. She charts the change in allocation of resources away form the parish, the increased centralisation of leadership, a depletion in the numbers of stipendiary clergy and the increase in diocesan and national posts. She explores the changes in emphasis in mission, an unhelpful umbrella term, the lack of theological and liturgical education in ministerial training and continuing formation, the changed understanding of the role of bishop and the very different paths to appointment culminating in a leadership not adequately formed in Anglican traditions and in the main without academic theological backgrounds. She laments the lack of use of retired clergy as a theological and liturgical training resource.

    Most helpfully for readers of this journal Millbank exposes the lack of support for rural parishes. She explains how most do not qualify, even with changed terms, for the generous central funding handouts. She applauds small congregations of the faithful who raise enormous amounts to maintain their buildings. In urban as well as rural areas she describes a laity who feel more abandoned by their church than ‘liberated’ to engage in ministry in the world. It is perhaps unfortunate that Millbank does not give research details of the Church in Wales where she says abandoning the parish for other structures has resulted in steeper decline.

    This is an unashamedly partisan book which sets out to defend a parochial system which has been put under threat. There is some hyperbole and hints of a memory that things were better before. She does not defend the Book of Common Prayer uncritically. Interestingly she says that if the reforms of the 1928 book had been passed by Parliament, then a continuing gradual programme of liturgical revision might have been carried out. It is the ‘spirit’ of the BCP which she applauds with its inclusive emphasis as something which the devout lay person could use and know that others were also a part of ‘the blessed company of all faithful people’.

    The overall argument is that those who have been appointed wholly now internally by the Church of England and a majority who populate its General Synod and its committees have developed policies which demonstrate little or no understanding of the faith and traditions which have formed their church and have opted for a mistaken emphasis on non-parochial solutions.  While placing considerable responsibility for this on those the system has appointed as bishops. She makes an attractive argument for what is called ‘virtuous hierarchy’. It is a concept worth further development. In this more collegial idea she says the gap between clergy, laity and their bishop could be lessened while retaining the need for hierarchy and boundaries for faith as well as behaviour. She argues for a greater role for local laity and clergy in the appointment of their bishop resulting in a greater attention to its core activities and a lessening of often ill-informed public pronouncements. With this rebalancing she sees a renewed role for the archdeacon and Rural/Area Dean as those more obviously sharing in a mutually acknowledged task of oversight.

    The cover of this book announces it as, ‘Perhaps the most important book written about the Church of England in recent times’. It is hardly that but does make public in a well-researched way the changes in a church which is now giving a confusing message about its priorities. Millbank says that it is possible for an academic to set out this case more independently than those inside the institution, hampered by the fear of exclusion or lack of preferment. Our university theological departments, themselves under threat in many places, can be applauded in this case for speaking out in defence of the parochial ministry still the valued sustainer of local life, values and community.

    This Review first appeared in the Journal ‘Rural Theology’