Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
There continues to be some heated debate in the C of E about the respective roles of clergy and laity. On the one hand, research shows that the deployment of stipendiary ministry and leadership is a key to church growth, and so cutting clergy numbers runs counter to current stated strategy. On the other hand, …
Andrew Goddard writes: In an earlier article I looked at three changes which Paul Bayes, the Bishop of Liverpool, recently said he wanted to see regarding inclusion and sexuality and wondered whether there might be the possibility of agreement but also highlighted the need for clarifications. Looking ahead to outcomes of the LLF process, Bishop Paul …
Andrew Goddard writes: The Bishop of Liverpool’s recent address at the launch of MoSAIC (Movement of Supporting Anglicans for an Inclusive Church) has, unsurprisingly, caused quite a stir. There have already been significant critiques of much of his central argument for same-sex marriage from Ian Paul and Martin Davie. What I want to do here is …
Following my article exploring whether there is a real theological distinction to be made between the ‘clergy’ and the ‘laity’, there was some interesting discussion online, and out of that John Griffiths passed me the article he wrote on the theology of the laity, which was published in The Reader Magazine (now titled Transforming Ministry) …
There has been much talk in recent months, for a whole host of reasons, of eliminating the ‘culture of deference’ within the Church of England. This has been highlighted over the weekend in the comment by Stephen Cottrell, on the day of his ‘enthronement’ as Archbishop of York, noting that his predecessor has not been …
I have been contributing to the Church’s Renewal and Reform stream on developing lay leadership, and one of the questions that has come up is: ‘What does the Church of England actually believe about the laity and lay leadership?’ I am not referring here to what some have called ‘ecclesial lay leadership’, that is, the …
My friend Richard Peers caused something of a stir at the weekend when he questioned whether ‘senior’ clergy should expect to be treated with deference. His reflections arose from noticing a comment made by Justin Welby at the IISCA enquiry into sexual abuse. After offering a robust critique of one aspect of Justin’s witness statement, …
I have been contributing to the Church’s Renewal and Reform stream on developing lay leadership, and one of the questions that has come up is: ‘What does the Church of England actually believe about the laity and lay leadership?’ I am not referring here to what some have called ‘ecclesial lay leadership’, that is, the …
My post last week on whether ordination ‘makes you a priest’ provoked a good deal of discussion and debate. As part of that, I receive a long response from Simon Oliver, who is Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham. I got to know Simon when he was the highly respected head of …
This is the time of year when ordinations happen, traditionally on the weekend nearest to the festival remembering Peter (‘Petertide’ which fell yesterday) which is either the last weekend of June or the first weekend of July. (It would be much better if this happened in September, but that is the subject for another post.) …
I have been contributing to the Church’s Renewal and Reform stream on developing lay leadership, and one of the questions that has come up is: ‘What does the Church of England actually believe about the laity and lay leadership?’ I am not referring here to what some have called ‘ecclesial lay leadership’, that is, the …
