Ecclesiology in the Church of England: an historical and theological examination of the role of ecclesiology in the church of England since the second world war

Abstract

From a 'postliberal' perspective I argue that there is no means by which divine truth can incontrovertibly be known or directly understood and communicated. However a communitarian and historicist approach locates the experience and the expression of the engagement with God in the community of the church. The central problematic of ecclesiology is the discerrunent of authentic continuity with Jesus Christ in the context of churches which are divided, sinful, limited, and variously ordered. I have examined one strand of Anglo-Catholic ecclesiology as a case study of an attempt to assert a particular ecclesiology as true for the whole church. Second, 1 have traced the steps by which the Church of England gained legal authority over its central concerns of worship, doctrine and self-government, in order to sift out ecclesiological ideas implicit in its decision making. In these two chapters my focus has been to articulate an account of the idea of how God has been and should be made manifest in the structures and ordering of the Church of England. Third, I have evaluated the way ecclesiology has been deliberately used as an element of the legitimation of change in the church in particular in the Turnbull report. From these sources I have tried to extrapolate an overview of the actual role ecclesiology has played in the contemporary Church of England. I predict that ecclesiology will grow more significant in the Church of England, and that this will be beneficial, but to do so optimally it requires reinforcement with a stronger critical apparatus. I conclude that the determination of authentic continuity with Jesus Christ will not be found in the articulation and application of prepositional divine truths, but in creative and dynamic engagement with God expressed and embodied in the community of the Church.