Polity, leadership and lay responsibility in a changing church

Abstract

The aim of the thesis is to develop a methodology from which to gain a fuller picture of what is happening in the areas of polity, leadership and lay responsibility in the particularity of a local parish church as it moves from first idea to actual completion of a major re-ordering of the church building ("The Story").By analyzing The Story through several heuristic methods, lines of investigation are opened up which are illuminative and deepen insight into it. Thus, the historical, economic and social background to the town and the description of the development of St. Catherine's Church provide a broad setting for The Story. Applying Edward Farley's development of phenomenology as a theological tool provides an overall methodology for the thesis and also opens up new theological dimensions to The Story. Recognising the limitations of Farley's methodology leads onto a) examination of the concept of symbol and of religious symbol, which themselves lead onto discussion of how church architecture (J.G. Davies), the sense of land (W. Brueggemann) and the sense of place (G. Lilburne) as symbol illuminate our understanding of the local church building in The Story; and b) examination of the general fields of canon law, political order (R.N. Adams) and social order (D. Katz & R.L. Kahn) and how they illuminate our understanding of the interaction of people in The Story. Because the several methods employed were developed as descriptions and explanations of general fields they are not expected to be applicable in the very detailed circumstances with which the thesis is concerned. Their worth is in how separately and interactively they open out and expose further layers of understanding of what is going on.