Order & Ministry

Half a century ago Kenneth Kirk, then Bishop of Oxford, pinpointed the problem which underlies virtually every other matter of dispute, both within the Church of England and in its conversations with other ecclesial bodies - namely, the doctrine of the ministry: essentially, whether it is God-given or man-made. The answer to this question will radically affect the preconceptions which the Church brings to the relationships within itself and with other churches, and thus the solutions it finds to problems of internal and external division.
The contributors to this volume take up this question anew; they examine the development of ministry and order in the New Testament and the early Church, and at later stages in its history to the present time, indicating points where new and sometimes misleading theories have appeared, and the consequent effects upon the Church's self-understanding of both its nature and purpose.
They write from differing standpoints and with a variety of interests, but together they have submitted the conventional concepts of order and ministry, in their historical, doctrinal, pastoral and relational aspects, to a radical re-evaluation, and have made a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate on the nature of the Church and the way in which its members coinhere in the body of Christ.