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A critique of the ecclesiology, missiology 
and sociology of the Mission-shaped 

Church report 
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Gareth Powell 
Pembroke College 
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A dissertation submitted for the degree Doctor of Philosophy 

Divinity Faculty

University of Cambridge 
December 2013 
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This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing 
which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where 
specifically indicated in the text. 
This dissertation does not exceed 80,000 words including all footnotes 
and all references. 
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 2
Gareth Powell 
A Critique of the Ecclesiology, Missiology and Sociology of the Mission-Shaped 
Church report. 
Abstract 
This thesis explores the Church of England report Mission-Shaped Church (MSC) and 
its subsequent secondary and synodical legislation. It traces the missiology, 
ecclesiology and sociology of the initial report and their subsequently developed over 
the last seven years. The thesis ascertains how well this missiology and ecclesiology 
reflects or adapts traditional and contemporary Anglican missiology and ecclesiology 
represented in official reports of the Church of England over the last two hundred 
years as well as in its missionary work in England. Chapter one will survey the report 
itself and all subsequent secondary literature and legislation, identifying their sources 
and tracing the contours of their theology and sociology. Chapter two places these 
findings into historic relief, ascertaining that they are novel in the life of the Church 
of England; that MSC deduces its own sources; and is alien in its methodology and 
recommendations compared to the existing theological corpus of the church. Chapter 
three examines the work of William Temple as a counter ecclesiology and missiology 
to MSC. The ‘Temple method’ of bringing any, and all, social issues into dialogue with 
the existing Anglican tradition, and his emphasis on the sacramental and catholic life 
of the church, are representative of historic Anglican approaches to missiology and 
ecclesiology. Chapter four will use the sociology of Zygmunt Bauman as an 
experimental basis to help the Church of England understand its contemporary 
context. His work illustrates that the ideology of consumerism is the major 
missiological challenge the church faces today, one that MSC failed to critically 
engage with, and actually succumbed to, in its missiological method, which results in a 
deficient and under-resources ecclesiology. The conclusion will correct these failings 
and shortcomings by bringing the ecclesiology presented in the third chapter into 
critical dialogue with the sociology of chapter four. We will argue that a 
comprehensive ecclesiology and missiology, that has a sacramental and catholic focus 
– represented by Temple, and other numerous official reports – when brought to bear 
on the social reality of Bauman’s ‘liquid modernity’, yields a much richer 
understanding of the impetus of the gospel in contemporary England.  Such a 
theology combats the anthropology of consumption through its emphasis on 
sacramental participation, and critiques the exclusion of the stranger and the strange 
by emphasising a catholic vision of inclusion and mutuality.

Index 
Introduction 5                                                                                                                  
Chapter One Rereading the Mission-shaped Church Report 12                                       
Chapter Two MSC’s genealogy and eighteenth, nineteenth, and 

twentieth-century Anglican ecclesiology and missiology 49                                            
Chapter Three The ecclesiology of William Temple 85                                                      
Chapter Four The sociology of MSC 145                                                                          
Conclusion 196                                                                                                                
Bibliography 209 
                                                                                                             
 4
Introduction 
The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in his first presidential 
address to Synod said that the Church of England was “at a watershed moment in its 
life and history” and needed to develop a “mixed economy” of church life if it were to 
minister effectively to each context to which it was called.   Williams then instructed a 1
commission to explore how the Church of England might missiologically respond to 
the institutional and numerical decline it had experienced in the last fifty years, as well 
as respond to the perceived plausibility crisis it was suffering in contemporary culture.  2
In 2004, the commission issued its findings in the Mission Shaped Church Report 
(hereafter MSC).   The report itself sought to provide a legal – alongside the new 3
Pastoral Measure – and theological framework for what it called ‘Fresh Expressions’ of 
church. The report has proved to be one of the most influential produced in the last 
twenty years. It has provoked wide-ranging discussions about the nature of the 
Church and its missionary calling. In this discussion particular attention has been 
given to the ecclesiological status of these ‘Fresh Expressions’ of church. A critical 
examination of this report will form the basis of this thesis. 
MSC’s publication in 2004 can be seen as a watershed in the history of the life of the 
Church of England. Not only has it sold in excess of 30,000 copies (official reports 
rarely sell more than a few thousand), it also set in motion a reconfiguring of the 
ecclesiology of the Church of England in a way arguably not seen since the 
Reformation. The report has three basic arguments: first, as a result of significant shifts 
within English culture and social structure, the structures and practices of the Church 
of England are increasingly alien to the majority of the population with which it is 
seeking to share the gospel. Second, within the life of the Church of England new 
communities of faith have been springing up that offer alternative ecclesial models; 
these new communities have emerged in this new context and offer insights into how 
the Church might begin to communicate the gospel in a way that people can 
understand. These communities of faith – which the report now wished to name as 
‘churches’ in their own right – had previously existed on the edges of the mainstream 
life of the Church of England, yet they were pioneering ‘new ways’ of being Church in 
today’s postmodern society. These churches were missionary in their focus and 
 5
  Williams 2003.1
  Sedgewick 2005.2
  The Archbishop’s Council 2004 (hereafter MSC). Jointly published with the Methodist Church.3
provided radical new ways to understand the ordering and mission of the Church in 
the world. Third, there is a need to relate these new models to the Anglican tradition – 
both ecclesiologically and missiologically – so that the Church may better understand 
its new context and mission, and make appropriate changes to its understanding of 
both in light of these new communities. 
The report led to two major legislative measures passing through Synod and 
Parliament. One was to allow for an entirely new type of church, a ‘fresh expression’, 
to be established through a Bishop’s Mission Order. The other was to designate an 
entirely new type of ordained ministry within the life of the Church, that of pioneer 
ministry.   These measures fulfilled the strategy outlined in MSC. Alongside these legal 4
measures, an official Fresh Expressions team was set up in late 2004, headed by the 
then Archbishop’s Missioner Stephen Croft. This team helped to disseminate MSC’s 
vision across the breadth of the Church of England and has resulted in over eight 
thousand Fresh Expressions of church and the training of hundreds of lay pioneer 
leaders through a national course, alongside over 150 pioneer minister ordinands.   5
Recent surveys also indicate that there is great potential for the continued growth of 
Fresh Expressions. Croft notes that during a survey of every parish in the country 
(carried out by the Church of England in 2006) over half responded that since the 
year 2000 they either had started, or were planning to start, a fresh expression of 
church.   Similarly, the Methodist Church, who jointly produced the report, carried 6
out a survey of ministers seeking to move onto a new appointment, and a third 
mentioned – quite unprompted – that they wished to engage with Fresh Expressions 
of church in their next appointment.   The Church of England survey also asked how 7
many people belonged to these new Fresh Expressions of church, discounting those 
who were already in contact with the church. The total resulting number was 220,000, 
half of which were children and young people. Even when taking into account the 
possibility of over-counting, it is clear that these Fresh Expressions make a significant 
and very visible contribution to the 1.7 million people of all ages who attend a Church 
of England service at least once a month. Official Church of England figures for 2010 
released in 2012 showed that adult monthly attendance at Fresh Expressions of 
 6
  This vision of pioneer ministry has also been embraced by theological colleges such as Cranmer Hall, Durham, St 4
John's, Nottingham, and Ridley Hall, Cambridge, each of which has developed a special pioneer ministry course.
  See http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/news/profoundimpact5
  Barley 2008: 168.
6
  Croft 2009: 38.
7
church stood at around 30,000 people, or just under 2% of the total number of adults 
attending church each month.   8
It is clear that MSC has had a huge influence on both the Church of England’s 
ecclesiology and its missiology and has led to the creation of a significant number of 
new churches. Given this, it is surprising that very little critical attention has been 
paid to the missiological or ecclesiological basis for the report, the report itself, and 
the secondary literature subsequently published.   This thesis will attend to this need 9
by critically examining MSC, identifying its methodological sources and assessing 
whether its analysis and recommendations are justified. The former head of the Fresh 
Expressions core team, Stephen Croft, argues that Fresh Expressions of church are a 
continuation and development of the missiological insights reawakened by the Oxford 
Movement. He contends that both take the incarnation as the pattern and type of 
Christian mission, where the model of the Father sending the Son into the world 
serves as the inspiration to begin new communities of faith. For the Oxford 
Movement this meant working in some of the poorest regions in the rapidly growing 
cities in England; for MSC this means beginning Fresh Expressions of church in those 
cultures that feel alienated by the current practices and structures of the existing 
church.   Croft essentially argues that the recommendations of MSC have developed 10
in continuity with existing Anglican thought and practices. 
This thesis will assess whether this is so in three particular areas: ecclesiology, 
missiology and sociology. I will argue that ecclesiologically the report is not 
representative of the historic theological traditions of the Church of England. These 
traditions would have provided it with a far more robust ecclesiological framework. 
The lack of a developed ecclesiology causes MSC’s missiology to become a mirror of 
the culture(s) it is part of: its ecclesiological model becomes overly consumerist, and 
individualistic, driven by the report’s missiological premise that context must be the 
primary consideration in determining what ‘form’ of ‘church’ should emerge. The 
sociology of the report places too much emphasis on radical cultural change, a view it 
erroneously reads into Bauman’s work. Yet Bauman’s work actually rejects such a 
change, a view shared by other key critical social theorists such as Beck, Giddens and 
Habermas. MSC’s sociology is also theoretically underdeveloped, drawing primarily 
 7
  Church of England 2012.8
  Hull 2005, Davison 2010, Tilby, 2008.
9
  Croft 2009: 43.
10
from Bauman’s early work, but still missing the over-riding critical emphasis in his 
work towards the cultures of modernity and postmodernity. This compounds the 
difficulty MSC has in developing a critical analysis of contemporary culture, whether 
this takes a theological or sociological form. This results in an ecclesiology and 
missiology that is alien to the existing Church of England body of work, as 
represented in official reports of Synod and ecumenical dialogues, as well as in the 
historical practices of the Church over the last two centuries. MSC is not something 
developmental within the life of the Church, but something more novel. It is part of a 
more general pattern of contextually driven ecclesiology that is taking place across 
several different continents largely within the congregationalist and free churches. 
Though the method of contextual theology that it employs is one that fails to regard 
existing traditional theological structures within the Church of England. 
Structurally, the thesis will be made up of four chapters. Chapter one will focus on a 
detailed exposition of MSC and the subsequent secondary literature and synodical 
legislation. The chapter will clarify the background that gave rise to the report and 
seek to ascertain the various sources and methodologies it employs. We shall then 
explore its reception, including how the Church of England has acted upon its 
recommendations. This will lead us to briefly explore the legislative responses to the 
report, including Ordained and Lay Pioneer Ministry and Bishop’s Mission Orders. 
Secondary literature will also be examined, particularly that published under the Fresh 
Expressions or Mission Shaped Church ‘banner’. We shall also briefly explore the 
manner in which the report has been received in various other parts of the Anglican 
Communion and in other denominations. Throughout we shall attempt as generous a 
reading as possible, leaving critical comments to a minimum, but paying attention to 
potential areas of difficulty. This chapter will demonstrate that the report differs 
significantly from the existing ecclesiology and missiology of the Church of England, 
as contained within her Canons, synodical reports and liturgy. Various areas of the 
report’s ecclesiology, missiology and sociology are questionable, and potentially 
inadequate. The critical response to MSC will also be shown to be underdeveloped or 
methodologically flawed. There is still a need for a sustained critical response to MSC 
and it is to this task that this thesis turns in its final three chapters. 
Chapter two will begin by tracing the genealogy of MSC, seeking to clarify its 
underlying methodology as well as to articulate the context within which the report 
arose (both its social and theological context). This will involve tracing the emergence 
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of contextual theology from the nineteenth century onwards. It will be demonstrated 
that MSC’s primary sources for its missiology are the contextual missiologies of 
Newbigin, Bosch and Bevans, each of which develops from the work of earlier 
missionaries such as Venn and Taylor. This section will show that the Church of 
England has a considerable body of work that has reflected on its own cultural 
context, and a considerable history of creative missionary activity in England. This 
body of work has grown significantly in the latter part of the twentieth century in the 
literature emerging from ecumenical dialogues. This documentation represents a 
sustained reflection on ecclesiology, as well as critical thinking on missiology. The 
Church of England’s understanding of its mission will also be shown to be 
comprehensive in its scope: the totality its social, political and economic context is 
continually brought into critical dialogue with the gospel throughout this period. This 
thesis will argue that these writings and this experience are important, and constitute 
a sustained and developing understanding of the Church of England’s vocation in its 
own context. That MSC chooses to ignore it, or is unaware of it, leaves the report’s 
ecclesiological and missiological recommendations at odds with these existing 
understandings and practices, sharing little continuity with this rich history. MSC is 
cut adrift from resources that would have given more theological depth to its 
argument. 
Chapter three will specifically address the ecclesiological deficit within MSC. Given 
that the previous chapter identified a strong existing ecclesiology that has been 
developed and nuanced considerably in the last two centuries, this chapter will turn to 
a leading figure within that time period – William Temple – whose work (both 
written and practical) addressed some of the same concerns as MSC. Temple’s work 
discussed the Church’s role and vocation in the world at a time when many in the 
Church of England felt that it was increasingly irrelevant to the needs of 
contemporary society. He addressed this perceived need by drawing upon the existing 
rich history and tradition of the Church. We shall demonstrate that Temple’s work 
held together the threads of ecclesiology, missiology and the Christian tradition, and 
offered a more robust account of the role of the Church in the world. His theology 
was comprehensive in scope, seeing the whole realm of social reality as its proper 
focus. His theory of the sacramental universe led his theology to emphasise the 
importance of materiality and the Church’s social context, and it is this emphasis that 
led to his own engagement with, and desire to understand, his own social context. 
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Temple’s theology will be shown to represent a more adequate basis for a 
contemporary ecclesiology and missiology than MSC’s. 
Chapter four will address MSC’s sociology. After examining more closely the sources 
of the report, and demonstrating that MSC presents a theoretically underdeveloped 
social analysis, we shall analyse the sociological work of Zygmunt Bauman. We will 
show that Bauman’s work illustrates some of the deficiencies of MSC, notably its 
assumption that sociology assumes radical form of social postmodernity, whereas 
many sociologists (like Bauman) have actually rejected this idea and instead developed 
theories that attempt to do justice to the complexities of social modernity. Bauman 
presents a more compelling and insightful description of our own social context 
through his theory of solid and liquid modernity. We will argue that the manner in 
which he fleshes out this theory using the ideology of consumption, globalisation, 
technology, the stranger and utopianism, provides a social description that is more 
robust than MSC’s and also helps to show how some of MSC’s ecclesiology is actually 
captive to various strands of consumer ideology. Bauman’s work provides a genuinely 
insightful basis of the Church of England’s social context, and in the same manner in 
which Temple’s emphasises the importance of the material and cultural. His theory 
enables the church to engage critically with, and upon, its present social and cultural 
conditions in an informed manner. 
The conclusion will rehearse the main arguments that the thesis has already 
established, the main thrust of those being that the ecclesiology, missiology and 
sociology of MSC is underdeveloped, principally because the report does not draw 
upon the existing body of work the Church of England already possesses. The report’s 
significantly undertheorised sociology, coupled with its deficient ecclesiology, leads it 
to suggest and develop missiological strategies that are at odds with this work, and to 
succumb to some of the excesses of consumerism we identified through Bauman’s 
work. The focus of this final section will be an attempt to correct the failings and 
shortcomings identified in MSC, by bringing the ecclesiology presented in the third 
chapter in critical dialogue with the sociology of the chapter four. We will argue that 
the comprehensive ecclesiology represented by Temple, when brought to bear on the 
social reality of our present context, yields a much richer dialogue with, and response 
to, our contemporary culture. This response contends that the social, political and 
economic aspects of contemporary life are illuminated and renewed by the gospel and 
by participation in the sacramental life of the Church. We shall argue that sacramental 
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participation brings about a wholly different anthropology than that of the dominant 
ideology of consumption, and a renewed understanding of Catholicity is a potentially 
rich basis for engaging with Bauman’s work on the stranger and the outcast. 
Finally, it is important to be clear about the boundaries of this thesis. MSC and the 
secondary literature that emerges from the report are its central focus. The work of 
Temple and Bauman are used only in response to deficiencies identified in MSC; their 
bodies of work will only be explored thoroughly with regard to the questions the 
report raises. This thesis is not an attempt to reconstruct MSC thoroughly in light of 
these criticisms, nor is it an attempt to construct a critical ecclesiology or missiology 
for our present context from the existing Anglican tradition we have identified. 
However, the thesis will not shy away from attempting, in outline, to suggest what the 
general features of that ecclesiology and missiology might be, using the work of 
Temple in critical dialogue with Bauman. It is hoped that future work will develop 
these thoughts more systematically. 
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Chapter One

Rereading the Mission-shaped Church Report 
MSC was originally commissioned as a follow up report to Breaking New Ground 
(BNG). Breaking New Ground furthered the Church of England’s emphasis on 
mission since the ‘decade of evangelism’ in the 1990s through church planting.   The 11
report sought to provide good practice for this method, whilst relating it to traditional 
Anglican ecclesiology.   It outlined the missionary imperative to “reach out with 12
locally accessible centres of Christian worship, witness and service.”   It highlighted 13
that present day parochial structures were insufficient to accommodate emerging 
forms of ecclesial life because networks were now the predominant communities 
where people felt loyalty rather than a geographic location. This had occurred because 
of the radical changes in society in the mid-late twentieth century during the advent 
of social postmodernity, Churches were needed that reached out to these networks, 
“whether they be churches for the deaf, student congregations, African, Afro-
Caribbean [or] Asian congregations.”   The Church needed to find new ways of 14
accommodating new styles of church in the same territory.   It argued that “Church is 15
a group of people drawn from a particular network or culture”, and that church plants 
were intended to serve an identifiable group, culture or neighbourhood.   The group 16
that produced MSC was commissioned to review BNG in the light of developments 
within the church planting movement, and missiological and ecclesiological 
developments within the life of the Church of England – particularly those that were 
on the margins of the mainstream life of the Church. The working group was also to 
be a joint Anglican-Methodist commission and project. The task of overseeing this 
report was given to the Mission, Evangelism and Renewal in England (MERE) sub-
committee of the Board of Mission. MERE set up a working group that comprised 
partly its own members and partly others with expertise and insight in the relevant 
areas. The working group was chaired by the Bishop of Maidstone, Rt Revd Graham 
Cray and also included: Revd Moira Astin, Board of Mission, Ven Lyle Dennen, 
Archdeacon of Hackney, Revd Graham Horsley, Methodist Secretary for Evangelism 
  Best defined as the process of beginning a new congregation, which typically occurs in an existing parish 11
structure.
  Mission Committee of the Church of England 1994.12
  Ibid: 1.13
  Ibid: §1.714
  Ibid: §1.9.15
  Ibid: §2.1 and §2.4.16
and Church Planting, Revd George Lings, Church Army Sheffield Centre, Canon 
Chris Neal, Director of Evangelisation, Oxford Diocese, Canon Mavis Wilson, 
Guildford Diocesan Missioner, John Clark, Revd Damian Feeney and Canon Robert 
Freeman (Secretary).   17
The working group met nine times between May 2002 and June 2003 and decided to 
expand its remit to include a more thorough exploration of the cultural context the 
Church of England operated in, noting that “[t]he post-modern context is accepted as 
the given and has [resulted in] mobility, fragmentation, connectivity, materialism/
consumerism.”   The group sought to explore models of church beyond those outlined 18
by BNG, wishing to relate these to the cultural fragmentation they observed, yet 
seeking to root the ecclesiology of the report within an Anglican framework.   They 19
also sought to demonstrate how the Anglican tradition related to these new models of 
church and how existing legal frameworks (parochial, liturgical, ministerial) needed to 
be adapted in order to allow for these ecclesial developments.   The report was 20
written and published in February 2004 in time to be received and debated by 
General Synod in the same month. 
The report is divided into eight chapters and has a logical argumentative structure. 
Beginning with an outline of the changing cultural context in England, it then relates 
this to the original context of BNG, and seeks to demonstrate that those ten years 
have represented a sea-change in mission activity. It then affirms the basic premise of 
BNG – that church planting is an activity the Church of England should be engaged 
in – but modifies the original understanding of what these churches look like and 
what planting means. It then gives examples of twelve new forms of church (what it 
calls Fresh Expressions) that have emerged out of various cultural contexts before 
going on to discuss how they, and the very concept of Fresh Expressions of church, 
relate to Anglican theology and ecclesiology in particular. Chapter six outlines some 
methodological starting points for churches to consider if they wish to start a fresh 
expression and chapter seven explores the need for existing legal frameworks to be 
adapted in order to allow for the development of these Fresh Expressions across the 
Church of England. Given that this report is the primary text that this thesis will 
critique, we will now explore the text in a systematic manner attempting to give a 
 13
  Appendix 2001.17
  Appendix 2002b.18
  Ibid.19
  Appendix 2002c.20
generous account of its assertions and findings whilst also taking note of potential 
criticisms and contradictions that will form the basis for the rest of this thesis. 
The introduction of the report states that MSC will explore the variety of new forms 
of mission-centered churches that were emerging in the life of the Church of England 
in the years since BNG was published, and that it will review these ‘Fresh Expressions 
of church’ in light of received Anglican ecclesiology and missiology.   In it Cray 21
argues that, “Breaking New Ground saw Church planting as ‘a supplementary strategy 
that enhances the essential thrust of the parish principle’. The most significant 
recommendation of this report is that this is no longer adequate.”   The nature of 22
community had changed. No single strategy will suffice to fulfill the Anglican 
incarnational principle in Britain today.   MSC sees the parochial system as remaining 23
essential but no longer adequate on its own. A ‘mixed economy’ of parish and network 
churches is necessary, because culture in England has changed radically in the last 
twenty or thirty years: communities are now multi-layered, neighborhoods have 
permeable boundaries, network society is everywhere, there is increased mobility and 
electronic communications technology has changed the nature of both relationships 
and community.   The report goes on to state (in more detail) that the changing 24
nature of our cultural context requires a new contextualisation of the Gospel within 
British society, and that contextual theology provides the principles and method 
necessary for crossing these new cultural barriers.   25
Chapter one of MSC outlines the cultural shifts that have taken place in the last 
twenty years, beginning with the premise that “[i]t is important for us to see what our 
culture now looks like, so we can see the possible shape, or shapes, of church to which 
God is calling us.”   The report goes on to detail housing changes, employment 26
changes (including the vast increase in women’s employment), the increase in mobility 
and divorce and changes in family life, the increase in free time and the pervasive 
influence of television and the internet.   All of these changes have resulted in a 27
highly fragmented society, driven by consumerism and best described as a network 
society – there has been a shift from a culture around what we produce to one shaped 
 14
  MSC 2004: ix.21
  Ibid: ix.22
  Ibid.23
  Ibid: xi.24
  Ibid: xii.25
  Ibid: 1.26
  Ibid: 2-3.27
by what we consume, from progress to choice.   Within these few pages there is a 28
notable reliance upon the early work of Bauman (through secondary literature); 
chapter four of this thesis will explore his work.   The report notes that research done 29
at the Henley Centre further illustrates the emergence of a network based culture and 
shows that the most significant things people had in common were hobbies and 
interests, family and work colleagues. Bottom of the list were residence in same area 
and neighbours.   Yet the report does state that the relationship between network and 30
neighbourhood is complex. Networks cannot just be seen to replace neighbourhoods, 
or supplanting geographical parishes, both must co-exist. The chapter goes on to 
suggest that the Church of England has traditionally operated on a ‘come to us basis’, 
and suggests that this can no longer work in a post-Christendom context. Rather, 
what is needed are expressions of church that communicate with post-Christian 
people, they allow the Church to continue to engage in mission with, and beyond, its 
own culture, rather than simply converting them to the culture of the Church and 
thus alienating people from their original culture.   This chapter lays the groundwork 31
for what follows, which advocates a radical discontinuity between the culture that the 
Church of England both emerged from and presently occupies and the culture(s) it 
now finds itself in. This cultural discontinuity suggests that there should be an 
ecclesial discontinuity between the present ordering and practices of the church and 
the emerging ordering and practices of the church within these new cultures. 
This emphasis aligns the report with those who argue for social postmodernism.  32
This basic premise is vitally important for the thesis of MSC as it allows the report to 
suggest that extreme social changes occurring in Britain require parallel and radical 
shifts in the ecclesiology of the Church in order to adequately address these new 
needs and this new context(s). In chapter four we will go on to explore whether such a 
thesis holds true or whether the counter thesis offered by Bauman is more compelling. 
It is also important to flag up at this point the lack of theological reflection on these 
cultural changes in the report; it simply states them as ‘facts’ and does not explore the 
ideological assumptions that may lie behind such observations. MSC could be said to 
afford cultural change a neutral status: whether this is a sensible and coherent 
theological strategy will be explored in chapter three, where we will ask whether an 
 15
  Ibid: 2-4 and 9.28
  Smith 1999, Gabriel 1995, Moynagh 2001. Each is reliant on Bauman 1991a, 1993, 1995, 1997.29
  MSC 2004: 5.30
  Ibid: 10.31
  Heaphy, 2007: chapters three and four. 32
ethic based on consumption, or an anthropology increasingly dominated by network 
and communications technology can be seen as contiguous with the Kingdom of God 
or as part of its antithesis. We will ask how they relate to the idea of the One, Holy, 
Catholic and Apostolic Church and whether the lack of theological reasoning 
diminishes the ability of the report to relate to the historical Christian tradition and 
cause it to advocate changes that are actually complicit with ideologies that conflict 
with historic Anglican ecclesiology. 
Chapter two explores what has changed in church planting since BNG, suggesting 
that as a network society becomes more prevalent cross-boundary church planting 
becomes less relevant. There has therefore been a move to non-boundary network 
planting.   There has also been an explosion of diversity within current church plants 33
(discussed more fully in chapter four), but six common themes have emerged in these 
Fresh Expressions: first, church derives its self understanding from the missio Dei – the 
ongoing mission of God in the world. Second, the Trinity models diversity as well as 
unity; third, creation reveals God's affirmation of diversity; therefore, fourth, mission 
to a diverse world legitimately requires a diverse church.   This means that fifth, 34
Catholicity should not be interpreted as monochrome oneness. Sixth, this process can 
be seen in the election and incarnation of God in Christ Jesus, where God dares to be 
culturally specific within diverse contexts.   It is significant that questions regarding 35
the role of the Christian tradition do not figure in these common themes. The 
hermeneutical method is based solely on the contemporary context and the horizon of 
the various Biblical texts. This approach shares much in common with Charismatic 
congregationalist approaches such as those of Forster, Murray-Williams, Bartley and 
Virgo, as well as echoing certain aspects of Allen’s work.   36
The report also notes a growing awareness among those who are involved in church 
planting that they should not simply clone the existing church model from which they 
are coming. Rather they need to be attentive to the host culture if the church is to 
‘take root’ and grow, it is also necessary for these Fresh Expressions to come to 
maturity themselves rather than be unduly influenced by the planting church; they 
should not be seen as an ‘interesting experiment’ or a ‘mission project’, although it is 
 16
  MSC 2004: 20.33
  Ibid: 21.34
  Ibid: 21-22.35
  Forster 2001, Murray-Williams 2005, Bartley 2005, Virgo 1985 and 2005. For an academic treatment see chapters 36
one and two in Clifton 2009.
also suggested in BNG that church plants might be a way to bring people back into 
‘proper’ church.    The position is different in MSC: “part of the paradigm shift since 37
BNG is the discovery that Fresh Expressions of church are not only legitimate 
expressions of church, but they may be more legitimate because they attend more 
closely to the mission task, and they are more deeply engaged in the local context, and 
follow more attentively the pattern of the incarnation.”   The report also states that 38
practitioners have found that they need to talk of “sowing the seeds of the Gospel and 
seeing what results … these responses shape the form of Christian community” as 
such it is essential that “ecclesiology [becomes] a subsection of the doctrine of 
mission” rather than the other way round.   The report follows the same line of 39
thinking seen in Bosch and Newbigin, ecclesiology is subsumed to missiology, thereby 
(at least in this report) avoiding the need to wrestle with how the contemporary 
practices of the Church, such as eucharist, baptism, the lectionary and church calendar 
and seasons, relate to these shifts within contemporary culture.   Even though the 40
report later on reiterates the need to do this (see chapter six) at no point does it 
outline a method for doing this or attempt to do it (except, as we shall see, in purely 
legal terms in chapter five). 
Chapter three explores how church planting is still relevant to the life and mission of 
the Church of England today, since it “exists to be a Church for the nation ... a 
statement of its mission purpose.”    Yet the report argues that there are gaps in our 41
present parish system where vast numbers of people are excluded from church. To be 
Anglican is to desire to be rooted in communities and to be accessible to those 
communities (however those communities define themselves). The report echoes 
Resolution 44 from the 1988 Lambeth conference in advocating a shift to a dynamic 
missionary emphasis and acknowledges, as that report did, that this presents a 
challenge to diocesan and local church structures and patterns of worship and 
ministry (issues that will be explored more fully in chapter eight of the report).  42
Within this chapter there is no discussion of the theological understanding of a 
parochial vision for church organisation as context continues to take priority. 
 17
  MSC 2004: 22.37
  Ibid: 23.38
  Ibid: 24.39
  We will explore their work in relation to MSC in chapter two.40
  Ibid: 35.41
  Ibid: 36.42
Chapter four then outlines examples of these Fresh Expressions of church, noting 
some general themes: they do not often meet on a Sunday; they relate primarily to a 
network of people rather than a deanery or Diocese; they are increasingly post-
denominational, with members coming in from a wide variety of denominations and 
only feeling a loose connection to the Church of England.   It then explores each of 43
the examples it has given in more detail. These are as follows: 
i) Alt.worship: these communities have existed since the 1980s, and are significantly 
populated by people who have departed from existing forms of church. They are the 
most vocal in their repudiation of existing traditional church structures.   These 44
communities “seek to be responsive to post-modern culture ... engage with post-
modern instincts in the preference for a multi-media approach [to worship] ... and 
work in a way which is diffuse not focused, created locally not remotely, operates 
contextually rather than institutionally, makes use of the symbolic and the subversive 
rather than the didactic, and is open-ended in style.”   45
ii) Base ecclesial communities (BEC): BECs strongly identify with people at the 
margins or edges of society, and emerged alongside the Liberation theology that 
emerged in Latin America in the last few decades. These communities attempt to 
discern the voice of God for them and their community through three different 
stages: first, attentiveness to the daily reality of local life, second, listening to the 
shared life of the Christian community, and third, reflection upon both these things in 
the light of the Bible. The hermeneutic of the community is one of radical social 
change, and the Bible is very much interpreted in this manner.   46
iii) Café church: this new form of church seeks to engage with café culture, and they 
reflect in their characteristic a similar ambience and feel. Gatherings occur round 
small tables, drinks and nibbles are available, people interact rather than spectate, the 
venue is often a pub or existing café, worship tends to be more informal, more like 
‘table fellowship’. The mission style these communities adopt is relational, and they 
narrow the gap between mission courses like Alpha and parochial church meetings.   47
 18
  Ibid: 44.43
  Ibid: 45-47.44
  Lings 2001.45
  MSC 2004: 47-49.46
  Ibid: 50-52.47
iv) Cell church: cell church has been hugely influential as a model in Asia and Latin 
America amongst protestant churches, and seeks to emphasise a ‘two-winged’ 
approach to church that emphasises both small and large expressions of Christian 
community. Common to all cell churches is the idea that the small group is truly 
church. Cell churches are made up of several small groups (called cells), which are 
church in and of themselves, they are a microcosm of church, they allow every 
member to be involved in ministry and to attend to the needs of their locality more 
effectively (or network if the cells are network based). These cells tend to focus on 
four things: ‘worship, word, community and mission’. These cells then meet together 
in a larger gathering made up of all the local area cells. There is little clarity in these 
communities around issues like the sacraments, ordained leadership and deeper 
connection to the wider church beyond the area celebrations.   48
v) Churches arising out of community initiatives: this type of church often emerges in 
urban areas where the proportion of non-churched people is highest. Mission in these 
areas often takes place through engaging with local community needs, allowing them 
to set the agenda for what issues need to be addressed. Often this involves work with 
young people, those who are unemployed and those who are retired. Sometimes these 
groups can develop into a church, as the levels of trust between those involved and the 
church members grow and more Christian elements are incorporated into meetings. 
Rather than attempt to bring these fledgling churches back into the main church, they 
are allowed to develop into a church themselves.   49
vi) Network-focused churches: these seek to create a church centered around peoples’ 
network interests, such as leisure interests, music preference, or disability (such as the 
deaf community). They interpret their mission as reaching people in their network, so 
meeting times, structure and activities will be dictated by this group rather than any 
traditional framework. They normally seek relationships to the wider diocese and 
often have steering groups made up of people drawn from local parishes. They see 
their form of church as complementing local parish ministry.   50
vii) School-based and school linked congregations: these churches typically develop 
out of after school groups, which grow and begin to minister to both the parents and 
even grandparents as well as the schoolchildren. They may or may not be eucharistic, 
 19
  Ibid: 52-56.48
  Ibid: 57-64.49
  Ibid: 65-67.50
and allow people who are otherwise too busy to take part in a Christian community 
by meeting at a more convenient time. They are often more relaxed and informal in 
style.   51
viii) Seeker church: these communities scrutinize their existing worship and teaching 
and seek to make it more accessible to people with little background in Christian 
worship, preaching often addresses everyday life issues, and the contemporary arts, 
music and drama are often used to enable people to connect to the Christian message 
through a variety of styles and senses. The variety and make-up of these will be 
tailored to the local context. More traditional church services may take place at a 
different time of the week or month.   52
Several questions emerge out of this chapter. First, the question must be asked about 
how much these communities shape the theological agenda and outcomes of the 
report itself rather than being a basis for reflection. The report itself is peppered with 
other stories from Fresh Expressions, which are boxed separately alongside the text. 
Yet, they are rarely commented on. We must ask whether these are normative 
accounts, simply illustrative, or intended for some other purpose. Within practical 
theology or congregational studies these stories would form the basis for a critical 
dialogue between the practices and doctrine of the church. In MSC they appear to 
simply be seen as ideal types of church and are not subject to this dialectical approach. 
Second, it is also very clear that each of these churches is almost totally contextually 
driven in their practices and structure. How therefore do they relate to the present 
ecclesiological polity of the Church of England? It is also difficult to define exactly on 
what basis each of these groupings are named as a ‘church’. The chapter appears to 
state that the goal of the missionary (or the planting community) is simply to share 
the Gospel and see what emerges from that sharing and name these communities as 
churches. We could ask, how does this understanding relate to the ecclesiology 
defined in the Canons of the Church of England,   the Lambeth Quadrilateral passed 53
as resolution 11 at the 1888 Lambeth Conference  , as well as in the ecclesiology 54
present within many of the ARCIC I and II   and the Anglican-Orthodox Joint 55
 20
  Ibid: 67-69.51
  Ibid: 69-71.52
  For instance A3 (the use of the book of Common Prayer), B1 (conformity of worship), B2 (approved forms of 53
service), B5 and B5A (authorizing worship for experimental use for a set period or rime), B15 (the importance of 
Holy Communion), B18 (preaching to occur in every parish church), B27 (the need for confirmation and classes to 
prepare for this), and C15 (the Declaration of Assent).
  See parts b and c especially.54
  Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission 1986, 1991, 1993.55
Doctrinal Discussions?   How does it relate to the history of Anglican ecclesiology 56
offered by Avis,   or the more evangelically focused Anglican ecclesiologies, such as 57
Bradshaw’s,   or other Anglican scholars such as Williams?   Does MSC, in 58 59
advocating the need for the Church to become plural in its own life in order to be able 
to ‘reach’ the whole of an increasingly plural British society, fail to discern how a 
plurality of ‘types’ or ‘expressions’ of churches might belong to each other? Williams 
warns that such a move makes the Christian vision harder if not impossible to 
articulate.   Many of these groups appear to have emerged from within other 60
Christian traditions (BECs, cell church, seeker church), clearly there is little wrong 
with learning from other traditions, but how do they relate to the differing theological 
frameworks and ecclesial models of the Church of England? Each of these questions 
will be addressed more fully in chapters two and three of this thesis. 
In chapter five the report presents a theology for a missionary church, by suggesting 
that “any theology of the church must ultimately be rooted in the being and acts of 
God: the church is first and foremost the people of God, brought into being by God, 
bound to God, for the glory of God”.   It sees the root of such a theology in Jesus 61
Christ, who saw mission in terms of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is a divine 
activity whereas the church is made up of human community, so sometimes the 
Kingdom agenda and values are often more radical than church readily allows: the 
Kingdom of God is always on the move and the church is often catching up.   Yet, the 62
Church is the fruit of God’s mission and the community through whom he acts for 
the world's redemption and the essence or DNA of the church is to be a missionary 
community. “There is Church because there is mission not visa versa … [So] the spirit 
of Christ, by which God, through his church, is drawing all humanity to its fulfillment 
in the Kingdom of God.”   MSC goes on to say, “[h[ence conversion ought not to 63
involve the transfer of individuals from their native culture to the culture of the 
church, so much as the conversion of their culture in order that it might enrich the 
cultural life of the church.”   A truly incarnational church is one that imitates, 64
 21
  Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Discussions 1976: section VI, 1984: section I and 2008: sections VI and IX.56
  Avis 2008.57
  Bradshaw 1990.58
  Williams  2000: 2.59
  Williams 1995: 19.60
  MSC 2004: 84.61
  Ibid: 84.62
  Ibid: 85.63
  Ibid: 87.64
through the Spirit, both Christ's loving identification with his culture and his costly 
counter-cultural stance within it. This incarnational theology is patterned in Paul's 
ministry – become likewise in order to win people for Christ.   “The church is most 65
true to itself when it gives itself up, in its cultural form, to be re-formed among those 
who do not know God's Son. In each new context the Church must die to live.”   The 66
scriptures, particularly the New Testament, are a gift from God and are to be guarded 
as the only foundation of the Church.   In this chapter the report makes much more 67
explicit its radical New Testament hermeneutic that simply bypasses the role of the 
Christian and Anglican tradition in this interpretive process. Elements of the 
missiologists Bosch and Allen appear to be influential here, influences we will fully 
explore in chapter two. Both advocated a return to the scriptures as the primary 
location of the resources needed to undertake mission in this ‘new paradigm.’ Yet such 
an approach is rather alien to traditional Anglican method, which has always seen a 
role in this process for the tradition, even though this role might have been 
emphasised more by some than others, it has nevertheless always been present.    68
The report then attempts to link the above theology to existing Anglican ecclesiology 
and missiology, but only by redefining that theology. It begins by quoting from 
Eucharistic Presidency,   69
the Spirit enables fidelity to and continuity with the apostolic faith but 
constantly actualises and particularises this tradition afresh in the present, so that 
the truth of Christ is brought alive for ever in new situations with which the 
church engages in its missionary calling. This is integral to the Spirit's 
eschatological ministry – to carry the church forward in mission, anticipating 
here and now in ever-fresh ways the Father's final eschatological desire.   70
MSC argues that the Church of England has failed in this process because it has not 
drawn on inculturation/contextualisation theory as much as it could and should. It 
 22
  Ibid: 88.65
  Ibid: 89.66
  Ibid: 81.67
  The work of Richard Hooker is of particular relevance, for although he insisted on the primacy of scripture in 68
debating all matters of doctrine, he did acknowledge that this was not possible without using the Christian tradition 
and reasoning. Hooker 2008: Book III, section, 8, line 11ff. and book III, section 11, line 16ff.; 1.263.8-13 and 
Harrison 2008: 316.
  House of Bishops, 1997: A Church of England report that examines the argument that only presbyters should 69
preside at the eucharist; it also outlines the Trinitarian nature of the Church and existing ministerial patterns in 
light of this.
  MSC 2004: 90.70
should understand that mission is often cross-cultural.   It links the Church of 71
England’s failure over this task with the decline in church attendance numbers, which 
are indicative of its health, since the Church has a divine mandate to reproduce. God 
intends the Church to be fruitful and multiply. Although they do not argue “that it is 
the natural condition for every local church to be growing. But we do argue that it is 
the normative condition for the national church in normal times if it keeps the faith 
and keeps up with culture.”   72
The report then reinterprets the four classic marks of the church, as One, Holy, 
Catholic and Apostolic. MSC argues that oneness does not suggest being 
monochrome, it suggests a rich diversity of church communities in differing cultures. 
It is not that traditional parochial ministry must die out but rather that “Fresh 
Expressions of church and more traditional forms of church should live in 
interdependence, in perichoresis.”   Holiness, according to the report, calls for the 73
Church of England to be “willing to die to its own culture in order to live for God in 
another.”   The report goes on, “Catholicity therefore suggests that the church has the 74
capacity to embrace diverse ways of believing and worshipping, and that this diversity 
comes about through the 'incarnation' of Christian truth in many different cultural 
forms which it both critiques and affirms. The Catholicity of the Church is actually a 
mandate for cultural hospitality.”   For  75
[t]he agenda of the local church must always be to include rather than exclude. 
Unconsciously churches reject large tracts of humanity by failing to make 
provision for them to find a ‘space’ which they can occupy without automatically 
denying their culture, music, way of speech, or capacity to handle texts and 
concepts.   76
Being Apostolic is interepreted as an orientation to the future, as well as being faithful 
to Christ in the here and now, not just about being faithful to an authorised past. It is 
being faithful to the way in which the Christian tradition has interpreted the call of 
Christ to make disciples of all peoples.   Though as we have seen this concern is not 77
really taken seriously. 
 23
  Ibid: 91.71
  Ibid: 91.72
  Ibid: 96.73
  Ibid: 97.74
  Ibid: 97.75
  Ibid: 97.76
  Ibid: 98.77
Several questions emerge out of this chapter. First, the question must be asked again 
about how much the communities it describes are shaping the theological agenda and 
outcomes of the report itself rather than being a basis for reflection. It is significant to 
ask how they relate themselves to the Church of England’s historic ecclesiology? This 
is especially important given that some of them have emerged in direct reaction 
against it (the alt.worship model for instance). It remains to be asked how such an 
account of MSC marries with the understanding of the One, Holy, Catholic and 
Apostolic Church as understood by the Church of England historically that we 
referenced earlier.   It also appears to differ from the standard academic accounts of 78
Anglican ecclesiology we also referenced earlier.   It is also unclear how MSC, in 79
advocating the need for the Church to become plural in its own life in order to be able 
to ‘reach’ the whole of an increasingly plural English society, understands how a 
plurality of ‘types’ or ‘expressions’ of churches might belong to each other. 
The report then relates its own understanding of the Church to some of the classic 
Anglican ecclesiological documents. It suggests that the two understandings are very 
close together, and that at the heart of being an Anglican is something akin to the 
MSC commitment to mission and its own ecclesiological understanding. It quotes 
with approval the Declaration of Assent, which states that the Church must “proclaim 
afresh the Gospel to each generation.”   MSC suggests that a mission initiative or 80
fresh expression that does not have an authorised practice of baptism and the 
celebration of the eucharist is not yet a church as Anglicans understand it, since the 
eucharist lies at the heart of Christian life and Fresh Expressions must celebrate it if 
they are to endure.   It also states that Fresh Expressions must be in communion with 81
the local Bishop, as to have a license is both a practical and theological necessity, and 
that it is important that all Anglican churches remember their common links and 
common history, and to understand the relational links that convey authority and 
responsibility in the structuring of each national church.   However, the language here 82
appears to see the need for churches to practice baptism and eucharist, or the need to 
be in communion with the local Bishop, as merely legal requirements, as something to 
be observed rather than something that expresses a theological conviction. Indeed it 
 24
  See footnotes 39-42.78
  See footnotes 43-45.79
  MSC 2004: 100.80
  This would appear to contradict what the report asserts in chapter four when it names the Fresh Expressions it 81
has been exploring as church.
  MSC 2004: 102.82
would seem that MSC appears to understand the wisdom of past and present Church 
polity to be constraining the present rather than informing it. MSC does acknowledge 
the need, at some point, for Fresh Expressions of Church to celebrate the eucharist, 
but it does not see the eucharist as fundamental to the life of the local church. We 
shall explore in chapter three how such a view accords with the views expressed in the 
theology of William Temple. Central to that enquiry will be whether MSC’s view 
actually robs Fresh Expressions of church of the central resource for becoming human 
in the way Christ calls – where lives are rooted in the possibilities of the life of Christ 
received through eucharistic participation. 
Reading MSC also raises the question as to whether the ecclesiology of the report 
represents a capitulation to the logic of the capitalist market. It seems to understand 
salvation as a marketable product, which given the postmodern fragmentation of 
society into many fraternities, means that it needs to be marketed in specific ways to 
specific communities. How then does such an account relate to the Church being a 
vision of a peaceable society, a truly Catholic body where all are welcome and where 
members are reconciled to each other through Christ not their own personal interests. 
This thesis will ask whether MSC has a limited soteriological vision, where salvation is 
little more than a ‘banknote to be redeemed’, where people’s social interactions, 
practices and interrelations do not matter. Does MSC place too high an emphasis on 
cultural ‘relevance’ over fidelity to the gospel and the cost of discipleship? These 
important questions will be addressed in chapters three and four. 
Chapter six of MSC discusses some of the methodologies that are necessary to start a 
fresh expression of church, as well as addressing some perceived criticisms. One 
method the report advocates, drawing from Bishop Nazir-Ali, is double listening.  83
This involves listening to both the culture where the church might be established and 
to the inherited tradition of the gospel and the Church. This should be taken as the 
starting point for the form the church might take. As MSC argues, “mission precedes 
the shape of the church that will be the result, when the seeds of the Gospel roots in 
the mission culture.”   Since context should shape the church, addressing whom the 84
church is for (drawing on the models already outlined in chapter four) is key to this 
process. It is therefore ideal that this should result in many different forms of church, 
which serve to increase choice for those who are not drawn to existing church 
 25
  Nazir-Ali 2001.83
  MSC, 2004: 105-6.84
structures or traditions.   This raises the question as to how far this method could 85
legitimately be taken and whether the sheer numbers of local churches it might 
produce make the present structures unworkable. Would dioceses, for instance, be able 
to function as they do now, and how could the Bishop possibly remain a figure of 
unity in relation with every local church? Borrowing Frei’s metaphors, these reports 
raise serious questions about whether the Church’s tradition could ‘stretch’ to 
accommodate these recommendations or whether it will ‘break’ in trying to doing so.  86
This also appears to contradict the previous section, where a vital part of the process 
of contextualisation was listening to the tradition. Nowhere does the report expand 
upon how to do this, or give an example of this process at work. Much of the report 
could be said to miss this aspect out altogether and even here there is a quick 
reassertion that it is context that shapes the church. As an example the report states 
that “[g]ood news to the poor is only good news as it allows them to form their own 
communities of faith.”   This statement presents at best a rather uncritical 87
development of the principal that context should shape the church, but at worst it 
simply shows the report to be so contextually driven that even its own ‘Kingdom of 
God’-centered ecclesiology can be cut adrift given the right context. The report also 
fails to see how much this drive to create churches for each and every context merely 
replicates the consumeristic nature of culture that it outlined in chapter one. In 
chapter four we will explore whether a more critical approach to some of the aspects 
of consumer culture could have led it to re-think this strategy. The report does indeed 
address concern that this approach is merely perpetuating the Homogenous Unit 
Principle, as advocated by McGavran in the 1950s. The report does not refute this, but 
instead argues that a recent sociological study shows that when two cultures join 
together one tends to dominate rather than the two co-existing in a positive way, 
though it does acknowledge that it is good for them over time to seek “gradual 
cultural diversity, expressed in interdependence between groups unlike one another.”  88
Secular reasoning in the guise of sociology again overrides a legitimate ecclesiological 
concern. 
The report acknowledges that its suggestions mean that the existing legal framework 
in which churches operate is not sufficient and needs to be adapted in order to allow 
 26
  Ibid: 109.85
  Frei 1986: 117-152.86
  MSC 2004: 110.87
  Ibid: 110.88
for these Fresh Expressions. The form of ministry that would need to take place in 
these Fresh Expressions raises significant questions about the present suitability of 
ordained candidates. The identification, training and deployment of ordained 
ministers would need to be changed in order to accommodate this new type of 
ministry.   These questions are then addressed in the final chapter. This chapter 89
argues that existing legislation makes it very difficult for present Fresh Expressions to 
be recognised as a church in their own right, but it notes that changes to the 1983 
Pastoral Measure could enable churches based more around networks to gain legal 
status as a church as a ‘Bishop’s Order’ (though this language would change to 
‘Bishop’s Mission Order’ in the final measure).   It also suggests that urgent attention 90
be given to the identification and training of leaders with proven experience in 
helping to start mission-centered forms of church, suggesting that in the same way 
that potential theological educators are identified in the selection process, potential 
pioneering leaders should also be identified and placed on specific pathways of 
training that would involve the study of contextual theology.   Both of these 91
recommendations would make it into synodical law within a few years of the report 
being published. 
MSC raises important questions as to whether it has subverted traditional received 
Anglican theology and ecclesiology to its own missiological agenda. This thesis will 
explore whether MSC has far more in common with some congregationalist and 
charismatic protestant ecclesiologies than any associated with Anglicanism. We shall 
seek to demonstrate that in placing little value on the Anglican tradition as supplying 
the resources for what it envisages as a new missionary task, and in cutting itself off 
from those resources the report lacks the tools to have a more critical approach to its 
handling of sociological material. This thesis will demonstrate that an approach 
rooted more deliberately in the Anglican tradition would have helped the report to see 
cultural developments as being far from neutral. This calls into question one of the 
central theses of the report – that each and every culture needs its own type of church. 
We will also explore concerns over its sociological description: has society really 
changed so much in the last fifty years – or is it still indelibly modern? Each of these 
questions will be explored in the next chapters three and four, where we will critically 
appraise the ecclesiology of the report, using the ecclesiology of William Temple, and 
 27
  Ibid: 123.89
  Ibid: 129-131.90
  Ibid: 134-5.91
examine the sociology of the report using Bauman’s work as a theoretical basis. In the 
next chapter we will also explore whether MSC really advocates anything new in 
theological terms. In other words, does it simply advance the arguments made by 
Bosch, who argues that a new missiological task is faced by the church due to the 
radically changes occuring in Western culture? Does MSC merely repeat the 
contextual theological models outlined by Bevans and Newbigin, with their reliance 
upon the work of the early missiologists Taylor and Allen? How does the report relate 
to the shifting attitude towards mission in England reflected in the Church of 
England’s history? 
It also appears that the methodology and form of theology that MSC takes 
throughout is that of practical theology. MSC takes pastoral experience relayed 
through the Fresh Expressions stories as its contemporary experience, and this then 
forms the context for the critical development of its basic theological understanding. 
This methodology reflects Campbell’s definition of practical theology, that it is 
“concerned with the study of specific social structures and individual initiatives within 
which God’s continuing work of renewal and restitution becomes manifest”.   It also 92
reflects the definition offered by Pattison and Woodward: “practical theology is a place 
where religious belief, tradition and practice meets contemporary experiences, 
questions and actions and conducts a dialogue that is mutually enriching, intellectually 
critical, and practically transformative”.   However, as Campbell goes on to note, 93
practical theology can suffer from being fragmentary and poorly systematised, since it 
rarely gives a complete account of itself. Indeed, Campbell admits that the most 
practical theology can offer are “concrete proposals for the restructuring of the 
church’s life”.   These proposals, in his case, must then become subject of fresh 94
theological reflection and critique rather than being taken as normative or orthodox. 
Without this crucial interaction between the insights of practical theology and the 
theological discourse(s) of the Christian tradition practical theology can appear too 
alien and reactive. MSC itself suffers from this problem: it lacks self-criticism of the 
selected ecclesial narratives and it has little sense of historical perspective. We shall 
attempt to address this deficiency in chapter two where we shall explore MSC in light 
of the Church of England’s attitude towards mission in its own context in the 
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 
 28
  Campbell 2000: 84.92
  Pattison 1990: 867.93
  Campbell 2000: 85.94
Practical theology could be said to exhibit a strategy of control in its overemphasis on 
context. Questions regarding the role of traditional theology easily fall outside of this 
emphasis and can thus be negated and silenced. If the focus is on particular people, in 
this particular context, at this particular time, then other possible avenues of 
exploration can be closed off. The suggestion of an ongoing debate between the 
context and the historical tradition appears to be only a fiction. It is also arguable 
whether the discipline of practical theology is based on the false premise that other 
forms of theological discourse are not practical. One possible reason that MSC takes 
the form of practical theology, as Ballard suggests, could be the rapid introduction of 
practical theology courses into Anglican training seminaries in England in the 
1970s.   He notes that these training programs suggested that a paradigm change 95
must occur within church practice with the advent of postmodernity and suggested 
that practical theology provided the methodological model that could help the church 
refashion itself and its practices in line with this new context.   It is therefore not 96
surprising that some twenty years later a major Anglican report should be couched in 
the language and method of practical theology and that it suffers from some of the 
deficiencies that Campbell has articulated. Yet this is clearly a complex process, as 
Rahner succinctly expressed it: “[t]he very fact that there is such an enormous number 
of particular questions facing the Church today in theory and in practice involves a 
danger of not being able to see the wood from the trees, that the interested parties and 
experts in a single question will be blind to the Church's task as a whole, in which 
alone that particular task can be properly mastered.”   It is also important to 97
remember that this is an official Church of England report, not an academic piece of 
theology, and so it is unrealistic to think that a report designed to appeal to a popular 
audience (though one well educated) – the clergy – could in such shorter space 
addressed these concerns fully. 
We will now move on to consider how the report was received, both nationally and 
internationally, before assessing its developments including the setting up of a 
dedicated Fresh Expressions national team, as well as several legal provisions that were 
passed through synod that directly relate to MSC. 
!
 29
  Ballard 1996: 2.95
  MSC 2004: chapter eleven.96
  Rahner 1974: 135.97
The post-Mission-shaped Church landscape 
Since the report, two measures have been passed by Synod that form part of the legal 
framework that enables exceptional Fresh Expressions of church to be created within 
Dioceses and to make provision for ministers to work within Fresh Expressions. The 
Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure 2007 was warmly approved by General Synod 
and accepted by Parliament in 2008.   Within the measure is a section on ‘Bishops 98
Mission Orders’ (BMO), which enables new church communities to be legally 
established in consultation with the Bishop. These can work across existing parish 
boundaries as well as with ecumenical partners. This measure is complimented by a 
House of Bishop’s ‘Code of Practice’   that gives guidance on the appropriate ways of 99
going about this. The BMO may contain special provision for public worship but 
attention needs still to be paid to the relevant requirements of canon law and the 
authorised liturgy. The guidelines note however that Canon B4 permits the bishop to 
approve forms of service for use on occasions for which no other provision exists, and 
that Canon B5 allows ‘a minister having the cure of souls’ (which would include a 
minister overseeing a fresh expression) to permit the use of forms of service which he 
or she considers suitable on such occasions. These ‘occasions’ would include the 
mission contexts in which Fresh Expressions typically operate. This is an important 
source of flexibility for pioneers. It allows worship to be tailored to the culture of those 
involved. However, these forms of service should be consistent with the essential 
doctrines of the Church of England, involving a creative dialogue between the mission 
context and the traditions of the church.   A second recommendation of MSC was 100
the development of a new category of ordained ministry, pioneer ministry. In 2006, 
the House of Bishops approved the Guidelines for the identif ication, training and 
deployment of Ordained Pioneer Ministers.   These guidelines added a new selection 101
criteria for those seeking ordained ministry; this new criterion would allow people to 
be selected as potential pioneer ministers, their training would incorporate a particular 
focus on contextual theology, new courses would need to be developed to 
accommodate this, and placements would have a particular focus on mission. Upon 
ordination, pioneer minister curacies would be split evenly between traditional 
ministry and working with an existing Fresh Expressions, it was hoped that pioneer 
 30
  Church of England 2011c.98
 Church of England 2011a.99
  Ibid: section four.100
  Church of England 2011a: section eight.101
ministers would be able to take up first posts that have a particular or exclusive fresh 
expression focus.   Dioceses were encouraged to actively promote Fresh Expressions 102
of church and to create stipendary posts particularly for this type of ministry.   103
Following the publication of MSC the Fresh Expressions team commissioned several 
authors to apply the mission-shaped premise to other forms of church ministry, and 
since 2006 five of these books have been published. Whereas it is not necessary to 
repeat what these say in any great detail, it is useful to summarise the main thrust of 
each of the books arguments, noting both how they repeat both the argument and 
method of MSC and how they develop it. 
Mission-shaped children considers the implication of MSC for ministry with 
children.   Its begins by tracing how the local church has provided for children over 104
the last century, focusing particularly on the rapid growth, and now terminal decline, 
of the Sunday school movement. Withers suggests that MSC offers a rare chance to 
re-imagine what children's work is and what it can become. She contends that there 
are many current places where children meet together to discuss and explore the 
Christian faith. These gatherings should be recognised as church in their own right, 
rather than subsumed under the general heading of children’s work with the 
expectation that at some point these children will join in with the main church 
service.   Examples of these gatherings include Christian RE lessons, Christian acts 105
of worship in school, Cub Scouts, a lunchtime club such as ‘Kidz Klubs’ as well as a 
mother and toddler group.   She suggests that there are several hallmarks of children 106
being church including that “church will happen at almost any place any and any time” 
and that “it will have almost any format”.   However, one must ask how such a 107
viewpoint is complicit with even the most basic Anglican statements about the nature 
of the Church. There is again a desperate desire to name the things that people (in 
this case children) attend as church without any regard for defining what church is 
with some reference to the Anglican tradition, a tradition that the book claims to 
represent. She goes on to suggest that there are 249,000 children between the ages of 
five and ten who attend ‘non-worship’ activities at a church which includes a short act 
of prayer or worship and argues that these can and should be thought about as 
 31
  Ibid: section nine.102
  Ibid: section nine and twelve.103
  Withers 2006.104
  Ibid: 13.105
  Ibid: 30.106
  Ibid: 38.107
church.   Following on from the trend set in MSC the book also contains dozens of 108
indented stories that further reinforce the context-driven approach to theological 
reflection. 
Mission-shaped youth follows much the same format as the above, examining 
approaches to youthwork in the past 25 years, before exploring how youth culture has 
changed pace far more rapidly than has the Church of England’s approach to 
youthwork. The book, like MSC, suggests that this rapid cultural change calls for a 
radical rethink in the Church of England’s approach to young people.   The book 109
laments the one-size-fits-all approach that has often been taken and instead suggests 
that, “work with young people is unique, because it develops according to the needs of 
a particular context, and more importantly, the young people in it.”   They suggest a 110
shift from seeing youth work either as precursor to young people becoming involved 
in ‘proper’ church or as something that is an evangelistic opportunity for the church. 
Instead, the church needs to think about how meetings of young people together can 
be seen as being church in and of themselves. Again the book illustrates this in 
chapters four through to seven using stories from projects that are attempting to do 
just this, highlighting the diversity of youth culture and the need for a very diverse 
understanding of both the structure, form and practices that a fresh expression of 
church made up of young people may take. Chris Russell, vicar of St Laurence, 
Reading, summarises this analysis in the last chapter describing four ‘pivots’ around 
which ‘youth-mission-shaped church’ grows: the importance of worship, of fostering a 
sense of community, belonging, and creating a community of disciples seeking to 
follow Jesus in their everyday life.   111
Mission-shaped spirituality attempts to develop the idea that the ‘calling’ of the church, 
and of every Christian, is the call to mission, which has largely been forgotten in the 
Church of England: in the first chapter Susan Hope suggests a recover of “Apostolic 
spirituality … which is the call to bear witness to the Christ”.   She talks about 112
learning to see the needs of the local community through contemplation which leads 
to “apostolic action”, yet that action is not predetermined by some “Gospel package”, 
we need to listen to the culture. To illustrate this she suggests a re-reading of Jesus 
 32
  Ibid: 60.108
  Sudworth 2007: chapters one and two.109
  Ibid: xiv.110
  Ibid: chapter eight.111
  Hope 2006: 13.112
command to travel light, which for her becomes the command to forgo any attempt to 
identify the final ‘shape’ of the church that may result from mission activity. This “is 
the refusal to engage in a kind of cultural imperialism, the refusal to impose a vision of 
how church life and worship should be expressed”.   Following MSC, she sees 113
Vincent Donovan’s approach with the Masai as paradigmatic. In chapters six and 
seven she explores how both Apostolic leadership and prayer should be mission and 
‘other’ centered. In chapter eight she talks about public story-telling as a possible 
vehicle for testifying to the truth of the risen Christ, arguing that stories can “be told 
with confidence because they are non-coercive and have their own inner integrity”.  114
She concludes by suggesting that “what the Church of England could do with more 
than anything else is an adventure”; in its present form the church is “boring”, yet 
what Christ calls us to is “[a]n adventure where the risks are real and the stakes are 
high. A big adventure, where there’s no going back and where the outcome are not 
predetermined”.   115
Mission-shaped Parish attempts to relate the Church of England’s traditional practices 
to the changing context the church finds itself in (as outlined in MSC) by way of 
exploring how some of the suggestions in MSC might apply in a parish and cathedral 
context.   Paul Bayes suggests that many traditional parish churches should not be 116
seeking to turn themselves into a nightclub or café church, but rather seek to pay 
more attention to their existing community and its current practices and how these 
can be shaped to have a more mission focus.   Bayes, speaking about Charles Lowder, 117
links the catholic focus on the eucharist to having a mission focus. The focus on the 
incarnation and the real presence of Christ in the elements, brought into the midst of 
the slums of the east end of London the glory and presence of God, to heal and 
deliver. He questions the lack of sacramental theology in MSC and suggests that the 
Oxford movement provides a wealth of material that elucidates a catholic minded 
missiology that had the potential to address this failing.   He then discerns how the 118
missionary church values outlined in MSC can cause the congregation to subtly rather 
than ‘frantically’ change in light of their own resources combined with renewed 
attempt to match those resources to the needs of the local community. He suggests 
 33
  Ibid: 45.113
  Ibid: 82.114
  Ibid: 108.115
  Bayes 2006.116
  Bayes 2006: 9.117
  Bayes 2006: 14-25.118
that this approach shares much in common with the Declaration of Assent, in that it 
marries together the traditional practices of the church and the desire to “proclaim 
afresh the Gospel in each generation.”   Sledge then applies this same method with 119
regard to the main Sunday act of worship in a parish, suggesting that the focus should 
not be on creating something new, but rather renewing what already takes place, 
marrying the “liturgical resources of the past with the human resources of the 
present.”   This can be as simple as involving more of the congregation in the 120
liturgical elements of the services, everyone gathering round the altar during the 
eucharistic prayers, or making more of the flexible structure of Common Worship to 
incorporate more creative and contextually sensitive musical and performative 
elements, contrasting organising worship with the performance of jazz, echoing Ford’s 
earlier work.   Common Worship can provide the central theme (the rubrics) but it also 121
allows for a great deal of richly divergent improvisation, it is this improvisation that he 
encourages local parish churches to think about.   Both Bayes and Sledge then 122
expand this thesis to include baptisms, weddings and funerals, before several chapters 
outline in more practical detail how this process has worked in both parish and 
cathedral contexts.   123
Mission-shaped and rural continues the methodology begun in the other books in the 
series, firstly outlining and repeating the emphasis in MSC of the need for mission to 
become an integral and indeed central part of church life and practice.   Secondly, 124
Gaze charts the shifts that have taken place within the rural societies in England, 
noting that although most of MSC focuses on the rapid cultural change taking place 
within urban locations within England, rural locations have also undergone a different 
but equally as stark cultural change. She charts these changes using the examples of 
the decline of agriculture, the increase in tourism, the population shift to the 
countryside from the urban, the increase in social capital, as well as observing changes 
that are also noted in MSC: greater mobility, employment changes, weakening concept 
of the neighbourhood and the increasing power of network communities.   This, as 125
in MSC and the other texts we have examined briefly, then leads to another section 
that suggests that due to these rapid cultural changes there also needs to be a greater 
 34
  Bayes 2006: 14-25.119
  Bayes 2006: 46.120
  Ford 2004.121
  Bayes 2006: 33, 41 and 43.122
  Bayes 2006:  chapters four to ten.123
  Gaze 2006: chapter one.124
  Ibid: chapter two.125
flexibility in rural church communities to adapt their practices and structures in order 
to connect with this emerging culture.   Chapter four and five simply restate MSC’s 126
overview of some of the types of Fresh Expressions that are emerging and then goes 
on to justify how these can be understood as legitimate forms of church. Chapter six 
suggests that the lack of resources in most rural parishes means that there will be a 
need for these parishes in particular to undergo a “pruning of the vine”, echoing 
MSC’s language “dying to live”. She suggests that major shifts may need to take place 
in clergy focus, from the maintenance of several small communities of increasingly 
aged members to more time spent nurturing and developing Fresh Expressions of 
rural church. She also suggests that money presently spent on the upkeep of church 
buildings should be used more usefully elsewhere on mission projects in the local 
community, and that congregations should look into alternative uses for church 
buildings: the existing church community needs to be flexible when it comes to the 
use of church space and property in order for mission focused activities to be able to 
grow and develop. 
Each of these books share the same methodological framework as MSC: first, the 
assumption that a cultural shift has taken place within Western culture which in turn 
means that the church must rethink both its missiology and its ecclesiology; second, 
ecclesiology is always shaped by context – missiology leads to ecclesiology; third, the 
theological discourse used by these books seldom seeks to refer to the Anglican 
tradition. In short, it is clear that these books widen the focus of MSC by applying it 
to contexts that were overlooked in the original report, but they do very little to 
develop its theological method. 
A recently published book edited by Stephen Croft articulates what Fresh Expressions 
might (and do) look like in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, a tradition that Croft notes 
has probably been the most reserved about Fresh Expressions.   Much of the book is 127
made up of stories of Anglo-Catholic Fresh Expressions and it advocates no new 
arguments or theological developments of the MSC thesis. It is also notable that 
prominent church thinkers from the USA have contributed to several chapters. Both 
Tickle and McLaren are figureheads of movements similar to Fresh Expressions of 
church, and their inclusion within this work cements the considerable overlap in 
thinking. 
 35
  Ibid: chapter three.126
  Croft 2009b.127
The Fresh Expressions team has also issued a series of shorter booklets that they 
encourage parishes to work through either together as a whole or as a PCC. They 
include one that provides a working model for carrying out a ‘mission audit’ for your 
church to enable it to become more mission-centered (this echoes many of the points 
in Bayes chapter on ‘mission values’ described above).   Several deal with how to start 128
a fresh expression of church and one gives a beginner’s guide to Bishops’ Mission 
Orders. In each of them they refer back to both MSC as well as to the above more 
specific guides. Overall the series reinforces the thinking within MSC and contains 
very little that is new or developmental in theological method or thought. 
A series of courses has also been developed which are aimed at equipping local 
churches to think more about how they might start a fresh expression. One course, 
entitled ‘Mission-shaped Intro’, is aimed at being taught by a local leader using 
existing handouts and slideshow presentations which are provided by Fresh 
Expressions, and is taught over six sessions which take place once a week over a whole 
day.   The course material replicates the MSC report as well a drawing on the above 129
series of books, and can be specifically adapted using material from these books to suit 
the context. At present over 10,000 people have attended these courses and they are 
taught in over twenty-two different locations across England. A more in depth course 
entitled ‘Mission-shaped Ministry’, taught regionally across the course of a year, aims 
to develop in more detail leaders and teams of leaders for pioneer ministry in a fresh 
expression.   The Church of England and the Methodist Church, as well as the 130
Church Mission Society, jointly sponsor the courses. 
There has also been considerable attention given to the report by other members of 
the Anglican Communion. In Australia, the Episcopal Church established a Fresh 
Expressions Australia group in 2006, following the publication of their own report, 
Building the Mission-shaped church in Australia. Wycliffe Hall, Toronto, established 
Fresh Expressions Canada in 2008, working with other agencies, and the Episcopal 
Church in the USA is also exploring setting up a Pioneer form of Ministry, modeled 
after that in the UK with the Diocese of Washington already experimenting with this 
form of training in 2008. Outside the Anglican Communion, the EKD (The 
Evangelical Church in Germany) has also officially adopted the language of Fresh 
 36
  Fresh Expressions 2006.128
  Fresh Expressions 2012a.129
  Fresh Expressions 2012b.130
Expressions and hopes to develop a fully mixed economy of church over the next 
fifteen years. The Dutch Reformed Church and the Church of Scotland have both 
also adopted similar language and are also exploring ordained Pioneer ministry.   The 131
United Reformed Church has also welcomed the report and has sought to develop its 
own mission-shaped ministry course. The Revd. Roberta Rominger, URC general 
secretary said: “We want to attract those who don’t come to church, by offering 
something new and different alongside more traditional forms of worship. The Fresh 
Expressions initiative is a real opportunity for Christians of all persuasions to join 
together in mission and to share the Christian good news at a key moment in the life 
of our nation.”    132
The emphasis on contextual method and the theological framework that MSC 
suggests is not isolated, and can been seen as part of a growing trend within churches 
in North America, Europe, South Africa and Australia, often collectively called the 
‘emerging church’. This diverse movement also shares many of the traits of Fresh 
Expressions. Bolger and Gibbs carried out an influential study of over one hundred 
emerging churches in the UK and USA in 2005 and on the basis of this research 
chose to define the emerging church as “communities that practice the way of Jesus 
within postmodern cultures” and “that take culture, specifically postmodern culture, 
seriously”.   They go on to say that “[t]aking postmodernity seriously requires that all 133
church practices come into question”.   Emerging churches sees ecclesial structures 134
and practices as culturally conditioned and therefore they need to be re-imagined for 
this new postmodern context. They also look primarily to the Gospels and the Acts of 
the Apostles in order to understand the church and its mission, and attempt to 
redefine leadership in a similar way to that of pioneer ministry.   Other people 135
writing in different contexts on the emerging church have also made similar points.  136
It is also clear that the vast majority of these communities have emerged out of an 
evangelical theological context and there are no examples of Roman Catholic or 
Orthodox communities. However, Pope John Paul II did issue a call for a new type of 
evangelisation in 1983, “look to the future with commitment to a New Evangelisation, 
 37
  Croft 2009a: 37.131
  Fresh Expressions 2012c.132
  Bolger 2007: 43 -44.133
  Ibid: 34.134
  Ibid: 94-110 see also chapter ten.135
  Taylor 2007.136
one that is new in its ardour, new in its methods, and new in its means of 
expression.”   137
!
The Critical Reception of the Report, Secondary Legislation and Associated 
Literature 
General Synod welcomed the publication of the report. The majority of speeches were 
fully in favour of the report’s recommendations; only a few made critical remarks. Mrs. 
Anne Williams spoke against the report, suggesting that “[t]here is no doubt that we 
need to explore new ways of being church, seeking always to find ways of reaching the 
unchurched, but not at the expense of traditional models, whatever they may be”.  138
Ven. Richard Blackburn argued that, “the thought that a mission-shaped Church 
should be ‘going to church with other people who are like us’ seems a pretty dismal 
prospect to me”.   He did not develop this criticism any further, and instead stressed 139
the need for a stronger episcopacy. The Rt. Rev. Peter Price suggested that “[t]here is a 
need for some fresh theological thinking. I do not think that this report by and large 
gives it, but I think it is out there. Some fresh thinking about ecclesiology needs to be 
done”.   With these criticisms in mind Synod went on to  140
welcome the report Mission-shaped Church as a contribution to reflection and 
action about a ‘mixed economy church’ and commend it to dioceses, deaneries 
and parishes for study and discussion; … to invite dioceses to take account of the 
report’s proposals in the development of their diocesan mission strategies; … to 
ask the Mission and Public Affairs Council to consider and take forward the 
recommendations and report back to General Synod in the next 
quinquennium.   141
The Methodist Church also welcomed the report as part of its ‘Our Calling’ process, 
and passed a resolution at its annual conference in 2004 affirming Fresh Expressions 
as one of its five priority areas.  
 38
  Paul II 1983 and 2001.137
  General Synod 2004: 138.138
  Ibid: 140.139
  Ibid: 142.140
  Ibid: 158.141
Immediately following the publication of the report Professor John Hull wrote a short 
critical response, Mission-Shaped Church: A theological response. His main criticisms 
concerned confusing the role of the Church too closely with the Kingdom of God, 
which, he argued, meant that the potential role other faiths may play in the Kingdom 
of God was eradicated.   He was critical of the proposal to set up churches for poor 142
people, saying that, “the misuse of one of the most prophetic insights of contemporary 
theology, the preferential option of God for the poor, is almost cynical in its 
nonchalance.”   He suggested that the report should have developed a critical 143
appraisal of the culture it described, providing a counter-imagination to that of 
consumer culture. He argued that the report failed to consider that along with 
structural differences in inculturation there may also necessarily be theological 
differences, such as inclusion and exclusion in a society based around the ability to 
consume.   144
Bishop Graham James also offered a short critical analysis of MSC in a 2005 
address.   Though he welcomed the report, particularly the manner in which the 145
Fresh Expressions described engaged with ‘postmodern’ culture, he was also wary of 
the lack of critical analysis of some of the more difficult aspects of consumer culture. 
In particular the way in which it excluded those who could not afford to consume and 
the reduction of the church to a particular subcultural group or interest, which 
diminished the ability of the gospel to reconcile. He also highlighted that because 
MSC had a sociological determined understanding of the gospel – where it was 
understood as something simply to be communicated – this tended to ignore the 
manner in which the gospel might be alien to us and address us in a manner we could 
not fully fathom.   146
Bishop Lindsay Urwin also offered a short critical paper in which he reflected upon 
the role of sacramental ministry in Fresh Expressions.   He argued that sacraments are 147
a pure gift from God, something that Christ does with and through his people. As 
such they are the essential things in Christian life, and it is the duty of every church to 
offer them, as they form its identity and life and guarantee its faithfulness. Because 
the New Testament witnesses to the centrality of the eucharist in particular very early 
 39
  Hull 2006: 1-6.142
  Ibid: 15.143
  Ibid: 19 and 27.144
  James 2005.145
  Ibid.146
  Urwin 2008: 29-41.147
on in the life of the church and the emphasis in the early church tradition continues 
this pattern, Fresh Expressions that do not celebrate the eucharist fail to adhere to the 
witness of scripture and tradition. For Urwin the eucharist is the foretaste of the 
heavenly kingdom where all are equal before God and where barriers of race, gender 
and class are overcome.   Therefore because the eucharist bears witness to a different 148
kind of materialism he sees it offering a radically different view of reality than that of 
the predominant western culture. This culture increasingly disposes of the material, 
encourages people to replace things every year or two, but the Christian faith, because 
of the incarnation – celebrated and encountered in the eucharist – encourages us to 
reverence matter, because for our sake God became material. The sacraments are signs 
of the material world, conveying the presence of God, and signs of the material world 
being charged with the grandeur of God. Therefore, for Urwin, any church which 
does not have the eucharist at its heart diminishes the possibility of re-narrating 
people away from the destructive tendencies within our own culture towards our 
material world and also our acceptance of each other. 
Urwin’s concerns about the nature of the local church were also articulated by 
Williams in a short article on the future of the parish system. He argues that, "The 
model of a group of worshippers in every 'natural' community in a country, trying to 
let that community know what kind of God it worships and what, as a result, is 
possible for human beings, is a model that expresses eloquently some of the ways in 
which taking responsibility for passing on what has been received can happen."   For 149
Williams, the parish model expresses loyalty and availability, expressing God's 
accessibility. A church which is for a particular culture or subculture looses out on the 
positive tensions of diversity, nationality and language, it looses a dimension of what 
the Body of Christ actually is, and what the local church is called to be. Churches that 
fail to speak in this way are less rooted, less material and suggest that the Church 
cannot cope with difference and is threatened by diversity, they fail to show that the 
church is not just another tribe or self-interest group, that the church is of an entirely 
different order.   Williams argues that the substance of the Church's life is “the lived 150
encounter with Jesus in the company of unexpected and unchosen others.”   151
 40
  Urwin 2008: 31.148
  Williams 2010: 53.149
  Williams 2010: 55.150
  Williams 2010: 57.151
The above criticisms are made only in passing and are largely undeveloped. The only 
significant critical engagement with MSC is found in the work of Davison and 
Milbank. They published a popular level critical examination of MSC in early 2011. 
For the Parish is a robust attempt to defend the centrality of the parish against its 
perceived diminishment in MSC.   Given this, it is important to give the work due 152
consideration in order to consider the way in which this thesis will build on, differ 
from, and also critique this work. !
In chapter one they argue that MSC is premised on a false methodology that 
separated form from content. MSC failed to take seriously the manner in which the 
values, beliefs, convictions and meanings – i.e. the contents of belief – of the church 
are expressed in the form of its worship. MSC suggested that the essence of the church 
exists apart from these practices, structures and disciplines, hence they can be 
repackaged in any number of different ways without any sense of loss.   Using the 153
work of Balthasar, particularly his exploration of aesthetics in The Glory of the Lord, 
they argue Christologically that form and content are inseparable because in Christ 
"all the elements of his life and person come together in his form. His person, actions 
and preaching are inseparable from this whole, as are his divinity and humanity."  154
They then turn to Wittgenstein and Lindbeck to argue that Christian identity is 
formed and matures communally through the practice of certain actions, the actions 
and practices matter because faith is embodied in them. This is why the form the 
church takes is important, it expresses her beliefs. Fresh Expressions by separating form 
from content undervalues the way in which these practices shape and nurture 
Christian belief. Essentially MSC is too intellectualist because it reduces faith to a set 
of ideas to be disseminated rather bound up with practices, relationships and forms of 
life. !
In chapter two Davison and Milbank argue that MSC has great difficulty 
understanding how the historic practices of the church mediate Christ.   That it is 155
the communal history of the Church that have mediated Christ to the world, 
extending the logic of the incarnation. Human language, culture and practices 
participate in redeeming activity of God, in the church they are a means to encounter 
 41
  Davison 2011.152
  Ibid: chapter one.153
  Ibid: 8.154
  Ibid: chapter two.155
God's grace and are not incidental to, or in competition with, that grace. They argue 
that MSC denies the possibility of mediation and instead sees such a view as 
competing, where the church is denied any mediating role at all in God's mission. 
Such a denial is also a denial of the pattern of salvation that Jesus himself enacts, 
whereby he draws people into his work to become partakers of it, members of his 
body.   156!
Linked into the views expressed in chapter two they then, in chapter three, argue that 
MSC does not take seriously that the church is the body of Christ, "inseparable from 
who Christ is and what Christ does."   In MSC the church is not the main 157
outworking of salvation it is extraneous to salvation, the historic church can be 
ignored, its practices put to one side, for salvation does not have an ecclesial 
dimension it is God's work alone. This is a direct result of MSC's lack of a theology of 
mediation. The Church is seen in a starkly utilitarian fashion in MSC, once a person is 
'brought before' God it simply fades into the background, as though its practices were 
irrelevant to the ongoing discipleship of the believer.   The reports emphasis on 158
mission, and its construal of mission as something that can be separated out from the 
life of the church continue to misunderstand the co-operative nature of Christian life 
and the reality of the Church as Christ's body. !
In chapter four they go on to argue that MSC simply replicates the worst forms of 
individualism already present in modernity, and they offer St Paul’s account of the 
diverse yet unified body of Christ as a counterpoint to this.   They suggest that by 159
placing choice as the central ecclesial category MSC also represents “a flight away 
from the mixed community of the parish ... towards segregation [where] the network 
of consumer choice is privileged over the parish as the site of difference and 
reconciliation.”   Contrasting the approach MSC advocated to the vision of the life of 160
the Church expressed in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, where Christ, and implicitly 
the church, is described as place where dividing walls are broken down. They state that 
although MSC recognises that the final state of the church will be a fully united and 
reconciled humanity it is happy to keep this state deferred rather than seeing it as an 
 42
  Ibid: 38-40.156
  Ibid: 48.157
  Ibid: 55-58.158
  Ibid: chapter three.159
  Ibid: 2 and chapter four.160
essential element of the Church's identity and vocation. The authors trace this 
willingness to defer to the report’s individualism which only sees salvation as  matter 
of individual change rather than corporate or cosmic change.   They suggest that the 161
idea of a 'mixed economy' paradoxically leads to a less mixed church because these 
congregations of like-minded people never encounter one another.   They critically 162
discuss HUP and are particularly critical of its reliance upon sociological data that 
suggests that it is simply not possible for diverse groups of people to meet together 
without one dominating the other. Such a view prefaces empirical sociology over 
theology resulting in a capitulation to the logic of consumerism.   Seeing consumer 163
culture in such a neutral way also limits the reports soteriology where the conversion 
of the believer is seen as a singular event rather than a lifetimes process in community 
with other believers where every sphere of life, whether political, social or economic, is 
capable of being redeemed.   164!
In chapter five the authors critique the report’s quest for novelty and pastiche that 
they perceive undergirds the ecclesiology of MSC, which results in a “frail and 
atomized subjectivity”.   This emerges from its misunderstanding of the connection 165
between form and content and its low view of mediation. Fresh expressions are 
encouraged to be determined by their context. They argue that such an ecclesiology 
shares little in common with inherited Anglican ecclesiology and is broadly similar to 
the Anabaptist ecclesiology of Stuart Murray-Williams (whom MSC quotes 
favourably on this issue). They note that although the report suggests that Fresh 
Expressions should bear a family likeness to other Anglican churches the report 
nowhere actually fulfils this requirement in its description of worship within Fresh 
Expressions.   Choice is the central category of ecclesial life in the report, the 166
tradition, the practices and habits that have formed and dictated Anglican ecclesial life 
are surplus rather than treated as a gift due to the priority given to the present cultural 
context and concerns. Drawing from the work of Saussure the authors argue that the 
current vogue for pastiche allows Fresh Expressions to pick and choose elements from 
traditional Christian worship but by doing so ignores that these practices are only 
 43
  Ibid: 70-72.161
  Ibid: 73.162
  Ibid: 78-81.163
  Ibid: 85-92.164
  Ibid: 3 and chapter five.165
  Ibid: 93-99.166
meaningful within the original liturgical tradition as a whole not isolated from it.  167
They sum up their critiques by stating that the report "celebrates so many of the 
mistakes of postmodernity: fragmentation, consumer culture, the primacy of choice, 
the slow triumph of the virtual and the eclipse of the local and particular."   168!
In the remaining chapters they go on to mount a defence of the parish. Reasserting 
their view of the church's and believers role as mediators of the good news. Bringing 
back together mission and the church, by describing the mission possibility it provides 
in its mediatory role as the body of Christ. This is best seen in its liturgical practices 
centred on the eucharist, where gesture, movement and the use of space, re-narrate 
communities away from an anthropology based on excessive individualism and 
consumerism to an anthropology based on Christian virtue embedded in a local 
community.   They assert that it is only through attentiveness and participation in the 169
liturgy that we can realise the gift of the liturgy and its timeless ability to re-narrate 
believers and communities towards the profound description of communal life centred 
on the eucharistic encounter with Christ. At times these last chapters (as well as 
occasionally in earlier chapters) idealise parochial life and are overly sentimental, 
romantic and bombastic even if they flesh out in more detail the vision of the Church 
articulated in early chapters. Though the work clearly resides in the tenor of the 
polemical it has provided the only significantly fleshed out critique of MSC to date. 
!
Conclusion 
Over the course of this chapter we have examined MSC and the accompanying 
synodical legislation in detail as well as other secondary literature. As we noted in the 
introduction, and as has become clear in this examination, the report and the 
subsequently accepted legislation have led to the most significant ecclesiological and 
missiological shifts in the Church of England since the Reformation. The parish is no 
longer seen as the primary organizing principle for worship and mission in the 
Church’s life: its central place has been legally dismantled with the Pastoral Measure 
 44
  Ibid: 105-109.167
  Ibid: 118.168
  Ibid: chapters six to nine.169
Act.   The emergence of pioneer ministry as a recognised and legitimate form of 170
ordained ministry provides an alternative to the parish priest as the organising point 
of worship and mission. Both of these are the legal indications of the ecclesiological 
shift brought about in the wake of MSC. The statistics in the introduction also gave 
further weight to the growing influence of Fresh Expressions of church: there are now 
over five thousand registered Fresh Expressions across the country, one hundred and 
fifty ordinands training for pioneer ministry, and over fifty percent of parishes are 
planning to start a fresh expression. The contemporary impact of MSC is already vast 
and there is clear potential for further growth. 
However, throughout the analysis of MSC and its secondary literature it has become 
clear that certain aspects of the report’s ecclesiology and sociology are questionable 
and potentially inadequate. First, we noted how MSC does not place itself within any 
historical framework. It does not suggest that it is in continuity with any prior 
Anglican missiological reasoning. It does not refer to any Church of England reports 
on mission or mission strategy except Breaking New Ground (which MSC was initially 
updating). There is a lack of historical, theological or missiological context and the 
report largely occupies an ahistorical position. Second, MSC has an ambiguous 
attitude towards, and scant treatment of, traditional Anglican ecclesiology, particularly 
its sacramental quality. We have noted that the report’s use of practical theology as a 
dominant discourse has compounded this difficulty. Linked to this is a further 
deficiency that follows from the report’s lack of theological reasoning. In advocating a 
context-based ecclesiology, the report lacks a critical cultural hermeneutic: it treats 
contemporary culture(s) as neutral or even positive, leading it to make 
recommendations that missiologists would call syncretistic. Third, it is surprising 
given the report's focus on contextual theology that it does not draw more deeply 
upon Anglican incarnational theology, which not only would have enlivened its 
contextual theology but would also have enabled MSC to reflect more critically on the 
manner in which Anglican ecclesiology has been strongly influenced by incarnational 
 45
  Of course, it must be recognised that the parochial system has not always been central to the life of the church in 170
England, given that it only came into existence in the way it is understood now in the early twelfth century. 
Nevertheless, the parish system has been for the last eight hundred years the principal means by which the Church 
has witnessed, enabled people to participate in worship, and provided pastoral care for everyone in the nation. 
There are of course alternatives such as cathedrals, Royal peculiars, minsters, and chaplaincy, but these are 
complementary to the parish. It is also important to note that it is not seen as an essential aspect of Anglican 
identity as many member churches are not organised on the parish principle. There are also now multiple benefices, 
and team ministries but these are modifications of the parish model rather than anything entirely new. See Pounds 
2000 and Jones 2000. Jones notes that Gratian’s collections of church canons in 1140, the Decretum, helped to refine 
the concept of the parish and largely conforms to how we would understand it today. Burkhill 2012.
theology, which, in turn, is reflected in its commitment (hitherto) to the parish 
system.   Fourth, MSC makes rather casual use of sociological material, much of 171
which is quite clearly dated, and also of little depth. Though the report does draw 
upon the work of Bauman there are major questions about whether the position it 
takes is representative of his sociology as a whole. A fuller engagement with Bauman’s 
work could have resulted in a richer description of the Church of England’s present 
context. 
Given these failings in the original report, failings which are not addressed in the 
subsequent secondary literature, it is surprising to find that critical responses to the 
report have been so unforthcoming. Only Bayes, in the official secondary literature, 
and even then only in passing, develops MSC’s ecclesiology in a more sacramental 
direction. Hull’s response does highlight some of the problems outlined above but his 
work does not develop a significant response to them. It is the same with James, 
Urwin and Williams. Jones does draw attention to the lack of critical analysis of the 
sociological material the report presents. Urwin and Williams – like Bayes – only 
outline the way in which a more sacramentally-centred ecclesiology provides an 
important corrective to the ecclesiology of MSC. Such an ecclesiology offers a 
different view of the material world and a richer account of the diversity of the Body 
of Christ. 
Only Alison Milbank and Andrew Davison’s joint work has mounted a sustained 
critical examination of MSC. Their focus on mediation, the link between form and 
content, their criticisms of MSC’s adoption of consumer culture, choice and 
individualism, as well as their defense of the sacramental practices of the local church, 
each overlap with the criticisms this thesis will go on to make. However, although 
their work attempts to be an Anglican rebuff to MSC, it actually suffers from the same 
deficiencies as MSC. Its own critical sources are drawn from outside of the very 
tradition it seeks to represent. It ignores, or is unaware of, previous reports on mission 
and ecclesiology published by the Church of England and its ecclesial sources remain 
primarily Roman Catholic. Whilst this does not necessarily invalidate the criticisms it 
makes, it does rather replicate the charge it proffers against MSC – that it is not 
Anglican enough. The authors do not demonstrate that MSC is insufficiently Anglican 
because they themselves do not engage with Anglican literature that would have 
enabled them to give a better account of Anglican missiology and ecclesiology. 
 46
  See for instance Avis 2008 chapters 3, 5 and 6.171
Though they stress the importance of incarnational theology for ecclesiology, 
alongside the Church’s essential sacramental character, as well as the importance of 
understanding the Church as the Body of Christ, their theological basis for such 
claims stems from an adoption of official Roman Catholic theology, as well as 
continental philosophy, even though the Anglican tradition has a wealth of material 
(official and otherwise) on these very subjects. Nor do they flesh out the relationship 
between sociology and theology in anything but outline. It is not clear whether 
sociology can help mediate the manner in which the Church is called to embody and 
proclaim the good news or whether it is simply secular reasoning that offers no real 
insights to the life and mission of the Church today. Although their work concludes 
by suggesting that Fresh Expressions could potentially be mission communities, after 
such developed and sustained criticism of MSC it is very difficult to imagine on what 
basis the authors could see this happening and in what way. The gulf they have drawn 
between their own ecclesiology and missiology and that of MSC's appears too great to 
cross in anything but sentiment. 
It is clear that the critical response to, and analysis of, the report is still insufficient. 
Although the major areas of contestation with MSC have been identified all but one 
of the critical responses are underdeveloped and the one significant response to MSC 
suffers from the same methodological problems as MSC. Given the status and 
significant effects of the report in the life of the Church of England and elsewhere, 
and given that these critical failings of MSC are not minor but actually stand at its 
very heart, in the theological method it employs, this thesis will seek to address each 
of the problems outlined in turn. Key to this thesis is demonstrating that the sources 
and methodology of MSC are largely alien to the Anglican tradition and history it 
attempts to represent. MSC does not so much modify or develop existing 
understandings of Church order, ecclesiology and missiology as redefine them using 
its own sources. It is this discontinuity which the existing body of critical literature 
fails to stress. In order to construct an alternative contemporary ecclesiology to that 
offered by MSC it is necessary to show it is in continuity with this tradition and 
history, even though it seeks to develop it. 
The first step before going onto construct a more adequate Anglican contemporary 
ecclesiology will be to demonstrate clearly the sources of MSC itself. Chapter two will 
therefore trace the genealogy of the report exploring the emergence of contextual 
theologies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, suggesting that the basis of the 
 47
report lies in largely congregationalist adaptations of these theologies. In parallel to 
this we will ascertain the Church of England's developing ecclesiology and missiology 
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, discerning whether MSC can be seen to be 
in continuity with these theologies or as something altogether novel. We will argue 
that it is this discontinuity that has cut MSC adrift from an ecclesial vision(s) that 
could have deepened its understanding of the role of the Church in the world, and the 
way in which incarnational theology alongside sacramental practices  enable the 
Church to be most fully the Body of Christ, with all the anthropological, sociological, 
political and economic significance that carries. 
Chapter three will then go onto explore this Anglican emphasis on sacramentalism 
and the incarnational theology by critically revisiting the ecclesiology of William 
Temple, which will be deployed as a counterpoint to the ecclesiology of MSC. The 
incarnational and sacramental emphases of Temple’s ecclesiology will then lead 
directly into an account of the church’s current reciprocal relations to the culture in 
which it is situated. Chapter four will therefore turn to the work of Bauman, 
examining how a more detailed analysis of his work enlivens the Church of England’s 
understanding of both its context and its missionary calling. 
!
 48
Chapter Two

MSC’s genealogy and eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth-
century Anglican ecclesiology and missiology 
Introduction 
In chapter one I demonstrated that MSC does not give an account of how it relates to, 
or follows on from, historic accounts of the Church of England’s missiology or 
ecclesiology. Nor does MSC refer to any prior missiological reports produced by the 
Church of England except for Breaking New Ground. MSC largely deduces its own 
pool of literature from which it develops its particular ecclesiological and missiological 
direction. This chapter will construct a genealogy of MSC in order to examine where 
its major missiological and ecclesiological influences are drawn from, in particular the 
potential influence of the contextual theologies of the eighteenth-and-nineteenth-
century. Does MSC adopt contextual theology as its ecclesiological and missiological 
methodology? Does this lead it to uncritically assume a particularly Evangelical and 
free church theology of conversion and discipleship, as well as a particular emphasis 
that ecclesiology must be subservient to missiology (i.e. that context must always be 
the determining factor in the order of the Church)? We shall explore in detail the 
emergence of these contextual theologies, attempting to ascertain how MSC uses this 
discipline and adheres to its methodology. 
To ascertain in what ways MSC develops the missiology and ecclesiology of the 
Church of England, or is something novel altogether, we shall then explore the 
Church of England’s own missiology and ecclesiology during this same period, 
examining its mission practice as well as official reports up to the present time. We 
shall ask whether MSC’s theology of mission, and understanding of Anglican order, is 
a legitimate development, or if it fails to adequately reflect upon already existing 
conceptions of these theologies. In particular we will ask two things: first, whether the 
Church of England’s emphasis on the incarnation and sacramental theology allows it 
to give a better focus on, and more critical relationship with, material cultural and 
historical particularity. Second, did the missiology of the the Church of England that 
emerged during the eighteenth to twentieth centuries provide an adequate response to 
the culture(s) the Church was situated in? If so, does this missiology, represented in 
the Church’s concern for the social, economic and political issues of the day, not 
provide a better basis upon which to construct an ecclesiology and missiology today 
than the methodology MSC follows and if so how might we begin that process of 
reconstruction? 
!
The beginnings of contextual theology 
During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, two competing visions regarding the 
role of the missionary began to emerge in the host context. They were both 
particularly concerned with the formation and development of Christian communities 
(churches). Modern historian of mission, such as Ward, term these competing visions 
indigenisation (which emphasised the role of the missionary in passing on their own 
understanding of the church) and indigeneity (which emphasised the role of the 
converts in creating church structures and practices).   Ward suggests that early 172
missionaries Henry Venn (1796-1873, Anglican, Church Missionary Society) and 
Rufus Anderson (1796-1880, Congregationalist, American Board) simultaneously 
developed a strategy of indigenisation in response to what they perceived as the 
dependency created by Western missionaries in the early nineteenth century, 
particularly in Asia.   They argued that ‘rice’ Christians were completely dependent 173
on missionaries and loyal to the church only as long as they were receiving free food. 
In exchange, missionaries expected complete loyalty from the natives and resisted 
giving up authority and control. The system was thought to foster an unhealthy 
parent-child relationship between the missionaries and national believers.   Others, 174
such as Anthony Norris Groves (1795-1853), advocated a radical form of indigeneity, 
and chose not to represent any foreign denomination or missionary society, instead 
promoting full co-operation between all Protestant missionaries for the 
encouragement of indigenous initiatives. Groves’ method was hugely influential on 
both Roland Allen (1868-1947, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel) and James 
 50
  Ward 2006: Ward argues that indigenisation can be defined as the idea that: foreign missionaries create well-
172
organised churches and then hand them over to local converts. The foreign mission is generally seen as scaffolding 
which must be removed once the fellowship of believers is functioning properly. Missionaries provide teaching, 
pastoral care, sacraments, buildings, finance and authority, and train local converts to take over these 
responsibilities. Thus the church becomes indigenous, self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing. 
Indigeneity can be defined as the idea that: foreign missionaries do not create churches, but simply help local 
converts develop their own spiritual gifts and leadership abilities and gradually develop their own churches. 
Missionaries provide teaching and pastoral care alone. The church is thus indigenous from the start. It has always 
been self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing.
  McLeod 2006: 84.173
  Cox, 2006: 153ff. and 257ff. and Shenk 2006 and Anderson 2006.
174
Hudson Taylor (1832-1905, China Inland Mission) – who have both had a substantial 
impact on early twentieth-century missiology.   175
Croft has already noted the influence of the missiologist Roland Allen’s work on 
MSC.   Allen’s work was marked by his insistence that missionary practice needed to 176
be rooted in scripture, and he perceived there to be a discrepancy between the faith 
and practice of the apostolic church and that of the contemporary church of his day. 
As he wrote: “St. Paul, for instance, established a church when he organized converts 
with their own proper officers, but he did not organize a church and then later, and 
piece by piece, devolve an authority which at first the church did not possess.”   He 177
rooted his ecclesiology firmly in the New Testament, particularly the Acts of the 
Apostles, and drew from it four things he believed needed to be conveyed to the new 
believers. First, the new believers were to receive the Creed; however, this was not a 
formal creed, but rather a teaching of the ‘simple gospel’ involving a doctrine of God 
the Father, the Creator, Jesus, the Son, the Redeemer or Saviour, and the Holy Spirit, 
the indwelling source of strength.   Second, the new believers were to receive the 178
‘Sacraments’. Just as Paul and the early Apostles taught their congregations about the 
Lord’s Supper and baptism, likewise, contemporary missionaries were to teach the 
importance of these practices.   Third, Orders (that is, church ministers) were 179
conveyed to the new believers. Since the Apostle or those closely connected to the 
Apostle appointed leaders over the new churches, Allen believed that missionaries 
should do likewise.   Finally, the new believers were to receive the Holy Scriptures, 180
which were to form the basis of their theological reasoning just as it had been for 
Allen himself. Essential to allowing the four things to happen was what Allen called 
‘the ministration of the Spirit’, that is the reliance of the missionary upon the power 
of the Holy Spirit to save, seal, protect, and guide the new congregation until the 
return of the Lord. It was by maintaining the ‘ministration of the Spirit’ that the 
missionary was able to avoid the practice of paternalism.   181
 51
  Dann 2005 and 2007.
175
  Croft 2009: 41.
176
  Allen 1927: 278.
177
  Allen 1969:  87-88.
178
  Ibid: 89.
179
  Ibid: 100.
180
  Allen 1923:  30-33.
181
The works of Groves, Allen and Taylor directly influenced and paved the way for the 
emergence in the mid-twentieth century of what we now call contextual theologies. 
Bevans’ book, Models of Contextual Theology provides an important overview of this 
missiological methodology, and charts the continuing trend towards context-driven 
missiology and theology during the twentieth century.   His work provides the 182
missiological framework that MSC would inhabit. Bevans’ basis for this book lies in 
his experiences as a missionary in the Philippines and the book begins with an 
assumption that “there has never been a genuine theology that was articulated in an 
ivory tower with no referent to or dependence on the events, the thought forms, or the 
culture of its particular place and time.”   He argues that awareness of this fact has 183
only recently begun to be appreciated by Western theologians (a point also noted by 
MSC).   These Western theologians, having witnessed the birth of new contextual 184
theologies in the other parts of the world, “are becoming increasingly convinced that 
traditional approaches to theology, [that is, the Western theology ‘imported’ by 
missionaries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries], do not really make sense 
within their own cultural patterns and thought forms”.   Bevans concludes that, 185
“contextualization is a new way of doing theology.”   The fundamental insight upon 186
which contextual theologies are formulated is, he states, twofold: firstly, the realization, 
on the part of indigenous people, that their theology has traditionally been dictated by 
the Western world; secondly, the desire, following on from this realisation, to 
formulate their own theologies, that is, to find their own subjecthood in their 
theological thinking. These contextual theologies are driven by specific economic and 
political situations and thus may not conform to traditional types of theology, namely 
Thomistic or Neo-Scholastic Roman Catholic theology, or Pannenberg and 
Moltmann’s Hegelian dialectical theology. 
In the various models of contextual theology Bevans points to several similar 
characteristics that distinguish contextual theologies from traditional theologies. First, 
they are situational and cultural theologies. It is not possible to understand any 
contextual theology apart from the social, political, economic, cultural and pluralistic 
religious history of that country. Second, they are political theologies – that is, the 
 52
  Bevans 1992.
182
  Ibid: 4.
183
  MSC 2004: xii.184
  Ibid: 5.
185
  Ibid: 11.
186
suffering of the people under successive oppressive regimes has set an agenda of 
engagement and commitment to social, economic and political change. Third, they are 
narrative theologies. The primary methodology of contextual theologies is story-
telling. Contextual theologies are not systematic theologies; rather, they are a 
recitation of events, experiences, drama and narratives. Bevans’ work has been 
influential because it drew out the common themes shared by the increasing variety of 
contextual theologies (for example, black, liberation, womanist, feminist, minjungian, 
third-eye theologies), and also began the process of suggesting that Western theology 
itself could learn from this new theological method. It also articulated themes that 
MSC would replicate – the need for ecclesiology to be context driven, and the 
conviction that people within those given cultures should develop their own theology 
rather than have it dictated to them. 
At the same time that Bevans published this work, the missiologist David Bosch 
published Transforming Mission which argued that the Western church needed to re-
imagine Western missionary methods in light of a newly emerging cultural paradigm. 
Transforming Mission has become one of the most widely read missiological textbooks 
in the world, and has been hugely influential in the field of modern missiology.   It 187
was also particularly influential on Leslie Newbigin’s work, which also in turn 
influences MSC, a connection we shall explore later on. The most influential argument 
in Bosch’s thesis is his concept of paradigm change in Church history, and in 
particular his argument that the Church is entering a new mission paradigm, therefore 
Christian mission must undergo a radical re-conception in the light of this 
transition.   This premise is also taken up by MSC.   Bosch suggests that paradigm 188 189
theory provides the best framework for studying transitions in mission from one era to 
the next.   He follows Küng’s theological use of the theory whilst also developing it 190
by arguing that the West is entering a new historical paradigm, and that the Church 
needs a new understanding of mission, since its present day missiological paradigms 
are indelibly linked to the Enlightenment. The Church needs to remodel its 
 53
  Nussbaum 2008 and Saayman 1996.
187
  Bosch 1991: chapter eleven.
188
  MSC 2004: 1ff.189
  Paradigm theory was made popular by the physicist Thomas Kuhn in the early 1960s. Kuhn 1962. In this work 
190
he argued that science does not grow in small gradual steps but in quick bursts, as small groups of scientists realise 
that something is fundamentally wrong with the paradigm everyone else in their field has accepted. These new 
ideas (he uses Einstein’s relativity theory as an example) cause giant shifts to take place in scientific thinking in 
order to accommodate them, he calls these paradigm shifts. Hans Küng had already taken this theory and used it to 
outline six major paradigms in Christian history, each with its own theological framework and its own 
understanding of mission. See Küng 1988b: 67-105 and 1988a.
understanding of mission with that embodied in the life of Jesus Christ. This 
necessarily involves placing the stories and teachings of the New Testament at the 
heart of the missiological task.   After briefly analysing three missiological paradigms 191
since the time of the New Testament he goes on to argue that the once dominant 
influence of the Enlightenment upon our age is rapidly dissipating, giving way to a 
new era of post-Enlightenment thought, or postmodernism.   He lists five areas 192
where this shift takes place: first, the demise of reason and the emergence of 
experience within human rationality; second, the rejection of the mechanisation and 
commodification of nature and the human race; third, the shift in focus away from 
cause and effects (which rendered life largely meaningless) to a desire to understand 
the purpose of things; fourth, the demise of the modern progress myth; fifth, the 
rejection of the idea of ‘value free’ objective knowledge.   He goes on to state that, “in 193
the field of religion, a paradigm shift always means both continuity and change, both 
faithfulness to the past and boldness to engage the future, both constancy and 
contingency, both tradition and transformation.”   This means living in “creative 194
tension” between these two apparent opposites.   195
Bosch then proceeds to sketch out what this new mission paradigm might consist of, 
drawing attention to several vital components, of which three are relevant here as they 
are also repeated in MSC.   First, the source of mission is found in God – mission is 196
not the activity of the Church alone, it is the joining in of the Church with God’s 
redeeming activity in the world, the missio Dei.   Second, the goal of mission is both 197
the announcement of the good news of Jesus Christ and his saving work for each and 
every person, but, third, this saving work must also be seen in the everyday context in 
which people live their lives; therefore the Church must learn to contextualise its 
mission activity.   He argues that Western theology often “simply assumed that it was 198
supracultural and universally valid.”   His emphasis on the need for Western 199
theology to turn to context partially informs Breaking New Ground but permeates 
 54
  Küng 1988a: chapter one, nine and ten.
191
  Bosch 1991: 349.
192
  Ibid: 349-362.193
  Ibid: 366.
194
  Ibid: 366.
195
  MSC 2004: 20ff and 85ff.196
  Bosch 1991: 389-393.
197
  Ibid: 400-408 and 421.
198
  Ibid: 448.
199
MSC, forming, alongside Bevans, the basis for its mission methodology, in that it 
suggests that context must now become the primary foundation upon which to build 
the form and practices of the Church.   200
A second important argument in Bosch’s work that would later emerge in MSC is his 
insistence that ecclesiology should be secondary to missiology. He is critical of the 
Western church for perpetuating its own life, through the models of Christendom 
(there is no need for mission as everyone is assumed to be a Christian), secularism 
(mission is the total focus of the believer, the church is a largely irrelevant matter) and 
compartmentalism (mission is simply an aspect of church life reserved for some 
specialists). He argues that mission is the essential part of the Christian life – drawing 
on the work of both Barth and Newbigin.   201
The work of both Bevans and Bosch was also influential on Newbigin, who was one of 
the first British theologians to adopt the contextual theology method in his missiology 
and ecclesiology. Most of Newbigin’s late works quote from Transforming Mission (as 
well as earlier Bosch works) and Newbigin calls it a summa missiologica.   He and 202
Bosch corresponded over missiological matters as they were contemporaries, and they 
influenced and helped develop each others work. Geoffrey Wainwright calls Newbigin 
one of most important missiological and theological thinkers of the twentieth century 
and portrays him in patristic terms as a “father of the church”.   As a contemporary 203
of both Bosch and Bevans, Newbigin utilises and expands their insights, whilst also 
exploring the consequences of such a theological reconfiguring for Western 
ecclesiology and culture. There is considerable overlap between Newbigin’s theology 
and that advocated by MSC. 
Four elements make up Newbigin’s understanding of theology: scripture, the tradition 
of the Church (especially found in the creeds and confessions), the current issues and 
needs of a church in a particular culture, and the theological work of churches from 
other cultures.   These are not all equal partners; priority must be given to scripture, 204
and for Newbigin the gospel is centered on the cross. He notes that the problem with 
 55
  MSC 2004: 43ff, 81 and 91.200
  Bosch 1991: 368-372.
201
  An endorsement on the back cover of the first edition.202
  Wainwright 2000: 390-393.
203
  He also affirms the important place of the church tradition, for “the Bible can only be understood in the 
204
fellowship of the Church – and the Church means the whole company of Christ’s people in all ages.” Newbigin 
1948: 135. Newbigin’s concern for context did not bring about the eclipse of the gains of history.
a lot of contextual theology is the priority of context over all else.   Following Bosch, 205
the Church is the herald of this gospel, and participates in the missio Dei; mission 
prefaces ecclesiology, for the heart of the Church is mission. Mission is therefore the 
bene esse of the Church.   However, for Newbigin mission was not a simple narrow 206
category – it was as broad as life itself, involving the restoration of the whole of 
creation and the sending of the whole Christian community to make known the good 
news in all the earth. As such it involves ecological justice as much as proclamatory 
evangelisation.   Newbigin argued that within the life of the Church there should be 207
a natural yet unbearable tension, because it is part of a society that embodies a 
worldview that contradicts the gospel, and yet it also finds its identity in another 
equally comprehensive story that it is called to embody, namely, the gospel. But how 
could the church live with this tension? Newbigin offered a threefold path towards 
faithful contextualisation. The starting point was the primacy of the gospel, the 
Church’s ultimate commitment. Second, the gospel speaks a word of grace and a word 
of judgment to the culture the Church finds itself in. If you suppress God’s ‘yes’, then 
the gospel will be deemed irrelevant; if you suppress God’s ‘no’, then syncretism will 
prevail.   He lamented cases where the church exists for the sake of its members 208
rather than for the sake of the world. For “when the church tries to order itself 
according to its own concerns and for the purposes of its own existence, it is untrue to 
its proper nature.”   Following Bosch’s argument, he too advocated a paradigm shift 209
within the West from modernity to postmodernity, placing the Western church in a 
new missionary situation. Consequently it needed to ‘wake up’ to this new missionary 
calling.   Newbigin believed that the Western Church couldn’t fulfill its missionary 210
calling in this new paradigm because its theology, ecclesial structures, worship and 
churchmanship are from another cultural period. It could not communicate the good 
news in a way that can be understood.   This, he argued, is a result of the Western 211
church being wedded to modern culture, resulting in a gospel that was severely 
syncretistic. For Newbigin, 
 56
  Goheen 2001: 16.
205
  Newbigin 2004: 125.
206
  Newbigin 1958: 143-156.
207
  Newbigin 1978: 2.
208
  Newbigin 1977: 115.
209
  Goheen 2002: 349.
210
  Ibid: 354.
211
[a]uthentic Christian thought and action begin not by attending to the 
aspirations of the people, not by answering the questions they are asking on their 
terms, not by offering solutions to the problems as the world sees them. It must 
begin and continue by attending to what God has done in the story of Jesus 
Christ. It must continue by indwelling that story so that it is our story ... and 
then, and this is the vital point, to attend with open hearts and minds to the real 
needs of people.   212
For it is 
the responsibility of the church to declare to each generation what is the faith ... 
This is always a fresh task in every generation, for thought is never still. The 
words in which the Church states its message in one generation have changed 
their meaning by the time the next has grown up. No verbal statement can be 
produced which relieves the Church of the responsibility continually to rethink 
and restate its message. [It is this] re-confession that will lead her members into 
a full and vivid apprehension of the faith.   213
He saw that this contextual missiological task as fourfold.   First was the cultural 214
task. The Church must engage in a missiological analysis of culture, for culture is not 
simply Christian, or secular and neutral. He sought to demonstrate that secular culture 
is not neutral at all. Second was the theological task. The gospel had been reshaped by 
scientific rationalism and consigned to the private realm. It urgently needed to be 
recovered, firstly as public truth, and secondly as comprehensive in scope – that is, 
proclaimed as true for everyone and brought to bear on every aspect of Britain’s social 
and cultural life. Third was the ecclesiological task. The church needed to recover its 
missionary nature. It had been deeply compromised by its allegiance to culture and to 
the state in Christendom, and by its willingness to be relegated to the private realm. 
The final task was epistemological: reason, in the modern period, had become the 
ultimate judge of truth claims; it needed dethroning, and the Church must decline to 
accept the ultimate beliefs of Western culture and instead both live and reason in the 
 57
  Newbigin 2004: 151.
212
  Ibid: 137ff.
213
  Newbigin could be said to have developed a thesis not unlike the radical orthodoxy project, in attesting to the 
214
total centrality of Christian theological discourse as a metanarrative. He too sees the end product of the Cartesian 
programme as nihilism, where claims to truth are seen as nothing more than assertions of the will to dominate 
(pace Nietzche). There are only regimes of truth, as Foucault would tell us, answerable to no-one. The end product 
of Descartes’ project of total-certainty is total skepticism. It therefore naturally follows that the Church’s 
proclamation of the gospel is not seen as an invitation to believe what is true, but as the attempt of a failing social 
institution to re-assert its former power.
ultimate light of the Gospel.   Newbigin’s missiology and ecclesiology has been 215
hugely influential, particularly in the gospel and Culture Network in the USA (as well 
as the UK). MSC repeats many of the features of his theology, though it also succumbs 
to the same uncritical tendencies that he observes in some contextual theologies.   216
Several missiological strands have become increasingly clear in the course of this (too) 
brief overview. First, the questions MSC raises are not new. Second, the work of 
eighteenth and nineteenth century missiologists was influential in the emergence of 
contextually based theologies; which in turn led Western missiologists to begin to 
question their own methods and assumptions and increasingly to see that these 
contextual theologies offered the Western church insights into its own life, calling and 
witness. Third, we can begin to see how, in the late twentieth century, Newbigin’s work 
developed one of the first sophisticated and systematic attempts to relate the insights 
of contextual theology to what he saw, following on from Bosch, as the emerging 
postmodern paradigm within Britain. Fourth, we can see a trend towards subsuming 
ecclesiology to missiology, where the practices and structures of the church emerge 
from the mission activity in a particular culture rather than being defined prior to that 
mission. Both Bosch and Newbigin suggested that the present church structures and 
practices in the West were indelibly linked to modernity, and therefore needed to be 
totally rethought in the light of the church’s new context.   All of these 217
methodological points are adopted and deployed in MSC and contextual theology 
forms the basic organising principal for MSC’s missiology and ecclesiology. Yet MSC 
misses that Newbigin in particular stresses the need to understand, and work with, the 
existing theological and philosophical traditions of the British context. MSC fails to 
pay adequate attention to these traditions, seeing them as essentially alien to the 
process of contextualisation. Given the conspicous absense of any official Anglican 
reports from MSC, or any reference to prior approaches to Anglican mission in the 
 58
  Newbigin 1993: 4.
215
  Murray-Williams, an author who is cited quite frequently in MSC was also hugely influenced by Newbigin’s 
216
thesis. However, he places more emphasis than Newbigin did on the demise of Christendom. He sees this demise as 
creating a new, emerging paradigm, for mission, which means the church needs fresh ways to imagine mission as it 
renegotiates its relationship to the state and society. Central to this task is rethinking ecclesiology. Murray-
Williams, like MSC, suggests studying some of the Fresh Expressions of church that are occurring in Britain at the 
moment, arguing that they provide alternative ecclesial visions that are culturally more authentic  (Murray-
Williams 2004)). He also emphasises that ecclesiology must be shaped by missiology not the other way round, and 
that cultural shifts to a more network based society mean that the church must learn to look beyond the local 
congregational level to becoming trans-local. Traditional models of leadership and priesthood must also be 
reimagined for this new context, and worship must also become more mission centred. He sees alternative worship 
communities offering clues as to how this might be done (Murray-Williams 2005: chapters five to seven). These 
emphases are also repeated in MSC.
  Notably Murray-Williams. See footnote 23.217
English context, it must be stated that the report at the very least conveys that it 
believes the context that gave rise to the missiology and ecclesiology of the Church of 
England is largely irrelevant. This betrays the insights Newbigin brings to contextual 
theology and results in an ecclesiology and missiology that is devoid of any historical 
basis or historical reflection. Now we shall turn our attention to the history of mission 
within the Church of England and its effect upon the church’s ecclesiology in order to 
determine whether MSC is something entirely novel or whether it fits into a general 
pattern of development within the life of the church, and if so, in what ways it does 
develop existing and historical attitudes. 
!
Mission in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century in the Church of 
England 
There has never been a generation in which it was possible for the parish churches of 
England to undertake every piece of work that the Church is called to do. In modern 
times the church has resorted to specialised forms of ministry, and particularly since 
the nineteenth century the Church has given birth to a wide variety of societies, guilds 
and communities whose express interest is in meeting the spiritual needs of people or 
groups that the parochial instrument cannot address. It is important to briefly examine 
several of these groups to demonstrate that in some ways they prefigure the Fresh 
Expressions movement, giving credence to the idea that MSC actually builds on a long 
history of local and contextual mission work carried out by the Church of England, 
yet redefines such work in a totally novel direction and in an uncritical fashion. 
Several of the more important Christian social and evangelistic movements and 
societies which would go on to influence the Church of England’s understanding of 
mission were founded in the mid nineteenth century. The London City Mission was 
founded in 1835 by David Nasmith, and followed on from similar ventures in 
Glasgow and Edinburgh City Missions. Nasmith felt that the Church was unable to 
minister to the working classes. Who at that time numbered nearly two million in 
London, lived in a poverty, disease stricken state, were largely uneducated and seen as 
morally corrupt. Though many of the outer London churches were full those in or 
near the slums were not, and those from the slums seldom attended services. This led 
one priest to declare from his pulpit that, “the state of the people around us is simply 
 59
revolting and to our disgrace we profess to be the evangelising power of the nation, 
but we are dead to the miseries of the heathen masses around us.”   It is important, 218
however, to note that this view is now contested. Williams, drawing from oral 
material, alongside folklore, ephemera and autobiographies, suggests that views such 
as this were based on a misconception and convincingly argues against those who 
suggest during this period that the poor were irreligious and indifferent to the 
established local churches. She suggests that working-class culture in South London 
was actually remarkably religious, but its character, being interior, was often in contrast 
to that of the institutional church.   Nevertheless, Williams’ work does highlight that 219
such interior religion was either unable or unwilling to ally itself with regular church 
attendance, and emphasises the alienation the working classes felt towards both the 
Church of England and other established churches. In response to this perceived state 
of affairs Nasmith sought to recruit missionaries to work in the slums, and within 
twelve months forty missionaries were working full-time, and within ten years over a 
hundred men had been assigned to different districts and places of employment 
throughout London. He encouraged them to ‘comb’ the London streets, to find out 
the habits and habitations of the poor in order to understand better how to reach 
them with the gospel. ‘Ragged schools’ were founded for the poorest children with the 
help of Lord Shaftesbury. In order for the gospel to reach the poor City Missionaries 
began to divide their time between visiting their own districts and visiting the various 
workhouses, always attempting to speak in the local vernacular in order to make the 
gospel message clear. Over time, missionaries were sent to evangelise specific areas of 
employment including the cabmen, the firemen, the busmen and the General Post 
Office workers.   These missionaries pioneered a ‘go to them’ approach and 220
confronted the spiritual and social needs of many thousands of Londoners in the 
process, acting in this role as forerunners to what would now be called social services. 
Soon after the London City Mission was founded William Booth founded the 
Salvation Army, and was likewise committed to preaching amongst the poor and 
uneducated. Booth, like Nasmith, believed that instead of standing at the door of the 
church saying, “why don't you come in?” Christians needed to go out and meet the 
world on its own terms. He felt that the mainstream churches were too middle class 
to be successful in bringing the gospel to the poor. So he sought out people from the 
 60
  Howat 2003: 4.
218
  Williams 1999.219
  Ibid: chapters six and seven.
220
working classes to preach and teach recognising that such people could speak to them 
on their own terms. Religious words were sung to music-hall tunes; circus posters and 
theater announcements were copied closely; preachers copied the idiom of street 
vendors; and congregations were encouraged to shout out responses to the preacher, 
much as they would have done in the music-hall. The Salvationists also included lay 
female workers, who were equally empowered to preach and teach and also to 
distribute communion – as such, Salvationists pioneered female ministry and 
disrupted the then dominant masculine privilege and authority. However, established 
churches taught against such forms of evangelisation, arguing that music-hall tunes 
destroyed the reverence for the sacred and that female preachers excited the poor and 
particularly women to self-importance, which threatened havoc in the church and the 
family.   Other notable non-denominational organisations included the Student 221
Christian Movement, which was established in 1892 and declared its aim to be “the 
evangelization of the World in this generation.” It pioneered a form of ministry that 
would later lead to the appointment of University chaplains, and it also supplied many 
of the overseas missionaries for SPG and CMS.   222
Within the Church of England, Wilson Carlile would pioneer this same form of 
ministry. He founded the Church Army in 1882 whilst he was a curate in 
Westminster with the specific aim of reaching out with the gospel to those who were 
morally and economically dispossessed. That is, those typically living in the slums 
whom he saw as being beyond the reach of the parish priest. He sought to recruit and 
train a disciplined body of lay workers who would assist in parish churches by going 
out and preaching the gospel, often accompanied by brass bands and tambourines, a 
trait not unlike that of the Salvation Army. He, like Nasmith and Booth, also believed 
that it was the testimonies and preaching of the working class rather than the 
professional clergy that were most effective in these areas. Having previously been a 
subsidiary of the Church Parochial Mission Society in 1885 the Church Army 
become a separate organisation within the Church of England, and at that time there 
were forty-five officers engaged in full time evangelisation.   They went on to work in 223
over fifty-six prisons and established a series of labour homes to enable those released 
from prison to be rehabilitated back into society through a combination of manual 
labour, bible study and teaching. They also invested in ‘mission vans’ in order to preach 
 61
  Walker 2001: 8ff, 64ff and 175ff.
221
  Lloyd 1966: 173.
222
  Kitney 2012.
223
and teach in rural areas – and at one time up to sixty were in use across the country. 
The Church Army engaged in a wide range of social and evangelistic work, including 
working amongst immigrants and slum dwellers (for whom they built over a thousand 
new homes), and also overseas, including work amongst the Dalits in India and the 
Native Americans in the USA and Canada.    224
Each of these organisations exploited an older Nonconformist radicalism through 
which they were able to express their spiritual vision and respond to their opponents. 
They also pioneered new forms of ministry in areas of Victorian England where parish 
churches had struggled to minister; some were linked to the women’s movement, as 
well as to revivalism and holiness movements. Each of these movements also 
undermines some contemporary scholarship that would seek to link the emergence of 
the secular with the emergence of the city in the nineteenth century. McLeod notes 
that it is not simply a case of non-churchgoers being irreligious, nor of the working 
class being alienated from the local church, if one takes into serious account these 
missionary endeavors and sees the work of the Church continuing beyond its own 
front door.   Though the Church of England was late in developing these sorts of 225
missions compared to other organizations, it did nevertheless engage in what we 
would now call context driven mission, and would continue this process in the 
twentieth century. 
In 1910, the significant Edinburgh Mission Conference took place. Although it was 
mainly devoted to the work of missions overseas it did reveal, in several addresses by 
senior Church of England clergy, that those in the upper offices of the church were 
beginning to realise that England increasingly needed to be seen as a context for 
mission. Archbishop Davidson spoke of the apathy of the Church at home due to the 
emphasis on material wealth and comfort, suggesting that England was only a 
Christian nation in name only, and went on to talk about the great need for mission 
amongst the people of these Isles.   He argued passionately “the place of missions in 226
the life of the Church must be the central place, and none other.” He advised that it 
was as important for the Church at home to tell of this gospel as it was for those 
 62
  Ibid.
224
  McLeod 1996: particularly  107ff.
225
  Maclagan 1910: 150.
226
  Ibid: 151.
227
afield.   William Maclagan, the archbishop of York, would echo these remarks in his 227
address on the role of Christian nations.   228
Within a few years of this conference England was drawn into the First World War 
and the issues outlined by the archbishops would not be addressed until the Church of 
England organised a National Mission of Repentance and Hope in 1916. This was a 
nationwide attempt to respond to the spiritual needs of the country.   It involved 229
Bishops preaching in many towns and villages, calling people to a new understanding 
of the gospel, both corporate and personal. Bishop Woods of Peterborough spoke of 
his hope that the mission would lead to a reformed Britain, but argued that this could 
only come through reformed dioceses, reformed parishes and reformed individuals. 
After the mission had finished several dioceses founded Diocesan Mission Councils 
to continue to promote evangelistic work.   The mission, however, was confused in its 230
aims: some Evangelicals saw it as a potential vehicle for the conversion of individuals 
who could be brought back into the church, others, influenced by the Christian 
Socialist Movement saw it as an opportunity to call the nation to repentance over 
what it termed ‘corporate sin’. William Temple attempted to suggest that both these 
aims were noble and Christian.   The effects of the mission were mixed, few people 231
outside the church had attended special services, though many outsiders had attended 
open-air services. The spiritual life of the nation was deemed to have ‘quickened’ and 
priests had been emboldened with a new energy and impetus for ministry and mission 
in their respective parishes and dioceses. Church attendance however was unchanged, 
despite a slight revival in the last few months of the war. Nonetheless, the mission did 
lead Temple to consider afresh the role of the Church’s mission in the nation in the 
post-war period.   232
Temple argued that the English population knew little of the Christian faith and 
what was known was often muddled and incomplete. At this time there was also 
division within the Church, with different traditions accusing each other of 
misrepresenting the Christian faith. This led both archbishops in the immediate post-
war period to commission five Committees to examine different areas of life of the 
 63
  Maclagan 1910: 272-278.228
  Wilkinson 1978: 70.
229
  Ibid: 74.
230
  Ibid: 76-77.
231
  Ibid: 78-79.
232
Church and nation in the hope of creating greater consensus within the life of the 
church. These reports were collated and published in 1919, with a title page 
provocatively headed, “The Kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye and believe the 
gospel.”   All five reports were conscious of the way in which the war had “brought 233
us to the startling and vivid revelation of need and opportunity.”   The first report 234
went on to say that the Christian message was “out of touch with the thoughts and 
ideas of our time.”   It blamed this partly on the lack of theological education 235
amongst the clergy, and outlined a wide range of reform measures, including the 
teaching of the laity, the establishment of new training colleges, a revised Catechism, 
an examination of appropriate types of preaching, the use of the arts in church 
worship, more imaginative use of biblical texts in worship, reform of the teaching that 
occurs in Sunday schools and training for Sunday school teachers.   Wilkinson, 236
writing in the late seventies noted that nearly sixty years on many of these issues “are 
still familiar topics for debate and attempted action.”   The second Committee on 237
‘The Worship of the Church’ suggested that the forms of the worship in the Church of 
England alienated many people, and that the Prayer Book and lectionary needed 
radical reform. There was an appeal for “bold and wide experimentation … for we shall 
be unable to go back to merely the old pre-war grooves.”   The third Committee on 238
‘The Evangelistic Work of the Church’ suggested that the decline in Church 
attendance was unduly influenced by industrial society, which made attempts to live 
the ‘fullness of life’ practically impossible. It found that the desire to repent and strive 
after a life of faith was not as strong an impulse as the desire to offer service, and that 
for many the attraction of Jesus was as a heroic leader rather than as Saviour. It 
suggested seeing these impulses as a true praeparatio evangelica, but in suggesting what 
might follow on from this praeparatio it failed to go beyond the well-tried methods of 
parish missions, retreats and open-air services.   The fifth Committee, on 239
‘Christianity and Industrial Problems’, suggested that the Church had failed to 
adequately critique the industrialisation process, instead it had resorted to ‘ambulance 
work’ amongst those affected  by it. It suggested that the industrial system itself was 
 64
  Archbishops’ Committees of Inquiry 1918: 3.
233
  Ibid: 87.
234
  Ibid: 7.
235
  Wilkinson 1918: 81.
236
  Ibid: 82.
237
  Hobhouse 1951:33.
238
  Ibid: 17.
239
gravely defective and there was a “fundamental change [needed] in the spirit of the 
industrial system itself.”   It went on to suggest serious reform of industry as a whole, 240
and also argued that clergy should be trained in the social sciences and economics to 
enable them to preach and teach with authority and knowledge on these matters. It 
also advocated redistributing a large proportion of the national income to education, 
nursery schools, the provision of further education, the allotting of grants for adult 
education, and that the Church rapidly needed clergy from the working classes who 
could adequately teach and minister to their peers.   241
These reports were each well informed, yet division in the Church would mean that 
many of the most serious proposals were unable to be carried out, for example, the 
defeat of the proposed revision of the Prayer Book in 1927 and 1928. The Church of 
England would continue to be dogged by two dominant and competing visions of its 
calling: the Evangelicals who focused on individual conversion and growth in holiness 
through personal piety carried out in the context of the local church community, and 
others who advocated a Christian-socialist critique of society. The report on 
evangelism in particular displayed a failure to move beyond a purely evangelical 
position in that it neglected to discuss the theological significance of ‘inarticulate 
religion’ in any depth, and did not relate its description of religious knowledge and 
experience to that described memorably by Owen, Sassoon and other poets – though 
it is important to note that these poets were not widely read until the 1960s.   Nor 242
did the report discuss the meaning of salvation in a post-war society, or whether the 
secular had a necessary or even God-given role: it simply assumed that the secular was 
to be assimilated by the Church, not wrestled with. The report seemed to assume that 
the writers knew what the message of Christianity was, yet suggests that the Church 
was proclaiming it inadequately. Its response to this perceived inadequacy amounted 
to nothing more than the repetition of well-tried methods of evangelism rather than 
anything new. The lack of critical reasoning on these issues was a mistake that MSC 
would repeat. 
We have only briefly surveyed a few of the important developments within this 
period. We could have also examined the emergence of the Sunday school movement, 
which began in the mid-eighteenth century and is associated with Robert Raikes, who 
 65
  Ibid: 2.
240
  Ibid: 98.
241
  Winter 1998.242
saw the need to educate children in the slums that might otherwise descend into 
criminal activity. This movement was huge and by the early nineteenth century well 
over one million children, approximately twenty-five percent of the English child 
population, were attending a Sunday school.    We could also have explored the 243
missionary work associated with the Tractarians or Oxford Movement. With the 
Tractarian emphasis on holiness, both individual and corporate, many of those 
educated by Pusey who were ordained ended up working in the slums, attempting to 
address what they saw as the acute social and evangelistic problems of the industrial 
working class. Priests such as Fr. Charles Lowder were at the forefront of the Church 
of England’s ministry among the slums in the mid-nineteenth century. Through this 
slum work the Tractarians also become associated with the Christian Social Union, 
which was begun by F.D. Maurice and devoted to the study and remedying of the 
unjust social conditions in which many were forced to live during the nineteenth and 
early twentieth century.   244
From this brief survey we have seen that over the course of the nineteenth and early 
twentieth century there emerged a Church rich in experimentation, not one that is 
staid and wedded to a singular view of church, ministry, and mission. The Church of 
England did attempt throughout this time to attend to the traditions and structures it 
had inherited, yet it also genuinely sought to relate these in new ways to the pastoral 
needs of the English population during this time. In contrast MSC addresses no such 
history: these, and the experiments we shall go on to examine, are conspicuously 
absent from the report. Instead, MSC suggests that there was little or no 
experimentation of this kind within the Church of England until the 1980s when 
‘church planting’ began to be considered as a mission strategy. MSC creates a binary 
opposition between the ‘new’ missiological strategies suggested in MSC and the 
traditional way the church has undertaken mission. This serves to reinforce the report’s 
argument that there needs to be a radical discontinuity between its agenda, and 
suggested missiology and ecclesiology, and the missiology and ecclesiology that the 
Church of England has traditionally inhabited. 
!
 66
  Ferguson 1981.243
  For an overview of the context which gave rise to the Oxford Movement, see Nockles 1996. For an overview of 244
the theology of the movement, see Chadwick 1992. For an overview of Fr. Charles Lowder’s context, ministry and 
relation to Tractarian theology, see Ellsworth 1982.
Attitudes to mission in the Church of England from 1945 onwards 
In a country like this, which has been Christian at least in name for many 
centuries, it had come to be supposed that every normal person was brought up 
in a Christian home, and therefore became a Christian as a matter of course, and 
so did not need to be converted to Christianity. […] it had come to be assumed, 
until recent times, that conversion was an unusual type of experience which did 
not occur, and did not need to occur, in the lives of normal and sensible 
Christians, such as members of the Church of England generally supposed 
themselves to be.   245
That statement, from the 1945 Archbishops’ Report, Towards the Conversion of 
England mirrored in many ways the response of archbishop Temple at the end of the 
First World War, and continued the Anglican exploration regarding the role of 
mission and evangelism within England. Even though the report has subsequently 
been largely neglected it made two emphases that are particularly influential: it 
recognised England as a primary mission-field in need of conversion (echoing 
previous reports) and it acknowledged the urgent need to mobilise the laity in the 
work of evangelism (as previous missions had attempted). However, it did not see any 
need within this process for ecclesiological change, nor did it suggest that significant 
cultural change was occurring or had occurred. 
The worker-priest movement in the immediate post-war period of 1945 is a key 
example of an attempt by some in the Church of England to respond in a radical 
manner both to this report and to the previous reports of the National Mission. This 
new movement followed on from the post-war political and economic restructuring 
that took place within Britain, out of which emerged new social and industrial 
ventures, resulting in a change in cultural perspective. This movement began what it 
saw as parallel religious reconstruction work. For it had become obvious that the 
return to religion that the church had been hoping for in the post-war period had not 
occurred. Even though Towards the Conversion of England had highlighted the need to 
overcome the apparent gulf between the life of the church and the life of the nation, it 
made few practical recommendations for achieving this, and church attendance had 
actually begun to decline. This led one newspaper in 1946 to run the headline, “Has 
the Church of England had its day?”   However, during this time, the minds of a few 246
 67
  The Archbishops’ Council 1945: 37.
245
  Mantle 2000: 26.
246
in the established church did begin to think that the people of Britain might be 
reached after all, not by drawing them into the regular parish church services but 
rather by going out into the workplaces of the emerging industrial towns and cities. 
From groups such as the Christian Socialists and the publishers of the Church 
Reformer, as well as the Society of the Sacred Mission (SSM) there emerged a growing 
vision of ministry amongst the industrial poor. This new view was partly influenced by 
the increasingly forward role chaplains had played in the war: several had been 
captured at Dunkirk, others landed in Normandy and some were even dropped into 
Arnhem. These front-line ministries helped changed the perception of where and 
when ministry could take place and paved the way for attempted reform in 
England.   During the 1960s at the SSM in Kelham, Roland Walls was training boys 247
to minister in the everyday places of ordinary people, which led some to be sent to the 
industrial workplaces in Sheffield. The College of the Resurrection at Mirfield also 
began similar experiments. Christian periodicals such as New Frontier and Modern 
Churchmen also began to discuss a bold new vision for ordained ministry, and in 
particular Bishop Hunter of Sheffield in the 1950s advocated that mission should 
have a specific concern for the working men and women involved in industry.   This 248
was a view that dissented from the traditional parochial ecclesial vision, instead 
suggesting that a radical new ecclesiology was needed that was outside the parish 
structures (an idea parallel to that occurring in France and Germany at around the 
same time.).   Ecclesial experiments began to occur across the country, liturgies were 249
adapted to differing contexts, lay people gained responsibilities normally reserved for 
ordained clergy, eucharistic services were conducted in people’s houses and on 
different nights of the week, and parish meetings took place in public spaces to 
encourage wider participation. These changes, as Ecclestone argued, were driven by a 
perceived “lack of connection between the world of daily life and the church … the 
need was to live in a more imaginative way in the outside world.”   John A. T. 250
Robinson was one of the main theological resources for this nascent vision of the 
church and its ministry. As a Chaplain at Wells Theological College, he defended the 
principle of house churches, not as a way of getting people into a parish church but 
rather as a way of being church to the world. He argued that the church was an 
 68
  Ibid: 33ff.
247
  Ibid: 42ff.
248
  Michonneau 1959.
249
  Gorringe 1994: 79.
250
instrument of the Kingdom rather than the Kingdom itself; it was not God’s only 
agent. He stated memorably, “you can have as high a doctrine of the Ministry as you 
like, as long as your doctrine of the Church is higher; and have a high doctrine of the 
Church as you like, as long as your doctrine of the Kingdom is higher.”   His works, 251
On Being the Church in the World, and the later, more contentious, Honest to God, were 
both commended by those on the frontiers of ministry and theology, particularly those 
who were worker-priests.   252
A forerunner in these new forms of church life and ministry was the South London 
Industrial Mission, which appointed special Chaplains to industrial areas. This idea 
was quickly copied in the Dioceses of Birmingham, Coventry and Sheffield. By the 
mid-1960s there were over sixty industrial Chaplains. The most pioneering work of all 
was in Sheffield, where ‘Ted’ Wickham led a team of Chaplains under the overall 
leadership of Bishop Hunter.   Wickham instigated team visits to different factories, 253
where each Chaplain would engage in ‘snap-meetings’ with workers on breaks, 
keeping meetings informal to ensure that passers-by could join in. These short and 
sharp ‘snap-meetings’ quickly grew into larger and more organised meetings in 
Wickham’s (and other’s) homes where questions and issues could be debated more 
fully. At the heart of these meetings was the eucharist, which those who attended 
described as the entry point to a “club for the redeemed”.   Wickham argued that 254
these men and women were averse to going to regular parish church meetings, having 
a deep mistrust of the Church, but he thought they did have a deep respect for 
Christianity.   In response Wickham published a pamphlet encouraging people to 255
come over and ‘join God’s union’ – the church – which many workers did. However, 
this ‘joining’ did not entail having to attend a parish church, for the Industrial Mission 
itself was church enough. Since it was the Mission that had rooted church in the 
actual work place, nothing else was deemed necessary. 
Wickham’s theology – drawing at times on Tillich, who argued that the church should 
belong to the world but be prophetic within it – was driven by his understanding that 
there needed to be a church that was “supplementary [and] non-parochial [in] 
structure”: only then could the gospel make any mark on an urban industrialised 
 69
  McBrien 1966: viii.251
  Mantle 2000: 51.
252
  Ibid: 78ff.253
  Ibid: 91.254
  Ibid: 82ff.255
society.   He called for a thorough retraining of the laity in order that they too might 256
take part in this evangelistic task in their own working lives, rather than simply 
mimicking the churches ‘come to us’ attitude. He summed up his challenges explicitly 
in his work Church and People.   Bishop Hunter expanded Wickham’s vision in a 257
variety of schemes that operated throughout the Diocese. He also encouraged curates 
to develop similar ministries in their placements and negotiated for the SSM and 
King’s College London to send ordinands to work in these industrial missions, hoping 
that through such a process they might seek to develop similar missions elsewhere.   258
By 1959 the Church Assembly had, with Wickham as secretary, published The Task of 
the Churches in Relation to Industry, which seemed to vindicate all the experimentation 
that had gone before it. Yet this report did not develop into anything like the future 
Wickham envisaged. The Church of England asserted once again that the parish was 
to be central to its life and mission, and his hope for an industrial secretariat (whose 
head would have been a de facto non-territorial bishop) was never realised. He 
remained “politically and ecclesiastically unacceptable”, and his elevation to the 
episcopacy was to “gag his effective voice in industrial mission, and his consecration … 
marked the ending of a brief but major chapter in the life and witness of the Church 
of England.”   In the mid-to-late 1960s, the Mission was wound down, eucharists 259
were stopped, the work of visiting the factories and shop floors changed in focus to 
drawing people back into church, and the ‘snap-meetings’ took on a more formal and 
liturgical character. In the 1970s, Wickham lamented that the Sheffield Mission and 
others like it had essentially become institutionalised and therefore prevented from 
having any real impact for the gospel.   260
Even though worker priests would go on to found the Worker Church Group, their 
vision for ministry was received with indifference at the institutional level, and 
engagement with the working class remained a low priority for the Church of 
England, with subsequent official reports making little mention of them or their 
radical ministry. The majority of the clergy in the Church of England held to a 
received institutional ecclesiology that supported the territorial parish as the sole base 
for mission; very few were interested in allowing a working-class church to 
 70
  Ibid: 85.256
  Wickham 1969.257
  Mantle 2000: 86ff.258
  Ibid: 82-86.
259
  Ibid: 87-95.
260
indigenously emerge, for the church already existed in the parish and did not need to 
exist anywhere else.   For all intents and purposes the worker-priest movement in 261
England was invisible to the established church. Other reforming movements of the 
1960s suffered similar fates, notable among them the Keble Conference Group and 
the Parish and People movement, both of which attempted (again with the support of 
Robinson) to radically reappraise the Church’s pattern of ministry through wide-
ranging reform.   262
In 1981 a significant report on mission entitled To a Rebellious House was brought 
before General Synod. It formed one of a number of reports that led up to the 
‘Decade of Evangelism’ in the 1990s. It was produced jointly by a number of overseas 
Anglican Church leaders and their Church of England equivalents and was designed 
to see how the Church of England could learn from mission strategy overseas, as well 
as to hear the reflections of their leaders on mission projects in England. The report 
was supposed to be a unanimous statement on their joint findings, yet there was 
profound disagreement about what evangelism and mission entailed and two 
statements were issued. The first statement (written by the overseas partners) sought 
to convey the urgency of the missional task facing the Church of England: it talked 
about the Kingdom of Heaven being at hand, and noted that at present the Church 
was impeded by “contemporary apathy”, an “inability to express the gospel with 
clarity”, “lack of knowledge of Scripture and inability to share it”, and the 
predominance of clergy who were “more pastorally than evangelistically orientated”.  263
In contrast the internal partners’ statement came across as far less urgent, and 
understood mission and evangelism in far more socio-political and general terms.  264
In simple terms both of these positions echoed the differences found in the National 
Mission reports between an individual and social vision of the gospel. 
It was this disagreement about the fundamental premise of mission and evangelism 
that led mission agencies to set up their own local branches in England itself – in 
order to carry out what they saw as the crucial task of converting England. It was 
CMS in particular, under the leadership of John Taylor, who during the 1960s, 
advocated a wholesale change in approach to mission and ecclesiology (paralleling in 
 71
  Ibid: 269-272.
261
  For a fuller treatment see Hastings 2001: 532ff.262
  Partners in Mission Consultation 1981: 33.
263
  Ibid: 34.
264
many ways the work of Wickham and Robinson but with a more Evangelical 
theology). As early as 1967, Taylor was calling for “Little Congregations”, what MSC 
would now call cell churches. What, he asks,  
would the missionary church be doing in Britain, Sunday by Sunday, for the tens 
of thousands of people who stream in their cars to the coast or the countryside. 
Would it try to cajole them into postponing their trip until after midday so they 
could go to church first? Or coax them to the parish church at the end of their 
journey? Or try to legislate as few amenities as possible at their destination?   265
Churches overseas, he said, faced with mass processions and pilgrimages of non-
Christian cultures would never dream of trying to attract these people into their 
church buildings. Instead they would concentrate on “how to bring the witness and 
service of Christians to bear on the lives of that multitude in a relevant way.”   He 266
was of course writing before the great upsurge of the Pentecostal movement in Africa 
and elsewhere that did actually succeed in getting great numbers of people into church 
using an attractional method.   His vision for a new type of church was radical and 267
ahead of its time. “These new units of Christian presence,” he wrote, “are emphatically 
not a half-way-house through which the uncommitted will eventually be drawn into 
our parish churches. Nor are they an interim structure which ought to grow into new 
parish churches in due course.” He did not see them as replacing the Cathedral or 
parish church, but added, “it is the little congregations which must become normative 
if the Church is going to respond to the world’s agenda.”   This vision, which echoes 268
some of what Newbigin would say twenty years later, would not be taken seriously by 
the Church of England for nearly thirty years. 
The Church of England would reflect its broad understanding of mission in the 1985 
Faith in the City report, which contains a thorough analysis of the sociological shifts 
that had occurred since the end of the Second World War in cities in the UK.    It 269
asserted that the Church of England in the 1980s was confronted with the 
consequences of unemployment, the effects of racial discrimination and of social 
integration. It suggested that although the way in which these issues manifested 
themselves economically, sociologically and physically may have varied from place to 
 72
  Taylor 1967: 1.
265
  Ibid: 1.
266
  Jenkins 2002: 68ff.267
  Ibid.
268
  Archbishops’ Commission on Urban Priority Areas 1985.
269
place the underlying factors of powerlessness, inequality and polarization were the 
same.   The report argued that the Church had previously been slow to respond to 270
these injustices, owing to both internal factors – its modern structures that were slow 
to adapt and change – and external factors – the decline and privatisation of religion 
in the Enlightenment era.   It affirmed that, “no presentation of the gospel is possible 271
unless it relates to material, social, and economic deprivations.”   It recommended 272
that the Church adapt its liturgy to better suit the increasing plurality in languages, 
cultural metaphors and symbols in UK cities. Yet not only did the report fail to take 
into account the worker-priest movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which actually 
carried out some of the recommendations the report went on to make, it also failed to 
provide any examples, or concrete suggestions, as to how to go about this. It also 
suggested that structures in the church itself were inhibiting how effectively the 
church can respond to these cultural changes – an accusation made thirty years 
previously by the likes of Wickham and Robinson. Yet unlike their work it made no 
suggestions for how they might be changed or what they might be changed into.  273
Faith in the City was, however, one of the first official Church of England reports that 
explored the emerging cultural context of the late twentieth century in the UK, and 
echoes much of what Bosch would say. It was fraught with implications of what the 
Church should be doing and set up many ecclesiological questions that would only be 
addressed in more depth in the several subsequent reports, some of which we shall 
shortly examine. 
From the late 1980s onwards mission become an increasingly central theme in the life 
of the Anglican church: the 1987 Church of England report The Measure of Mission 
attempted to address some of the concerns of Faith in the City, and suggested that 
there was general agreement that “the Church of England at various levels should be 
more committed to mission.”   It went on to outline ten case studies that it thought 274
exemplified good mission practice, and following on from this the second part of the 
report sought to define the overlapping characteristics of these examples, 
encapsulating these in its ‘Ten Marks of Mission’.   However, it was the 1988 275
 73
  Ibid: xiv and 24ff.
270
  Ibid: 49ff.
271
  Ibid: 51.
272
  The report did however lead to the creation of the Church Urban Fund, which has proved to be a vital resource 
273
in the Church’s engagement in urban life.
  General Synod Board for Mission and Unity and the Partnership for World Mission 1987: iv.
274
  Ibid: 24.
275
Lambeth Conference that proved to be a pivotal moment, ushering in the ‘Decade of 
Evangelism’. The official document of proceedings reveals a deep desire to move the 
Anglican Communion away from the attitude of ‘maintenance’ to one of ‘mission’. For 
it perceived that, “[o]ur Churches are always in danger of diverting the energies and 
focus of their members from their essential task of mission, to an introverted pre-
occupation with ecclesiastical concerns. We call our Churches and all Christians back 
to mission and we urge them to respond with all their heart to our Lord’s commission 
to go out into the world in his name.”   It was anticipated that such a radical 276
refocusing would have a profound effect on the individual churches concerned at both 
a national and diocesan level.   Even though the experience of the ‘Decade of 277
Evangelism’ was mixed this did lead to a sustained focus on local mission, and also an 
emphasis on church planting as a key strategy for this.   278
As we outlined in the first chapter, Breaking New Ground continued to developed the 
Church of England’s emphasis on church planting and sought to provide good 
practice for this method, whilst relating it to traditional Anglican ecclesiology.   It 279
advocated an ecclesial vision that anticipated much of the ecclesiology and missiology 
of MSC, and continued the focus on contextual forms of theology and ecclesiology 
that we have seen developing within the life of the Church since the late nineteenth 
century. We can also begin to see the development of the idea (which MSC would 
express more fully) that context should be the defining reality for church order and 
practices. This contentious assertion will be critically examined in this thesis. 
From this survey we can surmise several key aspects of the Church of England’s 
attitude and understanding towards mission within its ‘home’ context. First, there has 
been an almost continual hesitation around the nature and concept of evangelism and 
mission in England. A radical approach was advocated by some, notably Carlile and 
Wickham, as well as several Anglican mission agencies (notably the CMS). 
Institutionally, however, the Church of England has in its own reports advocated a 
model of mission that, initially at least, resists such radical structural changes, or 
makes radical statements but did little to actually implement them. Second, there has 
been within the life of the church tension between the different traditions which has 
 74
  Anglican Consultative Council 1988: 29.
276
  Ibid: 32.
277
  In terms of evangelistic effectiveness the results are not particularly encouraging, and even though much effort 
278
was put into local church missions overall numbers continued to decline. See Brierley 2000: #693.
  Mission, 1994.
279
often paralysed the church’s mission calling. During the two immediate post-war 
periods there was great impetus for change, yet such energy was dissipated into 
internal debates and any radical proposals were quickly forgotten. Third, there has 
always been a tension between ecclesiologies that were defined by existing Anglican 
practices and were centred in the parish and those that were more experimental. Until 
MSC it had always been the traditional ecclesiological models that had triumphed. 
Fourth, we can also see a correlation between the history of missionary thinking and 
the Church of England’s current thinking in MSC. During the nineteenth and 
twentieth centuries the church witnessed a gradual shift in focus towards mission 
within its own context; this focus increased in the 1980s onwards, and culminated in 
the publication of MSC. It is important to recognise that one of the clear reasons why 
the reforming visions of the nineteenth and twentieth century did not succeed was 
exactly because they lacked central support. That MSC gained significant support 
institutionally allowed its recommendation not only to pass through synodical 
legislation but also to have a significant impact on the national life of the church.  
Yet MSC, in suggesting that a complete missiological and ecclesiological change is 
needed in the Church of England because of a new postmodern context, actually 
ignores that the church has a long history of using contextually-based mission 
approaches. However these approaches have always been drawn back into more 
established patterns of mission and ministry that are sacramentally and incarnationally 
shaped (i.e. the industrial missions) or they have had to develop outside of the Church 
of Englands official structures (i.e. the Church Army). The Church of England has 
throughout this period eventually insisted on the parish as the primary expression of 
its mission activity, because of its understanding of the incarnation and its 
commitment to catholicity. This emphasis is distinct and important, and cannot be 
discarded as irrelevant or simply ignored for it provides the foundations for Anglican 
ecclesiology and missiology. As Newbigin asserted, any contextual theology must take 
into account what theology(ies) have already existed and been at work within the 
culture it is seeking to incarnate the gospel. 
Very recent reports of the Church of England show an expansive understanding of 
mission rather than the narrowly constrained understanding in MSC. These reports 
further reinforce that MSC in deducing its own pool of literature severed itself from 
an existing Anglican missiological tradition. In order to place MSC in this wider 
context we will briefly survey these recent reports. They each exemplify three distinct 
 75
Anglican theological strands that undergird their missiology: first, the pattern of the 
incarnation, second – and directly arising from the first – the Catholicity of the 
Church, and third, the sacraments, particularly the believers participation in the 
eucharist. 
The 1991 report, Good News in Our Times, produced by the Church of England Board 
of Mission, provided a robust account of the Church’s Catholicity and warned against 
seeing the gospel as something that could simply be packaged and branded for 
different people in different times. It suggested that the homogenous communities 
that emerged from such an approach were closed to the world and to the fullness of 
God’s redemptive and reconciling work in Christ.   Christ became human in order to 280
draw all humanity into the redeeming purposes of God, and therefore the ultimate 
aim of the Church Catholic was to create a fellowship that embraces all ages, 
languages, races and cultures.   Homogenous gatherings fail to recognise the essential 281
calling of the Church to be Catholic and thus fail to witness to the full reconciling 
power of Christ, leading the resultant communities to remain (sub)culturally bound. 
They fail to adequately develop the logic of the incarnation.   282
In the wake of the Stephen Lawrence enquiry, A Call to Act Justly and Present and 
Participating argued that the Church needed to manifest within its own structures the 
rich diversity of its context.   To allow all to be present at the eucharistic table, and to 283
participate fully in the life of the Church, was not only a witness to the gospel 
message, but also illustrated the true and lasting fellowship that we share in Christ.  284
The establishment of koinonia could only be based on genuine mutuality amongst 
diverse groups of people who give to, and receive from, one another, and in so doing 
more accurately exhibit ‘Kingdom values’ to the world. The report argued that this 
form of fellowship was best seen in the pattern of the incarnational life, where Jesus’s 
gracious hospitality is offereded to all, even Judas.   285
The 1997 report, Eucharistic Presidency, argued that the believer, in the eucharist, 
encountered a “genuine means of sharing in Christ … an authentic union with 
 76
  Church of England Board of Mission 1991: 63.280
  Ibid: 95.281
  Ibid: 97.282
  The Archbishops’ Council 2003.283
  Ibid: 4.284
  Ibid: 7.285
him.”   From this encounter, the community of believers were led by the Holy Spirit 286
to share in the ministry of Christ. This meant being offered by Christ to the world; 
sent out in “sacrificial obedience and witness to the world.”   The report viewed the 287
eucharist as an anticipatory fellowship, constituted by the Spirit, that bore the 
hallmarks of the fulfillment of the divine purpose for the whole of creation. 
Participation carried an ethical obligation to “live in the world as instruments of that 
promised future”.   The 2002 report Eucharist: Sacrament of Unity argued that the 288
eucharist stood “at the very heart of the life, worship, and mission of the Christian 
Church.”   The report understood the eucharist as both the sacrament of unity and 289
the sacrament of mission, arguing, in eschatological terms, that it offered “a foretaste 
of the heavenly banquet where the whole of creation is redeemed [and] sends believers 
forth into the world with this vision, to share it and make it manifest in their own 
lives, communities and nation.”   290
The focus of the above reports on incarnational theology, which leads to a Catholic 
vision of the life of the Church, and of all reality, as well as the eucharist as both a 
place of encounter with this reconciled life and a place to be empowered for mission 
led the Church of England to critically engage with all forms of social, political and 
economic life as part of its mission and calling both institutionally and also 
individually represented by the activity of the laity in the world. This understanding of 
mission is wider in scope than that envisaged by MSC. It sees the mission of the 
Church extending to every sphere of creation, which itself is a reflection of the 
implications of the incarnation. 
In the last thirty years the Church of England has specifically attuned this focus its 
economic and political context, the environment, as well as the realm of education. 
The 1980 report, The Church of England and Politics, argued that the Church had a 
concern for the total social setting of humanity in every age, and a responsibility to 
relate this social reality to the Kingdom of God.   One of the most challenging issues 291
facing society was the increasingly fragmentary nature of social life, and the lack of a 
common view of citizenship. Both limited the capacity for politics to speak about the 
 77
  House of Bishops of the Church of England 1997: 34.286
  Ibid: 35.287
  Ibid: 36.288
  House of Bishops of the Church of England 2001: vii. See also Doctrine Commission of the General Synod of the 289
Church of England 1987: chapter 6.
  House of Bishops of the Church of England 2001: 7.290
  Board for Social Responsibility 1981: 90.291
true possibilities for human flourishing.   The Church was obligated to understand its 292
political and social context, which required the resources of the sociologist, historian 
and the scientist if the Church was to not stand ignorant and voiceless.   293
The 1984 report, Perspectives on Economics, argued that the lack of a common vision for 
the common good had led to “short-term and narrowly conceived policies concerned 
only with immediate sectional interests.”   It argued that the motivation for 294
economic activity must be set within the narrative of the Kingdom of God, and no 
longer solely be the concern of the market. It stated that an anthropology built solely 
upon economic well-being, and the acquisition of goods, was wholly destructive, for 
human dignity did not reside in those things alone.   People’s common humanity, 295
must be acknowledged; this would result in a common understanding of humanity’s 
destiny, and a shared concern for the common good.   The local church was called to 296
be a “community shar[ing] a responsibility for meeting the basic needs of each of its 
members, [where] each of its members accepts his or her own responsibility for 
contributing to the common good.”    297
The 2003 Doctrine Commission report, Being Human, also stated that money had 
become almost completely freed from a relationship to the value of goods, services, 
and human values, in the lives of human beings.   Human value and worth were 298
increasingly equated with people’s ability to participate in this monetary system. 
Money had become the fundamental measure of worth, which was a distortion of the 
gospel.   It argued that human flourishing must be bound up with being part of 299
diverse community serving the common good not just an individual’s monetary 
worth.    300
Other reports were more specific in their focus. The 1990 report, Crime, Justice and the 
Demands of the Gospel, reflected theologically on prison reform.   It argued that the 301
state had an obligation to pursue the hope of reformation for offenders and needed to 
realistic conditions to enable this. It argued that the Church should not simply sit 
 78
  Ibid.292
  Ibid: 118.293
  Industrial and Economic Affairs Committee 1984: 72.294
  Ibid: 78.295
  Ibid: 74.296
  Ibid: 76.297
  Doctrine Commission of the General Synod of the Church of England 2003: 60ff.298
  Ibid: 64.299
  Ibid: 68.300
  General Synod Board for Social Responsibility 1991.301
back and allow mechanistic and utilitarian views of punishment to triumph, 
particularly given the implicit moral, and religious questions penal policy raised about 
the nature of humanity, the brokenness of humans in their relationships with each 
other, and the possibility of repairing that brokenness.   It stated that defunct views 302
of the penal code were a result of deficient interpretations of the state, where it was 
seen only as a broker between different social factions. This had led the state to act in a 
utilitarian manner, simply ensuring that everyone could survive together. The gospel 
speaks of the actual possibility of reconciliation and restoration between humans, God, 
and each other, and the flourishing of diverse communities.   303
The Church of England has during this time developed its understanding of mission 
from one that was largely anthropocentric to one that now incorporates the wider 
environment in God’s redemptive activity. In 1978, a Lambeth Conference resolution 
called for individuals to “review their lifestyle and use the world’s resources so that the 
service and well-being of the whole human family come before the enjoyment of 
over-indulgent forms of affluence.”   Reports subsequently published in 1986, 1990, 304
2001, 2004 and 2005 addressed the need for the human race to reverse its increasingly 
destructive effects on the planet.   The 1986 report, Our Responsibility for the Living 305
Environment, concluded that the message of the gospel involved the development of 
the whole person and the care of the whole world.   306
In 1998, General Synod passed a resolution that identified its educational institutions 
as standing at the centre of the Church’s mission to the nation.   The 2001 report, The 307
Way Ahead, argued that Church schools and colleges of higher education were 
uniquely equipped to provide the vital spiritual dimension to young people’s lives.  308
The report denounced the increasingly utilitarian basis for education advanced by the 
state and argued that education was important for its own sake, because it was a 
“reflection of God’s love for humanity.”   It argued that the desire to educate 309
emerged from a Christian concern for the wellbeing of the whole person and the 
increased quality of common life, alongside the desire to shape the direction of 
 79
  Ibid: 27.302
  Ibid: 60.303
  General Synod Board for Social Responsibility 1986: 42.304
  General Synod Board for Social Responsibility 1990, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005.305
  General Synod Board for Social Responsibility 1986: 46.306
  Church of England Board of Education 2001: xi.307
  Ibid: 3.308
  Ibid.309
humanity’s development. In offering a place where all are welcome, from whatever 
background or economic status, schools provided – as the parish also attempted to 
provide – an experience and model of God’s love for all humanity.   Curriculums 310
must reflect the desire to nurture the whole human person in order that they “reach 
their full potential as complete and individual human beings, by providing an 
education that stretches the mind, strengthens the body, enriches the imagination, 
nourishes the spirit, and encourages the will to do good and opens the heart to 
others”   becoming full participants of, and citizens in, society, with the obligation to 311
the common good that this requires.   312
Since the 1980s, the Church of England has also produced several reports which 
explicitly addressed the need to provide robust lay education in order for lay people to 
greater appreciate the role they are called to play in the mission of the Church. The 
1999 report, Called to New Life, built on previous reports All are Called (1985), Called 
to be Adult Disciples (1987), and Christian Education for the 21st Century.   It 313
acknowledged the manner in which individualism within modernity had produced 
inner fragmentation, meaning that people were increasingly unable to relate the 
various ‘roles’ they take to each other.   So, for instance, the ‘roles’ of ‘work’ and 314
‘church’ often remained separate.   The report suggested that the Church needed to 315
educate people so that faith became a ‘transworld’ reality, informing all other realities. 
The report suggested that lay education needed to focus on different areas: economics, 
politics, social justice, and the arts, in order to enable people to understand the 
implications of the gospel for the whole of life.   316
The 2003 report, Formation for Ministry within a Learning Church, argued that there 
was a deep need for continued learning amongst clergy and lay readers if they were to 
be able to properly disciple the laity in the manner Called to New Life 
recommended.   The report argued that through education, believers could be 317
discipled for a variety of types of service. It encouraged the development of theological 
resources that addressed the development of the whole person in the hope that such 
 80
  Ibid: 13-14.310
  Ibid: 74.311
  Ibid: 49.312
  Church of England Board of Education, 1985, 1987, 1991, 1999a, 1999b and 2007.313
  Hull 1985.314
  Ibid: 39ff.315
  Ibid: 43.316
  General Synod Board for Social Responsibility 1992: 40-46.317
resources would provide a greater theological understanding of individual fulfillment 
in the wider context of the common good.   318
Each of these reports develops a much broader and richer understanding of mission 
than that presented in MSC. They continue to develop a distinct Anglican 
understanding of mission that is deeply incarnational, Catholic and focused around 
the ongoing discipleship and fellowship believers experience in the sacraments. This 
missiological particularity emerges from Anglican ecclesiology, which, as we shall 
explore in the next chapter, also shares these same foci. 
!
Conclusion 
Out of this chapter emerge two initial conclusions regarding MSC. First, the 
missiology and ecclesiology of the report is neither radical nor new: it is rather a 
natural development of the thinking of protestant missiologists like Bosch, and 
particularly Newbigin, as well as reflecting the practice of Anglicans missionaries such 
as Carlile and Wickham (to cite but two). These in turn find their roots in the 
missionary practices of Norris, Allen and Taylor. MSC adopts the argument of Bosch 
that a seismic change has occurred in Western culture with the concomitant need for 
an equally seismic change to the Western churches missiology and ecclesiology. 
Second, MSC fails to place its ecclesiology and missiology in a historical framework, it 
does not draw on any prior official reports of research from the Church of England, 
and nor does it suggest that any prior Anglican historic practices are relevant to the 
contemporary concerns it outlines. Its method argues that missionary effectiveness in 
the post-Christendom West is not a question of renovating a canvas which still has a 
somewhat faded picture of Christ on it, but rather the acknowledgement that the 
canvas is empty, and that the picture needs to be re-painted.   Historic practices and 319
reports are irrelevant to this task, and as such they need not figure in the re-narrating 
of the Christian gospel for the Church of England’s present context. 
Had MSC chosen to reflect upon the missionary activity that the Church of England 
had undertaken during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and engaged with the 
various reports produced on mission, it would have encountered rich experimentation, 
 81
  General Synod Board for Social Responsibility 2003: 3.318
  Weston 2005.
319
as well as a conceptualisation of mission that is broad. It would have seen as 
misleading its claim that contextually-driven approaches to mission were not 
historically part of the Church of England’s understanding of mission, for it is clear 
that contextual approaches to mission have characterised some of the Church of 
England’s missionary activity over the last two hundred years. The majority of these 
initiatives still placed the eucharist and baptism at the heart of their ecclesial activity, 
even as they adapted ecclesial models to fit different contexts, and even though 
worship took place in various unusual settings for the time. We also explored how this 
view of the sacraments was shared by both Allen and Newbigin, and that Newbigin in 
particular offers an important corrective to the dangers of deploying contextual 
theological methods and insights into a Western context. Given the above MSC 
cannot be seen as something novel within the life of the Church of England because 
it shares many methodological similarities to these mission initiatives. This history 
provides a counter narrative to that suggested by MSC. Ecclesial experimentation has 
been part of the Church of England’s missionary activity for at least the last two 
hundred years, and at the heart of such activity was a sacramental centered 
ecclesiology. Yet what has also become clear is that many of these missionary 
initiatives were critiqued for being too particular, for failing to reflect the Church of 
England’s commitment to Catholicity, based on its understanding of the incarnation. 
Those that resisted such critique were either closed down or were forced to exist 
outside of the structures of the Church of England.  
We also saw that the Church of England has, because of its understanding of the 
incarnation, a very broad understanding of its missionary calling. Reports examined 
from the last thirty years reflects a desire to bring the gospel to bear on an array of 
contemporary social, economic and political conditions. They are a testimony to the 
conviction that the gospel is not eclipsed by any historical circumstance and that it 
comprehensively speaks to all manner of things, from prison reform, to race relations, 
to environmental issues. They are under-valued and under-used sources of – at times – 
imaginative and creative theological reflection on contemporary problems facing 
society, and they should have formed the backdrop to MSC’s understanding of 
mission. They would have contributed to MSC being able to construct a broad view of 
mission rather than the narrow one it ended up conceptualising, where mission is 
confined to the sphere of individual salvation, an ironic result given the reports 
emphasis on context. 
 82
The above illustrates the current need for the Church of England to see the historical 
approaches it has already taken to missiology and ecclesiology as intrinsic to the 
development of those theologies within its present context. The examples we have 
examined are a reminder of the ways in which the Church of England has attempted 
to navigate cultural, social and economic change, and they illuminate the various 
missiological and theological resources the Church has drawn upon in this process. 
Even within the tradition MSC draws upon the missiologists Bosch, Newbigin and 
Allan each emphasise the need to listen to the voices of the past in order to 
legitimately develop contextual theology. In missing this vital aspect of contextual 
theological methodology MSC ends up being ahistorical, cut adrift from resources 
that would enliven its understanding of the Church’s historic pattern of ministry and 
mission. 
We have begun to outline a distinctive pattern that shapes Anglican ecclesiology and 
missiology; a clear focus on the incarnation, Catholicity, and sacramentalism, which 
cause it to be committed to each and every material and social context its finds itself 
in. Each of these theological foci are lacking from MSC’s missiology and ecclesiology. 
As such it fails to reflect the Anglican tradition and is deficient because of this. In 
order to address these deficiencies and construct a more adequate ecclesiology and 
missiology this thesis will explore one person’s attempt to adapt the life and mission of 
the Church of England to a changing context whilst retaining a deep commitment to 
incarnational theology and the Church’s catholicity and sacramentality. William 
Temple tried to reshape the Church of England for an increasingly industrialised and 
capitalist context, he sought to combat the philosophies of utilitarianism, materialism 
and scientific positivism whilst also defending the orthodox teachings of the Church 
of England.    He acknowledged the need for the Church to adapt but was also 320
attentive to the traditions and history of the Church. He adopted what could be called 
a Nicean logic, where the gospel embraced a different language (the language of 
industrialisation) and philosophical system (that of the Enlightenment), yet he also 
exhibited a deep commitment to the existing traditions of the church, seeing in them 
 83
  Temple is but one potential conversation partner amongst many: this thesis could have chosen to explore the 320
works of Ramsay, Gore or Maurice, each of whom, like Temple, attempted to steer the Church through great 
periods of social change and, like Temple, was attentive to the existing traditions and history of the Church of 
England.
a basis to critique, and subvert society, where it fell short of, or distorted, the demands 
of the gospel.   321
!
 84
  Mirroring the manner in which the first Nicean council embraced certain aspects of Platonic philosophy and 321
language whilst at the same time rejecting Platonic philosophical concept that saw the material world as 
intrinsically evil.
Chapter Three

The ecclesiology of William Temple 
Introduction 
This chapter will primarily address the ecclesial shortcomings of MSC using the 
ecclesiological vision of William Temple. The reason for using Temple are fourfold. 
First, he expressed the same concerns as MSC regarding the Church’s role and 
vocation in the world at a time when the Church was seen – whether accurately or not 
– to be increasingly irrelevant to the needs of contemporary society. Second, Temple 
did not address this perceived need by positing, as MSC does, a radical discontinuity 
between the Church’s theological and social past and its present context. He saw the 
history and tradition of the Church as necessary to its understanding of, and response 
to, its present context. Temple thought that the Church of England was capable of 
witnessing to the power of the Gospel in a period of enormous social change, but only 
if it took seriously its own history: that is, those disciplines, beliefs and practices that 
had informed, and he believed continued to inform, its life and mission. Third, Temple 
held together ecclesiology, missiology and the Anglican tradition, through his creative 
use of the doctrines of the incarnation and creation and his concept of a sacramental 
universe. This led his theology to offer a robust account of the role of the Church in 
the world.   Fourth, he offered a comprehensive missiological vision for the role of 322
the Church, that is, one that has social, economic and political implications. MSC 
represents a narrowing of the Church’s account of its own life in the world: the 
Church is essentially instrumentalist, utilitarian, privatised and individualised. In 
contrast, Temple saw the Church as a critical partner of the state and other social 
bodies. The Church’s mission involved giving a critical account of the economic, social 
and political realities and needs of his own day. 
Although Temple is regarded as “the outstanding British church leader of [the 
twentieth] century”, his legacy is far from clear.   This is because those who have 323
engaged in serious study of him have failed to pay adequate attention to the whole 
  By Anglican tradition I primarily mean the Scriptures, the four historic Creeds, the thirty-nine articles, and the 322
Canons and authorised liturgy of the Church of England, and secondarily, the reports, authorised resolutions and 
statements and ecumenical agreements of the Church of England. Of course to this should be added, although they 
do not have the same authority, firstly the writings of the Church Fathers, and secondly other Christian writing that 
has been held to have lasting value to the life and witness of the Church in the Anglican tradition (this would 
include the writings of Hooker, Maurice, Gore for instance).
  Kent 1992: 1.323
range of his output, instead focusing on his later works, and in particular his final 
work Christianity and the Social Order.   Even Preston, who had been hailed as the 324
natural successor to Temple, fails in this regard, dismissing this early work, calling 
both Mens Creatrix and Christus Veritas “almost unreadable” whilst never referring to 
Nature, Man and God.   Others suggest that in order to reclaim any of Temple’s key 325
ideas one must divorce them fully from his context and totally rework them to reflect 
the drastic nature of change that has taken place since Temple’s time.   It would 326
appear that the only legacy of Temple’s theological vision is the promotion of his idea 
of ‘middle axioms’ which is far from the broad theological vision that Temple’s work 
expressed.   Yet this thesis demonstrate that this is a deficient view of Temple, one 327
that arguably robs him of his greatest theological legacy. 
In this chapter we will attempt to engage with the full range of Temple’s output rather 
than narrowly focusing on one particular work. We will also assess Temple’s more 
practical work as a priest, bishop and archbishop, which fleshed out his ecclesiology. 
Dackson is probably the only scholar whose research takes seriously the whole gamut 
of Temple’s work, yet she also fails adequately to represent the importance of his 
concept of the sacramental universe, and she also ignores his practical work. Yet 
Dackson does demonstrate that Temple developed a profound and refined 
ecclesiology that was deeply sacramental (despite the above criticism). Kent’s study 
examines Temple’s practical work, but misses out on the theological underpinnings of 
this work.   Eucharistic participation guided Temple’s practical work and led to an 328
engagement with what he saw as the deepest challenges of his day. As we shall see, for 
Temple, the eucharist 'made' the Church, echoing the sentiments of the Vatican II 
document Lumen Gentium, as well as having direct theological affinity with the 
eucharistic nouvelle théologie of de Lubac and the influential work of the Orthodox 
theologian Afanasiev.   Yet Temple also developed this theme in a novel direction. 329
He saw the Church itself as a repetition of the eucharist in the way that it made 
manifest the body of Christ in the world. These and other theological aspects of 
Temple’s work are of particular importance for the Church of England today. They 
serve as a key corrective to the ecclesial vision offered by MSC regarding the nature 
 86
  Dackson 2006: 240.324
 Preston 1994: 5.325
  Dackson 2004: i.326
  Dahaner 2010.327
  See Dackson 2004 and Kent 1992.328
  de Lubac 2006 and Afanasiev 2007.329
and practices of the Church, and are also deeply relevant to understanding the 
Church’s role in the world. Temple’s criticisms of the excesses of the industrial era and 
the emerging capitalist economy will be shown to be particularly relevant for the 
critique this thesis offers of MSC. Temple offered a vision of the Church that had a 
very public role, socially, politically and economically, while remaining robustly 
theological in its concerns and basis. However, he also saw the Church as open to the 
judgement of the world, and also judgmental towards the life of the world. We will 
now give a brief overview of Temple’s theological concerns, method and context 
before examining his philosophical and theological influences and his own 
ecclesiology in more detail. 
From the very start of his ministry, and even before he was ordained, Temple thought 
that the Church of England had lost contact with large proportions of the general 
populace.   Despite this, he argued that the Church of England could still justify its 330
establishment by changing this situation, and his work can be interpreted as trying to 
fulfill this goal.   He desired to see “a redeemed, organic, national community 331
expressing itself religiously through the Church of England.”   He strove to 332
modernise the Church of England to this end in order that it might fulfill its role as 
the institutional Church, acting as a moral compass for the nation state whilst also 
embodying an ideal form of communal life. 
Kent suggests that the basis for Temple’s reforms was a response to the decline in both 
the membership of the Church of England and of its institutional power. Recent post-
secularist accounts question this position.   Brown in particular argues that decline in 333
Church attendance in Britain did not really begin until the 1960s and that the 
highpoint of Church attendance occurred in the 1920s rather than the nineteenth 
century.   Walford also comes to a similar conclusion though his research is focused 334
specifically on London.   Brown is clear that there was a perception of decline in both 335
numbers and influence in the early part of the twentieth century. Temple’s 
modernisation of the Church of England sought to counter this perception of 
decline.    336
 87
  Kent 1992: 37.330
  Ibid: 37ff.331
  Ibid.332
  Ibid: 1 and 7.333
  Brown 2001: 170ff.334
  Walford 2007.335
  Brown 2001: 29ff.336
During Temple’s time, the Church of England was in danger of being usurped in its 
role as a key education provider by new parliamentary legislation, and the new 
national systems of education. Kent therefore rightly argues that we can see Temple’s 
focus on education as both an attempt to maintain the Church of England’s direct 
involvement in education provision, and to provide the state with a robust philosophy 
of education that was thoroughly Christian in character. It is now clear, however, that 
Kent’s overall interpretation represents an essentially classical secular account that has, 
as we have previously argued, been shown to be false. Secularisation theory, as 
espoused by sociologists like Wilson, has been shown to be wrong in its assertion of 
the declining influence religion had in nation-state building during the early 
twentieth century.   Studies such as those by Morris, Hastings and Mews reach 337
altogether different conclusions and assert the central role religion had during this 
period and indeed continues to have today.   Though Kent’s work uses decline, both 338
numerically, and in influence, as the backdrop to Temple’s work, it would be more 
accurate to say that Temple saw that the Church of England needed to continue to 
justify its position as the established church in the face of a rapidly changing context 
fueled by industrialisation.   A crucial concern for Temple was that the rapid growth 339
of cities due to industrialisation and the crisis precipitated by the First and Second 
World Wars, which could have led to the marginalisation of the Church of England. 
Instead, he presented these eventualities as an opportunity for the Church to think 
more deeply about its role in the nation and to offer in its own life a vision of the 
Kingdom of God realised here on earth. Throughout his lifetime Temple would seek 
to resist what he saw as the chaos to which modern culture might potentially lead, 
instead he attempted to assert the role the Church of England could play in providing 
a basis for both common identity and coherent community. He sought to maintain 
the Church of England’s public presence and power in two ways. First, by defending 
the Christian culture and heritage of England and Britain, which Temple thought was 
seriously under threat in the 1930s. His radio broadcasts of that time, condemning 
Nazism and celebrating the English character exemplify this approach. Second, by 
defending the idea that the Church of England expressed citizens’ civil religion. 
Grimley, agreeing with Taylor, argues that during the nineteenth and early twentieth 
century being religious and being part of the national community went together.  340
 88
  Wilson 1981: chapter six.337
  Grimley 2004: 224. Morris 2003 and 2012, Hastings 1997 and Mews 1982.338
  Kent 1992: 1ff.339
  Grimley 2004: 225 Taylor 2002: chapter three.340
Grimley goes on to conclude that the Liberal Anglicanism, of the sort espoused by 
Temple, “provided a theoretical underpinning for English civil religion”, in that it 
offered a “providentialist account of national history and destiny, an organic 
community, and a religiously sanctioned code of civic obligation” as well as “an 
antidote to class competition [whilst] also being critical of economic competition.”  341
However, Temple also sought to distinguish between the State and the Church in 
such a way that it could be critical of the State in the name of the nation. Kent 
suggests that Temple was essentially reviving the original Anglican theology of the 
relationship between State and Church as advocated by Hooker: the Church should 
concentrate on the moral aspect of national life and leave the politics to Westminster. 
Temple, however, went further than this and refused to leave the political arena to the 
politicians alone.   Christian faith was not something private – it had political, social 342
and economic impetus. 
The difficulty of the task Temple set himself was immense. Internal rivalry between 
Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics meant that the Church of England was often more 
engaged with its own internal social problems than those of the nation. Yet Temple’s 
energy and vision for change ultimately resulted in a national church that evolved 
from one most suited to the Victorian era to one that readily engaged with some of 
the major social and political themes and needs of the twentieth century. The success 
of the Anglican church during this period meant that new forms of national 
community arose during the height of the Industrial Revolution, and churches were at 
the heart of their creation. It was only when these forms of community were called 
into question in the 1950s and 1960s that the Church in Britain began to experience 
serious decline. Grimley is correct in stating that secularisation theorists were right to 
see the decline in community as the key to religious decline but wrong to argue that 
this occurred in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.   In assessing Temple’s 343
legacy it should be clear that even though he went against some of the opinion of his 
immediate predecessors, Archbishops Davidson and Lang, who both thought that the 
Church should concentrate on its internal divisions and shy away from any sort of 
political engagement, his theological legacy was continued. Archbishops Michael 
 89
  Grimley 2004: 225-6.341
  Kent 1992: p. 2.342
  Grimley 2004: 225.343
Ramsey and Robert Runcie both developed various aspects of his ecclesiology and 
assured him of a prominent place in the history of Anglican reformers.   344
Before moving on to consider Temple’s ecclesiological schema and gauge how it 
affected his life and ministry, it is important to address two issues briefly. First, did 
Temple significantly modify his theology over the course of his lifetime? Second, what 
were the key influences upon Temple’s thought? 
Scholars have been divided over the way to approach Temple’s oeuvre. The majority 
suggest that he significantly modified his theology over the course of his lifetime. 
Suggate divides his work up into particular periods, and claims that the outbreak of 
the Second World War caused Temple to rethink his theology from a more hopeful 
incarnational model to one that was more redemption-centered.   Preston similarly 345
suggests that Temple’s earlier work exhibits no clear influence on his later work and is 
largely redundant.   Spencer similarly argues that Temple tempered his early 346
optimistic theology after the devastation of the First World War and during the 
Second World War because Temple acknowledged that Idealist philosophies no 
longer offered the intellectual basis for an appropriate theological response.  347
According to Spencer, Temple’s early Idealism, prefaced as it was on a Hegelian idea 
of progress, had come to naught. There also appeared to be a continued reemergence 
rather than diminishment of the same sorts of evil that had constantly pervaded 
history.   Craig takes a more moderate viewpoint, dividing Temple’s life into three 348
periods of “thesis”, “antithesis” and “synthesis” – labels which suggest serious 
development in Temple’s thought.   Though even Craig admits that these periods are 349
not hard divisions, but rather rough guides to the nature of Temple’s developing 
thought, and he also acknowledges that there is greater continuity than is generally 
recognised.   This thesis shall demonstrate that none of these positions are true, and 350
that each has an inadequate conception of Temple’s work as a whole. What will 
become clear in this study of Temple’s theology is that although his intellectual 
formation in the Hegelian legacy of Oxford Idealism colours his early work, in 
particular that of Mens Creatrix and Christus Veritas, it was never adopted in a totally 
 90
  Kent 1992: 2.344
  Suggate 1994: 62.345
  Preston 1994: 5.346
  Spencer 2001:65.347
  Ibid: 68.348
  Craig 1963: 8.349
  Ibid: 10.350
unmodified manner. Temple’s great stength, and originality, was the manner in which 
he brought together the philosophical tradition he inherited from Rugby and Oxford 
and combined it with a deep commitment to the doctrines of the incarnation and 
creation, which resulted in his theology of the sacramental universe. These elements 
are always discernible as the foundation of his theological works across his oeuvre, 
from his Gifford Lectures – Nature, Man and God – through to Christianity and the 
Social Order. Suggate, by attempting to cast Temple primarily as an ethicist fails to 
relate Temple’s ethics to his ecclesiology and eucharistic theology that emerges in 
these early works. Spencer and Craig also fail to give adequate attention to Temple’s 
early work, seeing it as unnecessary. Whereas even though Dackson suggests that his 
earlier work is in great continuity with his later work, particularly on the issues of 
Church and society, she also fails to see that the foundations of Temple’s particular 
ecclesial vision lie in his earlier philosophical works, which underpin all else.   351
This thesis will demonstrate the continuity in Temple’s ecclesiology, and we shall draw 
on the whole gamut of Temple’s writing in order to present a unified and full 
expression of his ecclesial vision. We will partially depend upon the work of Dackson, 
whose exploration of Temple’s ecclesiology is alone in taking this approach, despite 
the earlier criticisms.   We will also attempt to hold Temple’s writings and practical 352
work together. The studies of Temple by Suggate, Craig, Preston and Spencer each fail 
to do this adequately. They tend to treat Temple’s theological work in isolation and 
overlook the ways in which Temple ‘fleshed out’ his theology in his work throughout 
his lifetime and in particular the ways in which he attempted to do justice to the 
historical occurrences and Christian particularity of his own time. Temple’s thesis, and 
in particular his concept of the sacramental universe, led him to assert that the 
particularity of his time and his context was important, and that Christian faith 
should be brought to bear upon it. His campaigning, speechmaking, and political 
work, all illustrate how he embodied this theological view. This meant that certain 
economic and political practices – the treatment of workers in the industrial factories 
for instance – were incompatible with the Christian understanding of the human 
person as made in the image of God. 
We shall now briefly turn our attention to tracing three particular philosophical and 
theological influences of Temple’s thought, which will help us to understand his 
 91
  Dackson 2004: 65ff.351
  Dackson 2004.352
ecclesiology, the work of Coleridge, the publication Lux Mundi and the idealism of 
Green. These will each show how Temple developed a critical relationship with the 
philosophies of his own time, and how he subjected them to theological analysis, 
which stands in contrast to the approach MSC takes, and illustrates a more adequate 
theological methodology. 
!
Philosophical and Theological influences on Temple  
Coleridge’s philosophy emphasised a resolute determination to defend metaphysics 
against materialism, utilitarianism and rationalism.   Coleridge, like Temple, wanted 353
to react against what he termed a ‘godless revolution’ whereby the mechanistic 
philosophies of utilitarianism, determinism and materialism were in danger of taking 
the place of true Christian religion, enlivened by Divine reason, as the guiding light of 
human means and ends.   He sought to distinguish between understanding and 354
reason in order to avoid rationalism and utilitarianism and his work mediated between 
Kant and Plato on this point. By ‘understanding’, Coleridge meant that which was 
judged according to the senses. Reason was the creative participation of humanity in 
the Divine that facilitated the highest form of human culture and human 
flourishing.   Coleridge critiqued Hume’s conception of reason for not being broad 355
enough, and, stated – in what would later be seen as an Idealist position – that science 
alone could not produce a full account of ethics or religion, nor could it be sustained 
without a tacit acknowledgement of truth, which was essentially ethical and 
religious.   He rejected empiricism – reality as that which consisted of atoms and the 356
person determined merely by pleasure and pain – and pure materialism as he saw the 
material as symbolic of the reality of the Divine.   Like Kant, he saw “man as 357
essentially flawed and the moral life as renewal rather than as the expression of the 
natural man.”   Baptism was the symbol of this renewed life and represented the 358
joining of a spiritual community – the Church. This community is both begun and 
 92
  Hedley 2000: 286.353
  Gouldstone 2005: 30.354
  Milbank 2009: 15ff.355
  Hedley 2000: 219.356
  Ibid: 227.357
  Hedley 2000: 260.358
sustained by the Spirit and reflects the dwelling of God in the moral life of 
humanity.   359
Coleridge also had a high view of education, drawn from Plato, emphasising the 
formation of character and the contribution of all citizens to the good of the state, 
which as bound together in love and fellowship, where all desired the good for its own 
sake. The state then bears the imprint of the God, who is not far off “but is at one with 
that creative pattern which is the source of the cosmos, and which is reflected in the 
beauty and order of nature, human culture, and society.”  So, for Coleridge, Christian 360
faith and theology underpinned all else in society. This was an anti-utilitarian view 
that dismissed linking education to wealth accrual or success.   Coleridge defended 361
the Church as the guardian of education and culture, a position seriously questioned 
by both Voltaire and Gibbon during the eighteenth century, and later on by Neville 
who suggests that Coleridge’s view of the church had no basis in reality.   Temple 362
would continue and develop these themes in his own work. 
Coleridge exerted a considerable philosophical and theological influence in Britain 
during the late-nineteenth century and although Coleridge’s approach to philosophy 
was initially concentrated at Trinity College in Cambridge it also influenced the 
philosophy at Balliol College in Oxford, as well as the theology of Gore, who would 
become influential through the publication Lux Mundi. Green was also influenced by 
Coleridge, having been educated under Arnold at Rugby and then Jowett at Balliol, 
and developed the work Coleridge began by combining Platonism with German 
Idealism alongside a commitment to the continuing relevance of Christian theology 
and spirituality.   363
Coleridge was also deeply influential in the development of the British Idealist 
philosophy of religion, which emerged in part to combat the Victorian ‘crisis of faith’. 
Higher criticism, new anthropological insights into primitive religion and myths, as 
well as developments in the natural sciences – such as Darwin's theory of evolution – 
seemed each to confirm and strengthen a case for materialism. Allied to this was the 
Posivitist philosophy of Comte who argued that civilisation was now entering the 
third stage of human progress, religious superstition and elaborate speculative 
 93
  Ibid: 264.359
  Hedley 2000: 285.360
  Hedley 2000: 272.361
  O’Brien 1997: chapters one and two and Neville 2000: 129.362
  Plant 1984.363
metaphysical musings would give way to science helping humanity to understand the 
underlying causes of everything.   Against this Idealism argued that it was possible 364
for human reason to reach the transcendent, it attempted to offer a rational 
explanation of religion, without this resulting in atheism or agnosticism, and sought to 
secure the deeper held convictions of religious belief. This, the British Idealists hoped, 
would satisfy people's religious longing as well as their increasingly rational scientific 
thinking.   365
Green’s Idealist philosophy of religion argued that philosophy was capable of saving 
religion. Green’s philosophy were generally Coleridgean in shape: he was keen to 
reject the empiricist view of the mind and the increasingly utilitarian view of ethics. In 
their place he suggested an ethics of self-realisation by virtue of our participation in 
God, “the one spiritual self-conscious being of which all that is real is the activity and 
expression.”   Such a philosophy was deeply social and practical because of its 366
conviction that the world was a “realisation of a spiritual principle ... an evolving 
sacrament of the spirit” where “freedom means dying to live” both of which 
represented the two great principles of British Idealism (they are also found in 
Coleridge’s Aids to Reflection).   Otter’s study of British Idealism shows how Green’s 367
focus on the primacy of community life and the moral qualities of the state became an 
important part of the political culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth 
century.   Green argued that the state was a national community, which had a moral 368
end or a common good and that the personality of the individual gained its fullest 
development through membership of that society.   Such sentiment appealed to the 369
Victorians and Edwardians, because it was deemed capable of warding off the threat 
of social disintegration through class consciousness, and the uncertainties of a 
widened franchise, and the perceived diminishment of commonly held values.  370
Green was dismissive of sectionalism and defended active citizenship because through 
it humanity could attain to their highest selves by giving and service to the 
community (developing Rousseau's notion of the common good), the highest form of 
which was the state. He envisaged freedom in a positive fashion; as the liberation of 
all people to contribute equally to the common good. Such a liberation was only 
 94
  Mander 2011: 138ff.364
  Mander 2011: 139.365
  Green, 1885: 4.366
  Hedley 2000: 288.367
  den Otter 2004.368
  Grimley: 42ff.369
  Grimley: 44ff.370
possible through the education of all people.   These themes would also pervade 371
Temple’s work, and show Green’s considerable effect upon his thinking. 
The basis for Green’s understanding of the state, and of the the common good, lay in 
his embrace of Hegelian philosophy. Green, with Hegel, rejected any distinction 
between the phenomena and the noumena, instead arguing for the existence of an 
Eternal Consciousness, which is the ground of all reality and through which the 
whole of humanity is united. He emphasised the relationality of all things as an 
essential dimension of their being, without which things were nothing.   This Eternal 372
Consciousness united the whole system of relations and was ontologically distinct.  373
Temple broadly accepted Green’s rejection of empiricism, materialism and 
utlitarianism, but rejected his view of the Eternal Consciousness as being too 
Hegelian. Temple would also differ from Green's progressive account of history. 
Green, following Hegel, argued that the Eternal Consciousness (mirroring Hegel’s 
concept of the Absolute) gradually realises itself through the community of 
individuals, whose consciousness's gradually becomes a vehicle for the Eternal 
Consciousness forming a final and complete unit. 
Green’s Idealism allowed Christian theology to avoid a head on collision with a 
scientific view of reality, through, for instance, an embrace of evolutionary theory, seen 
in the work of Gore and others. Green’s work helped theologians see that such 
scientific theories contributed to theology’s own self-understanding rather than 
undermined it. Yet Temple ultimately rejected Green’s, and Idealism’s underlying 
philosophy, which he thought was better found in orthodox Christian doctrine, 
specifically the incarnation and creation.   Temple found a theological basis for 374
histories and humanities final end based on the doctrines of creation and incarnation, 
where creation was saved and reconciled to God by the Divine Logos, Jesus Christ, and 
brought into the life of the Trinity. 
This Christian Idealism, alongside Temple's concept of the sacramental universe, is 
often subjugated in readings of Temple's work. Kent, Suggate and Dackson, ignore 
Christus Veritas, Nature, Man and God, and Mens Creatrix, in which this distinct 
theological and philosophical approach is fleshed out. Temple's particular 
 95
  Grimley: 50ff.371
  Dunham 2011: 161.372
  Dunham 2011: 163.373
  Mander 2011: 552.374
ecclesiological concerns only make sense in the light of these initial works. For this 
reason Temple remains a figure who is not yet critically understood across the gamut 
of his oeuvre. Either his political and social work stands detached from its 
philosophical and theological basis or his theological work stands detached from his 
Christian philosophical theory and political and social work. The latter approach in 
particular fails to see that Temple's reception of Idealist philosophy is only through 
the prism of a theology that explicitly links the doctrines of incarnation and creation 
with a sacramental view of reality, which together undergird his whole theological 
project. For Temple the Idealist philosophy he imbibed from Green was not a 
sufficient basis for a complete understanding of reality and humanity’s place within it, 
nor was the pluralism espoused by Temple's contemporary Figgis, which Temple, in 
part, saw as a corrective to some problematic aspects of Idealism.   In Temple's mind 375
both needed supplanting with the logic of the Christian faith, in particular the event of 
Jesus Christ, the Logos of God as creator and redeemer.  
At the end of the nineteenth century the influential Lux Mundi was published.   The 376
book imbibed the Oxford influenced British Idealism of Green alongside the 
confidence in theology found in Coleridge. It was “an attempt to put the Catholic 
faith into its right relation to modern intellectual and moral problems.”   The authors 377
wrote out of a conviction that the epoch in which they lived was one of deep 
transformation, social upheaval and change, both intellectual and social. This change 
meant that there were “new needs, new points of view, new questions” which needed 
to be brought to bear upon the Christian faith, and theology needed to take a “new 
development”.   Even though they were high-churchmen the basis for their work did 378
not lie in just the theology of Newman or Keble but also Coleridge. Coleridge gifted 
these writers with the invigorating force of German Idealism to help combat 
empiricism and utilitarianism and offered a way of thinking that could rebut such 
philosophies without abandoning their Christian faith. The authors of Lux Mundi, like 
Coleridge, rejected the materialistic interpretations of Darwin and the reliance upon a 
mechanistic Newtonian understanding of the cosmos. They developed Coleridge’s 
Christocentric ecclesiology by more explicitly making the incarnation the principal 
organising structure of their theology. Temple would also continue this same process. 
 96
  Grimley 2004: 76375
  Gore 1890.376
  Ibid: i.377
  Ibid: viii.378
They saw evolution as part of the teleology of the cosmos, which culminated in the 
incarnation and whose goal was the time when Christ would be ‘all in all’. In Lux 
Mundi Lock saw the Church as “the final satisfaction of the social needs of 
cooperation for life, knowledge and worship, a need which the complexity of the 
modern world ha[d] served only to accentuate.”   Echoing Coleridge he argued that 379
the Church was the primary place where humanity was educated into its true ends, it 
was the witness to the reality revealed most fully in the life of Christ and encountered 
in its highest ritual expression, the Eucharist.   Paget addressed the need for the 380
sacraments to remain the central act of worship offered by the Church, for through 
them humanity understood its true nature and vocation.   Finally, Campion, writing 381
on the topic of Christianity and politics, described the role of the Christian in society 
as purifying and consecrating, where the family, state and Church, were each places of 
“training for a ‘perfected common life in the city of God.’”   Each of these essays 382
pointed to the fundamental assumption that the Church was able to assimilate new 
truths in new contexts, welcoming new disciplines and perspectives, which would in 
turn illuminate her more fully. The authors assumed that the Church’s engagement 
with each new age would not bring about its downfall but rather its enrichment and 
would show “her power of witnessing under changed conditions to the catholic 
capacity of her faith and life.”   This emphasis on the importance of historical 383
particularity and the openness of the life of the Church to this particularity were 
themes that Temple would assimilate into his own work, as was Lux Mundi’s focus on 
the incarnation as a Christian theological response to the religious Idealism of Green.  
In sum, Temple’s approach was one which married Idealism with a theology that 
stressed the incarnation and creation, which led to his theology of the sacramentality 
of the very universe. Horne suggests that this is Temple's most particular contribution 
to theology, though as we shall see it is not an original one within Anglican theology 
itself.   He developed this theology in two of his earliest and most philosophical 384
works, Christus Veritas and Mens Creatrix, before giving it its fullest development in 
Nature, Man and God. In these works Temple developed a sacramental relation 
 97
  Reardon 1995: 328.379
  Lock 1890: 384ff and 390ff.380
  Paget 1890: 415ff.381
  Reardon 1995: 328.382
  Gore 1890: ix.383
  Horne, B, 1993: 10 384
Horne, B., 'The Sacramental Use of Material Things', in Rowell, G. and Dudley, M., The Oil of Gladness: Anointing in 
the Christian Tradition, London: SPCK, 1993.
between spirit and matter and produced the most striking, and comprehensive, 
exposition of the sacramental principal in Anglican theology. He suggested that hope 
was found in the Christian faith exactly in its avowed material emphasis, in contrast 
(he suggested) to other religions. Christianity's most central doctrine of the 
incarnation affirmed an ultimate significance to historical processes and in the reality 
and importance of matter in the divine scheme.   Temple “regards matter as destined 385
to be the vehicle and instrument of spirit, and spirit as fully actual as far as it controls 
and directs matter.”   It was his sacramental view of the universe that gave Temple 386
the impetus to be so involved in the social, political and economic arenas of his day. 
Combined together these three works represent the scaffolding for his entire theology. 
This thesis shall demonstrate that without them the most important component of 
his thinking is lost. That is the relationship between the material and the spiritual, the 
eternal and the historical, the freedom of God and the freedom of humanity. Suggate, 
Spencer and Dackson each fail to recognise that this is the basis of his ecclesiology, 
and social ethics, and it is this that affords him to be able to give deep significance to 
the particularity of history and place. We shall now rehearse the argument he lays out 
in these works. 
The beginning of Mens Creatrix, as well as the first ten chapters of Nature, Man and 
God, led to the conclusion that “there is at work within and throughout the cosmic 
process a spirit which also transcends it.”   Temple drew a distinction between the 387
immanence of God revealed in the cosmos and the transcendence of God that these 
immanent encounters revealed. These distinctions followed a similar theological 
reasoning to Palamas' distinction between the Divine energies and the Divine essence. 
Humanity could encounter the energies of God within the created order, but not the 
essence of God, which remained hidden. Temple asserted that this immanent 
encounter with the Divine (which he terms Spirit) revealed all that is Good, fulfilled 
all ideals, intellectual, aesthetical and ethical and was encountered in and through the 
material world.   These immanent encounters revealed a personal transcendent deity, 388
an immanent Reason, a Logos. They revealed that the order, personality and 
characteristics of the whole universe were an utterance of His (the Divine Logos') 
activity, and that the whole of reality was grounded within His Ultimate Reality. 
 98
  Temple, 1935: 478.385
  Temple, 1935: xxi.386
  Temple 1924: 10ff and 1934: 277.387
  Temple, 1934: ch. XI.388
Christ, as the Logos, stood for the "over-ruling and unifying principle ... of the 
universe".   389
Temple argued that reality must be interpreted in this spiritual manner. He introduced 
the idea that Value was the true reality of things. Value was the instantiation of the 
Good, of the Divine Logos. It realised itself in various forms by embodying itself in 
things for the purpose of the Divine Will. In describing reality in this way Temple was 
essentially advocating realism over nominalism. He was against seeing the reality of 
things as self-enclosed entities without instantiating anything universal beyond 
themselves. He was arguing that things in reality do instantiate something universal, 
Value, the instantiation of the Good, or the Divine Will. This had implications for the 
way in which Temple understood the reality that underpinned the eucharist in 
particular and sacraments in general.   He argued that the Value attributed to the 390
bread and the wine of the eucharist is that of the nature of Christ. This presence was a 
reality, but it did not exist in the sense of material presence, nor in the sense of the 
substance of the bread and wine being replaced with the substance of Christ with the 
accidents remaining (transubstantiation in the moderate sense as defended by 
Aquinas). He attempted to understand the eucharist using his understanding that the 
Good was expressed in bread and wine, that they are given a new Value which was the 
indwelling of the Good, that is the reality of the nature of Christ, present in a spiritual 
not local sense. As such the bread and the wine became transvalued, that is they were 
in-dwelt with a higher value, the highest Value, Christ.   391
He went on to argue that the eucharist only had meaning in its relation to the 
incarnation, the Logos, which gave humanity the fullest revelation of its true nature, 
not just a specific revelation in a one place. That is why at the eucharist the focus is on 
the universal nature of Christ – the implications of the incarnation for all times in all 
places.   The bread and wine were not just symbols or signs, they were instruments, 392
they became ‘transvalued’, whereby the communicant received Christ himself, the 
risen, ascended and glorified Christ. Temple gently modified his language in the 
concluding pages of Christus Veritas, suggesting that a better term than ‘transvalue’ 
might be ‘convalue’, because the bread and wine still had the value of bread and 
 99
  Temple 1924: viii.389
  Temple 1924: 13-14.390
  Ibid: 18-19.391
  Ibid: 239.392
wine.   Temple argued that the eucharistic bread was the medium where the Divine 393
Will of Christ’s presence was effected. As he stated, “[a]s through the physical 
organism which was His Body He revealed in agony and death that utter obedience of 
Humanity in His Person to the Father, which is the atoning sacrifice, so through the 
broken Bread He shows it still and enables us to become participants therein. Thus by 
means of Bread and Wine, blessed and given as by Himself at the climax of His 
sacrifice to the sustenance of our souls.”   In his eucharistic theology Temple 394
developed a new terminology that allowed for the rehabilitation of older terminology 
(transubstantiation) within the assumptions of a philosophical framework of realism. 
Temple's view shares a similarity with the Platonic emphasis on reason as the Eternal 
in Idealism, yet it placed the Logos amidst the material world in a manner which went 
far beyond a Platonic or Idealist conception of the Logos or the Eternal, and it is this 
that made Temple's Christianity irredeemably materialistic.   His understanding of 395
the eucharist and its relation to the incarnation mark a decisive break with that 
tradition. Temple was also highly critical of Idealist philosophies of religion exactly 
because they left no room for the incarnation, “the idea of God which [Idealism] 
reaches is such as to preclude His ever doing anything in particular in any other sense 
than that in which He does everything in general.”   He explicitly linked together, in 396
the same manner in which Hooker and Andrewes did, the doctrines of creation and 
incarnation in his eucharistic theology.   For the Logos of God inaugurated the 397
existence of the world, for its continual existence the world relied upon the Logos' 
immanence in the world, and that the incarnation of the Logos in Jesus Christ 
redeemed the world.    He acknowledged that “[c]reation and Redemption are, 398
indeed, different; but they are different aspects of one spiritual fact, which is the 
activity of the Divine Will, manifesting itself in love through the Creation, and 
winning from the Creation an answering love.”   For Temple, the Logos was the 399
summing up of all things, the one true principle of being, uniting all things, all people 
and nations to himself. Christ called humanity to a dual unity, the inner unity of a 
complete personality and the outer unity in fellowship with God, all people, and all of 
 100
  Ibid: 250.393
  Ibid: 251.394
  Temple 1917: 317.395
  Temple 1924: ix.396
  See for instance the study Allchin makes. Allchin 1988: 7ff.397
  Temple 1924: 154.398
  Temple 1924: 155.399
creation.   Revelation therefore became possible in all of existence, yet, Temple 400
stressed, this did not lead to a mystical view of creation but rather a specific focus on 
the person who revealed the personality of the Divine, the perfection of humanity, and 
the restoration between nature, man and God – the Logos, Jesus Christ, the revelation 
of a person to persons. Christ was the focal point of all revelation, all preparatory 
revelation (such as the encounters of God with Israel, the words of the Old Testament 
Prophets) pointed to this one ultimate revelation and all things found fulfillment in 
and through this one revelation which radiated into every part of the created order.  401
For Temple, even though God was guiding humanity before Christ's incarnation, this 
guidance now took a decisive new turn and the power of God was now mediated 
through the Spirit of God who could only come after Christ's birth, death and 
resurrection had given humanity a true understanding of and insight into Divine 
love.   402
The result of this is that all spiritual and religious authority gained its authority from 
this one revelation, and all true religious activity conformed to the good, the true and 
the beautiful revealed in the revelation of the Logos, whose essential dimension was 
the desire to, and engagement in, worship of the Creator, most particularly in the 
eucharist.   Evil, was for Temple, “the product of exaggerated or misdirected desire, it 403
is to cease to be open to, and seek out, the immanent Logos in the created order and 
instead to focus on the self, to become self-centred”.   It was the accumulation of 404
self-centered thinking that resulted in the devastation of the world, which Temple saw 
in the devastation of the First and Second World Wars. For him they were the 
example par excellance of a rejection of the possibility of revelation and the assertion of 
humanities selfish belief and trust in only itself.   405
Revelation led to the possibility of experiencing Divine grace in and through the 
natural world, but this was only possible when the self turns to focus on, and pursue, 
the good, the true and the beautiful.   Temple’s theology of grace allowed him to give 406
an account of how those outside of the Church encounter grace in a real way, and it 
alludes to the possibility (though undeveloped in Temple) of a generous attitude 
 101
  Temple 1924: 156ff.400
  Temple, 1934: ch. XII.401
  Temple 1917: 323.402
  Temple, 1934: ch. XIII.403
  Temple 1934: ch. XIII.404
  Temple 1934: ch. XIII.405
  Temple 1934: ch. XIV.406
towards revelation being present in others faiths (and indeed those of no faith). 
Though Temple's Christocentric focus would allow that this could only be partial, and 
incomplete. For it was only in Jesus Christ, the Logos of God reaching out in love, 
acting in sheer sacrifice, and offering a sheer gift, that humanity was restored to God, 
and also the whole of creation.   For Temple the fullest experience of grace came to 407
those who were in Christ, which is those who were baptised and partook in the 
eucharist, both of which constituted the means of entry into the body of Christ, and 
the continuation and development of that entry.   All of this led Temple to 408
understand history as the place where God was revealed. History's centre point was 
the life, death, resurrection, ascension and glorification of Christ. It was this that made 
the ethical struggle of humanity worthwhile, history could not be reduced to 
meaninglessness, and humanity most fully participated in the redeeming activity of 
God in Christ as members of Christ's body.   409
From these initial conclusions Temple now arrived at the summit of this early work, 
his vision of the sacramental universe, without which his views on humanity, spirit, 
revelation and history do not make sense. For Temple 
[t]he universe is the fundamental sacrament, and taken in its entirety (when 
of course it includes the Incarnation and the Atonement) is the perfect 
sacrament extensively; but it only becomes this, so far as our world and 
human history are concerned, because within it and determining its course is 
the Incarnation, which is the perfect sacrament intensively – the perfect 
expression in a moment what is also perfectly expressed in everlasting Time, 
the Will of God; resulting from the incarnation we find the "Spirit-bearing 
Body", which is not actually a perfect sacrament, because its members are not 
utterly surrendered to the spirit within it, but none the less lives by the Life 
which came fully into the world in Christ; as part of the life of this Body we 
find certain specific sacraments or sacramental acts.   410
Through these sacramental acts – baptism and the eucharist – offered by the Church, 
Christ reached out to humanity to transform it and be unified to Christ.   He again 411
rejected scientific materialism – the rejection of the possible existence of anything not 
 102
  Temple 1934: ch. XIV.407
  Temple, 1934: 380f.408
  Temple 1934: ch. XVII.409
  Temple 1924: 234.410
  Temple 1924: 235.411
observable in material world – and again asserted that the natural world was the place 
in which, and by which, the personal God was encountered and revealed, basing this 
on his concept of Value (as previously outlined). He argued that “[i]t is to such a view 
that our whole course of enquiry has been leading us; and it is such a view which 
affords the strongest hope for the continuance in reality and power of religious 
practice and faith.”   For nature was still graced from the beginning, and also despite 412
evil and corruption, remains graced. Temple depicted a world drenched with Deity, 
God was not distant from the historical, but the Eternal, in the Logos, fulfills itself in 
historical expression “so that if this were abolished, it would in its own nature be other 
than it is.”   Thus the historical was of eternal significance because of the Logos. 413
Temple had framed the relationship between the eternal and the historical, the 
spiritual and the material, as a sacramental relationship. The material and historical 
was a sign of the eternal and spiritual, because it was instantiated with Value, there 
was therefore an intimate relationship and unity between the material and the 
spiritual. That the material and material processes truly convey spiritual meaning and 
power and the material world truly conveyed God's grace, “the very Love of God 
(which is Himself ) approaching and seeking entry to the soul of man.”   414
Temple in Nature, Man and God, avoided the scientific rationalism of his day, which 
for some meant that the spiritual was totally unnecessary. He also avoided the 
excessive emphasis on the need to separate the spiritual from the corrupted and 
polluted material world. Both views left the material in a quandary, it was either cut 
off from God, or else irrelevant to God. Temple sought to “make human politics and 
economics and mak[e] effectual faith and love.”   This work asserted “the supremacy 415
of the freedom of God; the reality of the physical world as His creation; the vital 
significance of the material and temporal world to the eternal Spirit; and the spiritual 
issue of the process in a fellowship of the fine and time-enduring spirits in the infinite 
and eternal Spirit.”   416
He also outlined themes that would come to dominate the rest of his oeuvre. He 
argued that self-sacrifice lies at the heart of the Christian life, it was a response to the 
gift of Grace freely given by God in Christ and led to a life spent in service and in 
 103
  Temple, 1934: 266. 412
  Temple 1934: 480.413
  Temple 1934: 485.414
  Temple 1934: 486.415
  Temple 1934: 493.416
fellowship with others in mutual love which mirrored believers experience of Divine 
love (the opposite of his conception of evil as primarily selfishness and pride which 
collectively led to a focus on the interests and importance of the few over the good 
and importance of the many).   The self sought out truth, beauty, goodness or love in 417
order to find a more perfect expression of the principle of its being than it could be, or 
provide for, itself. The self found these things in the immanence of God, in the 
sacramental universe, and most fully in the Logos, encountered in the eucharist, which 
led the self beyond self-centeredness into fellowship with, and worship of, the Divine, 
and then into true fellowship with one another and the whole of creation.   Natural 418
theology, for Temple, when left on its own, could only lead to partial true revelation, 
“it ends in hunger that cannot satisfy”.   The most perfect expression of this 419
fellowship was the Church, the Body of Christ, by whose sacraments, of baptism and 
eucharist, humanity encountered God's own self-revelation in a particular place and at 
a particular time.   Temple stated that "[i]n the Eucharist members receive His life, 420
to unite them in each to Him, and to impel them to the fulfillment of His purpose"  421
The Church was the continuation of that Divine life here on earth and it was Christ's 
life that gave the Church its defining characteristics, it was a fellowship not generated 
by humanity but by the gift of God. For Temple "[t]he Church will only manifest the 
whole power of Christ when it embraces all mankind; here and now it fully manifests 
His Spirit only in the degree in which it is missionary."   He regarded the continual 422
schisms in the Church and the life of the local church as hugely damaging to the 
Church’s vocation, for 
"[i]nstead of the one fellowship of all types, where each contributes and each 
is held in check, the types are segregated and develop their own tendencies 
without correction or the modifying influence the others might afford. Thus 
the Church loses the opportunity of manifesting before the world the spirit 
of fellowship; but thus also the Church is prevented from delivering its 
whole message in the power and sanity of perfect balance."   423
 104
  Temple 1934: 508ff.417
  Temple 1934: 518ff.418
  Temple 1934: 519.419
  Temple, 1935: xxiiff.420
  Temple 1924: 164.421
  Temple 1917: 334.422
  Temple 1924: 165.423
Temple argued that only if people perceive reality in the light of the incarnation do 
material things become charged with the promise of something more than what they 
were, the foundation to this understanding was the ‘transvaluation’ or ‘convaluation’ of 
the elements of bread and wine in the eucharist. The reception of which brought 
believers to encounter the Divine, the very ground of truth, love, faith and hope. 
Temple’s concept of the sacramental universe also gave him a particular perspective on 
the local fellowship of the Church. He argued that the Church sanctifies and sets 
apart certain spaces, not because only they were the only specific Holy spaces, but 
rather because they reminded humanity of the sanctity of all places. Similarly, the 
Church consecrated bread and wine, not because other food and drink, or indeed 
material things in general, were nothing to do with the purposes of God but rather 
because all material things spoke of the glory of God, and all that Christian’s eat and 
drink should be seen to build Christians up as members of the Body of Christ. This 
was why the sacraments of the Church were so essential to its life, not because they 
were separate acts of magic, distinct from the rest of the world, but because they 
reminded the Church of the true meaning and purpose of all things.   424
Temple's apprehension of the co-inherence of the creative and redemptive acts of 
God, that is the integration of the doctrines of creation and incarnation, resulted in a 
sacramental theology that refused to be pigeonholed into either. His concept of a 
sacramental universe or principle was also contiguous with the Anglican tradition 
found in Hooker. Hooker also located his sacramental theology in the doctrines of 
salvation and creation. The sacraments of baptism and the eucharist were not just 
instruments at the disposal of the Church to offer the faithful they were rather 
concrete manifestations of God's providential ordering of the universe in which the 
whole natural order both praised and revealed God.   Such a view was shared by 425
Hooker’s contemporaries Lancelot Andrewes and George Herbert, and was also 
emphasised in the theology of the Oxford Movement, notably by Keble, who wrote 
that, “the whole scheme of material things, and especially those objects in it which are 
consecrated by scriptural allusion, assume in their eyes a sacramental or symbolic 
character.”   Temple’s use of realist philosophy also enabled him to develop a 426
sophisticated restatement of the the understanding of the presence of Christ in the 
 105
  Temple, 1925: 31.424
  Hooker, book V, ch. lvi.425
  Keble, Introduction to Hooker, Works, I, p. xci.426
eucharist which avoided nominalism and charges of affirming the doctrine of 
transubstantiation. 
Having examined the theological and philosophical basis for Temple’s particular 
ecclesiology, not only in Temple’s own work, but also in the sources that he developed, 
we are now in a position to begin to outline the resulting ecclesiology that he 
developed over the course of his lifetime in detail. 
!
Temple’s Ecclesiology 
Temple developed what could be called a comprehensive ecclesiology, in that it had 
ramifications for the whole of social life and the whole of society. This stands in 
contrast to the ecclesiology of MSC, which views the church in a utilitarian manner.  427
As Dackson notes Temple developed his ecclesiology using several metaphors and 
descriptions to unpack his use of the word ‘Church’. First, he used the Pauline image 
of the Church as the Body of Christ – that is the corporate Church, the Church 
across time and space, set in the whole world. This idea was also supplemented by two 
other metaphors for the Church, the Church as ‘city’ and the Church as ‘army’.  428
Second, Temple also used the word ‘Church’ to refer to the reality of the institution in 
historic settings, most often in terms of its failures and successes. Third, Temple used 
the word ‘Church’ to refer to it in its perfection – that is that fellowship in the Holy 
Spirit of all humanity in God through Jesus Christ. This is the reality to which the 
historic Church bore witness.   429
Before exploring these ideas in detail we need to briefly consider one of the most 
problematic elements of the reception of Temple’s thought. Scholars of Temple have 
at timed reduced his ecclesiology to ‘bite-size’ quotes from his more popular works. 
Often by mis-construing a quote from Christianity and Social Order, where Temple 
said that, “[n]ine tenths of the work of the Church in the world is done by Christian 
people fulfilling responsibilities and performing tasks which in themselves are not part 
 106
  I do not mean comprehensiveness in the traditional Anglican theological sense regarding the role of the various 427
theological traditions (Catholic, Evangelical, Middle Anglican) in its own life. Instead, I am referring to the 
broadness of Temple’s thought with regard to the place and role of the Church in the world in comparison to the 
narrowness of MSC’s.
  Dackson 2004: 64.428
  Ibid: 70ff.429
of the official system of the Church at all.”   Several Temple scholars have 430
interpreted this to mean that the laity’s activity in the world was the sum total of the 
Church’s mission in the temporal order, leading them to suggest that Temple had no 
real doctrine of the influence of the institutional Church in society.   Both Craig and 431
Fletcher use this as basis for their appraisal of Temple and provide scant discussion of 
his ecclesiology, arguing that Temple understood the church in an instrumentalist 
fashion, as simply empowering the individual for service in the world.   They suggest 432
that Temple thought the nine-tenths of time was more important than the one-tenth 
of time the laity spend in Church. However, this is simply not true. For Temple the 
Christian society had two functions in the world: first, “the witness of the Church as a 
corporate society in its own name … that witness is to the Gospel”; second, “the 
Christian citizen [is] to exercise his own judgement [as to] how the principles of the 
Gospel may in fact be most effectively applied to the circumstances of our time.”  433
Therefore it is the Church – especially the bishops and priests alongside the 
worshipping Church – which set the tone and direction for individual Christian 
action. The one-tenth defined the nine-tenths. The two could not be separated, nor 
could the ‘lesser’ be ignored. For the influence of the laity depended largely on the 
effective ministry of the Church.   434
!
The Church as the Body of Christ 
The most important understanding Temple ascribed to the Church was that it was 
corporately the Body of Christ. This meant that the Church was more than just 
individual believers gathered together.   As Temple argued, “[i]t is only in the 435
Church that the power of Christ reaches the individual Christian … [whose primary 
duty] is the building up of the Body of Christ.”   Temple saw the body as a living, 436
physical, and relational body. It was the life of Christ made manifest in history by 
those who partook in the life of the Church, it was not just a mystical body. It 
witnessed to Christ by the way it spoke, not only inwardly to itself, but also outwardly, 
 107
  Temple 1944: 39.430
  Dackson 2004: 67.431
  Ibid: 64ff.432
  Temple 1939: 477.433
  Temple 1942c.434
  Temple 1913: 288.435
  Temple 1912b: 344 and 354. Temple also re-iterated this sentiment twenty years: Temple 1931: 101-102.436
as well as how it listens, in order that its speech might be appropriate.   Historical 437
particularity was important. The Church must be open to each and every context it 
finds itself in in order to witness effectively. The life and character of the body were 
not conveyed by its members but rather by Christ, for “[t]he Society which Christ 
founded to proclaim and carry out his redeeming work does not depend for its true 
life and character on the men who join it; that life and character are given to it by 
Christ.”   Temple also sketched out, by way of an analogy, the particular ordering of 438
the body, and compared it to the way the spine supports the human body.   Christ 439
functioned as the head of the body, and the body moved according to His will, so the 
structure must support and direct His actions, otherwise the body did not move, or 
moved in an incorrect manner. The Church did not find its unity in the outward 
concerns of its members, in common interests or affinities, nor even in a common 
outlook or set of practices but in Christ. As the Doctrine Commission of 1922 
reported – which was chaired by Temple – unity “is grounded, according to both 
Pauline and Johannine doctrine, in the unity of God Himself.”   The ‘central nervous 440
system’ of this body was the core of Christian belief, which must be protected for the 
sake of the body for “heresy is more destructive than conscious sin.”   Temple argued 441
that “[t]he Church is not Catholic in the sense that it presents no boundaries and 
affirms nothing of which it must regard the denial as definite error.”   The Church 442
was called to bear witness to the truth concerning God and humanity, which 
according to Temple was supremely revealed in the Scriptures and encountered most 
fully in the sacraments – though also through nature, history and conscience.  443
Corporate worship therefore became an activity for the life and health of the body, in 
that it enabled members to be moulded to the will of Christ, for “[w]orship is the very 
breath of its life.”   Worship was not service, nor evangelism, or witness, but what 444
enabled these things to take place, and gave them energy (through gifts of the Spirit) 
and vitality.   Therefore the worship of the Church, along with the scriptures, creeds 445
and doctrines needed to be protected as these make up the spine of the body. The 
sacraments were the characteristic acts of the Church as the fellowship of believers. 
 108
  Temple 1913: 8 and 1924: 251.437
  Temple 1913: 2.438
  Temple 1930: 5.439
  Commission on Christian Doctrine 1938: 106.440
  Temple 1939: 38.441
  Temple 1917: 25.442
  Temple 1943c: 8.443
  Temple 1915: 29-30.444
  Dackson 2004: 82.445
They were guarantees of the true identity of the Church, for the Church’s worship was 
past- present- and future-orientated, for the local church was representative of the 
whole Church through time and space. Therefore its worship accorded with that of the 
whole Church. This was not to imply a rigid form of worship in all times and at all 
places, but it did provide a necessary guard against experimentation and novelty where 
such things may have lead to a loss of identity and witness.   Temple placed a high 446
regard on the common citizenship of all people, and the end of all things to be 
reconciled to God. His stress on the common nature of the Church’s worship reflected 
this emphasis. Common worship reflected a common history and purpose, and a 
shared life and understanding, in contrast to narrow sectarian concerns and individual 
preferences. This emphasis was most apparent during the time of the national prayer 
book controversy in 1928, when Temple argued that the Church of England was 
justified in its defense of the prayer book because only a commonly shared liturgical 
text embodied the ideal character of community and could reconcile different groups, 
who were brought together in order to hold higher, more common values and 
purposes in unity, which would ultimately wed them to one another.   447
Temple believed that the ordered ministry (that is deacons, priests and bishops) were 
guardians of this tradition, and protected the Church’s witness, alongside the Church’s 
authorised forms and acts of worship, most especially the sacraments (as we shall see 
more clearly later). The structure of the early Church informed Temple’s view of 
ordained ministry, based on the commissioning of the apostles as the “focus of 
government and leadership.”   He emphasised the role of the Bishop as the “agent of 448
Christ in His Church … [acting] for the whole Church, not just any section of it.” 
Through the Bishop, apostolic continuity and administration of the sacraments was 
safeguarded not for just a few but for all faithful people. Worship, if it was to be 
representative of the whole church, must be duly authorised by bishops and those who 
they ordained in order to maintain that its true Catholic worship. Otherwise worship 
became disembodied and disconnected from the head, Jesus Christ, which was its 
source.   The manner in which this worship had the potential to become 449
disembodied was clearly expressed during Temple’s time as bishop of Manchester 
when he accepted the necessity to create the diocese of Blackburn. He argued that 
 109
  Ibid: 119.446
  Grimley: 170ff.447
  Temple 1943b.448
  Temple 1940: 131-132.449
though the bishop was guardian of the unity of the worship offered by the Church he 
also needed to be familiar with his area of jurisdiction, its particularity. The Bishop 
could not fulfill that role if, as in this case, his diocesan territory extended to cover too 
greater an area. A report, chaired by Temple, on dividing up several of the northern 
sees, made it quite clear that the role of the bishop was only effective if he was able, as 
Christ did, to minister to those in his care. In the case of Manchester Temple simply 
could not, and was not therefore able to function as an instrument of unity, nor as 
chief pastor, nor be guardian of the Church’s historic tradition.   450
Temple himself strove to embody this understanding of a Bishop, as Iremonger notes, 
in that he sought to “offer some contribution to the common stock of thought and 
knowledge which would help the clergy to carry their thinking further, and also to 
understand their bishop’s own view on matters of contemporary interest or debate.”  451
Though Temple emphasised the role played by ordained minsters of the Church he 
did not denigrate the role of the laity. The laity were an important part of the official 
structures of the Church in that they represent the things of God to those outside the 
Church and without them the purpose of the Church cannot be fulfilled.   As 452
Temple said, “[t]he priest will stand for the things of God before the laity – who seek 
the help that a religious specialist can give them, while the laity stand for the things of 
God before the world – which will pay more heed to them than to the shepherds who 
are (incidentally) hirelings.”   453
To complement his use of the Church as the Body of Christ, Temple used the image 
of the Church as a City, which functioned in a similar vein to the images we see in the 
prophet Isaiah and John’s Revelation.   It also further extended his idea of the body , 454
where it acted as a listening body. As Temple wrote, “[t]he City of God … stands 
before us with gates wide open so that citizens of all nations may enter, but also that 
its citizens may ride forth to the conquest of nations, following their Captain as He 
goes forth to judge and make war.”   Temple used this image of the City to refer to 455
the Church in history. The Church was not separate from the world, but open to it, 
and through that interaction it seeks to make it Holy, as the Church itself is made 
Holy by the Holiness of Christ. The Church was not a place of refuge but rather one 
 110
  Report of the Committee on New Sees and Provinces 1922.450
  Iremonger 1949: 369.451
  Dackson 2004: 87.452
  Temple 1939: 163.453
  Bauckham 1998: chapter ten and Brueggemann 1998: particularly comments on chapter two of Isaiah.454
  Temple 1944: 3.455
of openness, for “if [Christ’s] victory and kingdom were to be all embracing they must 
include Judas; the world must be welcomed into the Church if the Church is to 
convert and direct the world.”   Temple saw the Church as a city a place of 456
interaction, open to all , where this openness brought with it a certain unease about 
limiting its constituents to just those who are ‘saved’. Temple extended this metaphor 
image further by suggesting that the Church was also an army, reflected in action of 
the city’s citizens, who were called to go out into the world, following Christ, to 
convert it, for “[a]n army exists for the sake of the nation to which the soldiers 
belong.”   Temple recognised that this image of the Church was frequently 457
undermined by division amongst the Christian traditions as well as factionalism 
within his own church. Each of which rendered the Church less effective and capable. 
Temple’s own role in helping to establish ecumenical bodies such as the World 
Council of Churches was his attempt to correct this. 
Temple also argued that the Church was a fellowship; he deployed this image as an 
eschatological category, forming the standard at which the historic church must 
always aim. As the historic Church did this it became a sacrament of this 
eschatological fellowship.   This fellowship had developed in the Church over time, 458
both growing and at times contracting.   The fellowship would only be completed 459
when all of humankind was brought into it. Temple here was not just concerned with 
individuals, but rather nations and entire races – the salvation of the whole world, in 
all its diversity would perfect the Church, echoing Paul’s language in Ephesians 4.13. 
Such a gathering and coming together meant overcoming the difficulties of difference, 
between races and nations, yet Temple recognised this as an essential quality of 
fellowship: “[i]f you merely get together like-minded people with the same dominant 
interests in life, you don’t get fellowship; you get a herd, which is a very inferior 
thing”.   True fellowship did not overcome difference, it did not squash diversity, but 460
rather embraced it, for God was only truly known in this gathering together, since 
“only when the whole Church is the same as the whole world will the whole truth be 
fully known … and as long as there is any who is withholding what he alone can give, 
that life remains imperfect”.   It was “a harmony of many parts, each discharging its 461
 111
  Temple 1939: 100.456
  Dackson 2004: 90.457
  Dackson 2004: 92.458
  Temple 1923: 215ff.459
  Temple 1944b: 147-148.460
  Temple 1912a:161-162.461
own function in relation to a single life.”   This fellowship was bound together and 462
enlivened by the work of the Holy Spirit, which brought forth the fruit of love, joy 
and peace. 
It was this thinking that led Temple to assert that Christian faith in England had a 
certain hollowness, for the nation was not marked by the Spirit’s fruit. In his 
understanding social ills could only be corrected through a specifically Christian 
approach found in the power of the Holy Spirit, though he readily admitted that this 
“is the last source to which most of us would apply for guidance.”   Temple again 463
echoed the language of Revelation when he stated that the “Kingdom is to include all 
men of all nations, and all are to bring their own contribution to the wealth of its 
life.”   This was the Church’s vocation to gather all, and this is the standard it set 464
itself. The unity that bound this fellowship was not just to be found in the structures 
of the Church – though they should exhibit its qualities – but most particularly in the 
love of God in Christ possessing believer’s hearts to unite them in the same manner as 
the Father and the Son were “united in that perfect love of Each and for Each which 
is the Holy Spirit.”   For Temple, the Church was where difference was reconciled 465
through Christ in a way that allowed that difference to flourish. Drawing on Paul’s 
imagery in Ephesians, he thought that the welcoming and inclusion of difference into 
the Church – whether this be cultural, ethnic, or political – was essential if the Church 
was to reflect fully the beauty of God’s creation.   The report of the Doctrine 466
Commission of 1922 also made the same point; “[t]he Church is of the Spirit … it is, 
as such universal; it transcends the boundaries of race, language, and colour … there is 
from henceforth but ‘one body’ and ‘one spirit’.”   Although MSC understands 467
Catholicity to be a mandate for cultural hospitality (p. 168) the report actually argues 
that it is best for local churches to be essentially monocultural in their makeup. 
Temple’s vision of the Church’s Catholicity stands in rich contrast to MSC’s 
understanding. He resisted the idea that the Church could be reduced to a group of 
like-minded individuals. MSC casts aside this view in pursuit of ahistorical ‘cultural 
relevance’. It shows little interest in the logic of the parish system, which could be seen 
as the logic of Catholicity itself, its self-organising principal, for only pure geography 
 112
  Temple 1944b: 28.462
  Temple 1913: 171.463
  Ibid: 144-145.464
  Temple 1939: 319.465
  Temple 1944b: 147.466
  Commission on Christian Doctrine 1938: 102.467
encompasses all without exception. Temple saw in the local church a fellowship bound 
together into the one fellowship of the Body of Christ. He stressed the need for the 
local to exhibit in its life a reflection of the whole, and to share a common worship, a 
common liturgy, that itself pointed towards, and was a witness of, this one reality, that 
all were reconciled to God in Christ, not by virtue of a common interest, culture or 
nationality, but by grace. The specific located place of the parish had a sense of time 
now, time past, and memory of those gone before. MSC represents a capitulation to 
the logic of capitalism because it fails to offer an account of capitalism and instead is 
positioned by secular reasoning. Choice is its central ecclesial category, appealing to a 
market driven mentality, where each local church needs to represent in its own life the 
variety of interests its members hold, fellowship is founded upon cultural similarity 
rather than the reconciling power of Christ. MSC misses what Temple saw, that to be 
Catholic was to imply intensity, richness and plenitude – each implying a unitive 
relationship amongst things that were diverse, represented in the Church of England’s 
commitment to common worship.   468
Temple’s view also accorded with De Lubac’s, who said, “Catholic suggests the idea of 
an organic whole, of a cohesion, of a firm synthesis, of a reality which is not scattered 
but, on the contrary, turned towards a centre which assures its unity, whatever the 
expanse in area of the internal differentiation might be”.   So, far from excluding 469
difference Catholicity demands it but not in the way MSC envisages, for Catholicity is 
not an excuse for pluralism, the local is part of the universal, its life defined not just by 
commonly held interests. Temple’s vision of the Catholic life kept the Church from 
sectarianism, which the ecclesial vision of MSC could be accused of promoting. It is 
also important to note that Temple’s understanding of the Church as a fellowship 
predated and seemed to anticipate the emergence of a theology of Koinonia that has 
become so prevalent in twentieth century thought.   470
!
 113
  Dulles 1985: 167.468
  De Lubac 1984: 173-4.469
  Thornton 1942. For a Roman Catholic theology see Ratzinger 2000: 68-80. From a Protestant perspective see 470
Gassmann 1994. See also International Commission for Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue 2006. For a 
general theological overview, see Fuchs 2006.
Temple’s Sacramental Theology 
The second major emphasis in Temple’s ecclesiology was his focus on its sacramental 
character. Sacramental ecclesiology has been enormously influential in twentieth 
century theology yet Temple’s work predated much of it and the novelty of Temple’s 
approach has not been sufficiently recognised by modern scholarship, nor has his 
contribution to its development been sufficiently explored.   He developed a 471
sacramental theology that followed on from the Tractarian understanding of the 
sacramental, but with a much broader direction than the Tractarians conveyed. He saw 
the sacraments as both intrinsic to the Church’s internal life and also essential to its 
vocation and life in the world. For Temple the eucharist both made the Church and 
was the Church. At the heart of Temple’s sacramental vision was his understanding of 
the eucharist, and the way in which the believer participated in it. He argued that “[i]n 
the eucharist the believer experiences an actual fellowship with his Lord such as he 
does not experience from Church-membership in general.”   In the eucharist the 472
believer found the fellowship that the Church attempted to exhibit in its own life, 
which was why the “eucharistic bread as the Lord’s body was, and is, more vivid than 
that of the Church as His Body.”   The bread and the Church were consecrated to do 473
the work of Christ here on earth. They were both the Body of Christ. The bread was a 
sign of the Church, of its calling and vocation in the world that was to be given for 
the redemption of the world. Because of this Temple was able to say that “[i]n truth 
the Church is itself the permanent sacrament; it is an organised society possessed 
(though not always availing itself ) of a supernatural life – the life of God – which 
united humanity with itself in Jesus Christ.”   Temple related the gifts of the 474
eucharist in economic terms: they were “the perfect symbol of the economic life of 
man … [the] instance of God’s gifts made available by human labour for the 
satisfaction of men’s needs.”   This made implicit what Temple would make explicit 475
in his work as a priest, bishop and archbishop. That was, his assertion that production, 
consumption and finance were not absolute in themselves but were subservient to the 
implications of the presence of Christ in the eucharist, itself a taste of the redeemed 
creation to which all things were ordered. These things were therefore to be used 
 114
  For an introduction and overview of sacramental theology see McPartlan 1995). See also the classic work de 471
Lubac 2006.
  Temple 1924: 250.472
  Ibid.473
  Ibid: 234.474
  Temple 1942b: 69.475
appropriately to bring about spiritual perfection (for example, the removal of extreme 
material poverty, and seeing citizenship as something that was based on the gift 
exchange and fellowship as experienced in the eucharist rather than selfish 
competition by individuals). The Church offered its gifts of bread and wine to God – 
industrial and commercial activities in symbolic form – and God gave them back as a 
means of nurturing so that those who partook in the eucharist became agents of His 
purpose.   As these gifts were received they could also be gifted to others for the 476
building up of true fellowship, so that all became agents for God’s purpose. The 
Church became a witness to the ordering of the whole cosmos, the manner in which 
its own life was sustained points to the manner in which all life was sustained. The 
gifts of bread and wine unified believers with Christ and therefore echoed the way in 
which all things would be united with Christ, they were the true nature of all reality, 
that material reality conveys, and contains within itself, the very grace of God. 
Without the Church, with its sacramental inner life, Temple would not have 
developed his understanding of the sacramental quality of the universe, a quality 
which in itself finds its fullest expression in the sacramental participation believers 
encountered with God and each other at the altar.   The sacraments pointed to the 477
importance of the material and historical; that every people, in every place, could 
encounter the grace of God, which in turn could transform their own social, political 
and economic reality to conform ever more closely to the form of fellowship and life 
they encountered there. Yet they also pointed beyond every historical and material 
reality to that which bound all things and called all people together into one 
fellowship. 
Temple’s sacramental ecclesiology again contrasts with the ecclesiology of MSC. In 
MSC the sacraments of eucharist and baptism are treated a legal necessity if any fresh 
expression is to become recognised as a church. Temple would have repudiated such a 
view for he saw the sacraments as essential to the Church’s actual existence and her 
witness. MSC’s emphasis falls the legal aspect of this requirement rather than having 
any theological bearing and represents a rather deficient understanding of Canon law. 
Canon law is not incidental to the theology of the Church but a legal commentary on 
it. MSC appears to understand the wisdom of past and present Church polity to be 
constraining the present rather than informing it. Temple saw the eucharist as the 
central organising principal of the Church: within its performance lay the very heart 
 115
  Ibid: 70.476
  Temple 1924: 235.477
of what it meant to be One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. It was not an optional extra 
or something to be grown into: the eucharist itself contained the full drama of 
salvation, and as such was the starting place for thinking about what it meant to be 
the Church, the true peaceable society of the Kingdom of God, and therefore what it 
meant to be part of a fellowship that included all people in all places at all times. Even 
though the actual life of a Christian community could well be full of fear and division, 
whenever it reminded itself of what it was, in celebration of word and sacrament, it 
made a statement about its own and the worlds ultimate horizon.   MSC’s view that 478
it is not initially necessary for Fresh Expressions of church to celebrate the eucharist 
represents the loss of the key sacrament where both the grace of God and the 
encounter of a different story and telos is made present publicly for all. In robbing 
communities of this resource, MSC not only disconnects them from being seen in any 
sense as a church, it also, in Temple’s view, robs them of the central resource for 
becoming human in the way Christ calls, where participant’s lives are rooted in the 
possibilities of the life of Christ, and where they may witness to a form of fellowship 
that emphasises self-giving rather than self-gain. To quote the 1922 Doctrine report 
again, “if the Church lost by neglect its sacramental character, its value as both a 
society and for individuals would be calamitously diminished.”   479
Temple, like MSC, knew that the character of the Church must be appealing and 
attractive, striving to disclose the Divine reality, being an icon, gracious, hospitable, 
compassionate and faithful, winning the world by its actions of love rather than its 
self-righteousness.   It was called to be a sacrament to the world, offering a Divine 480
foretaste of true fellowship, being both a sign and a cause of the gift of God’s love.  481
Therefore the task of the Church in the world was, for Temple, to “[p]rimarily be itself 
and not to do anything at all. All that it does is secondary and expressive of what it is. 
And first of all, its duty is to be a living reality of that thing, namely the fellowship of 
those who have received the power of the Holy Spirit through the revelation of the 
love of God in Christ. It exists to be the redeemed community which worships as 
redeemed.”   This redeemed worship entailed the increase of love for others. For true 482
worship enabled relationships to be more fully expressed in love, leading to fellowship 
with all people, and offering oneself in the service of God and one another. As Temple 
 116
  Williams 1994: 258.478
  Commission on Christian Doctrine 1938: 138.479
  Temple 1939: 14.480
  Dackson 2004: 100.481
  Temple 1944b: 13.482
said, “the way to practice Christian ethics is through faith and worship … worship as 
the opening of the heart, the responsiveness of mind, the subjection of conscience, the 
receptiveness of imagination, and (by consequence of all this) the surrender of the will 
to the Holy Will of the Loving God revealed in Jesus Christ”.   Worship was not a 483
private affair, having little bearing on the social life of the world, instead it was “the 
consecration of all life, and when life itself, industry and commerce no less than family 
and friends, is the expression of worship, then we shall see a Church fully alive and the 
fulfillment of our social dreams.”   Worship was therefore educative for priests as well 484
as the laity. It formed believers desires so that they might orientate their actions in the 
world in a way that would conform to the Divine will.   485
Temple’s comprehensive account of the Church’s mission, which flowed out of the 
sacramental encounter with Christ, and led believers into a renewed relationship with 
society, contrasts with the narrow conceptualisation of mission in MSC. The mission 
of the fellowship of the Church in society is simply not addressed. Temple offered a 
vision of the Church that empowered its members for witness in the world, his view 
of discipleship is one in which the ordained ministers of the Church resourced the rest 
of the body (the laity) for mission that they might effectively witness to the life of 
Christ. MSC says little about discipleship and its relationship to soteriology. 
Conversion is treated in a utilitarian manner rather than being seen as the beginning 
of the renewing work of the Holy Spirit by virtue of believers participation in the life 
of the Church and her sacraments. Mission, in Temple’s thought, was not primarily 
carried out by its ordained ministers (though of course they did engage in mission) or 
by the gathered church but by the laity. For this reason Temple saw a great need for 
religious education. For it enabled “the building up of thought and character, 
conscious and subconscious, in the knowledge of the Love of God, so that the soul is 
always open to the operation of the Holy Spirit.”   Through this education – which 486
came from the continual immersion of the minsters of the Church in the scriptures, 
particularly the Gospels – the laity were able to be advocates for a different way of life. 
They became a corporate presence in the world, influencing social opinion and being a 
force for the good.   In contrast to MSC, the Church, according to Temple, was 487
called to be a model of the Kingdom of God, whilst also being an agent – through its 
 117
  Temple 1936: 73-74.483
  Temple 1942c: 8.484
  Dackson 2004: 104.485
  Temple 1923: 347.486
  Dackson 2004: 107.487
members – of witness to that Kingdom in all areas of life. Temple cited the key 
leadership of lay Christians in the abolitionist movement in nineteenth-century 
England as an example of this, and he exhorted Christians to use their political power, 
whether they consider it small or large, to be an influence on society, something he 
himself attempted to model, as we shall shortly explore.   Success, in Temple’s mind, 488
was not to be measured in the numbers of people attending Church, nor by the 
amount of influence Christian persons had on political institutions, but rather by the 
faithfulness of the Church to the truth expressed in God through Christ. 
Again, the ecclesiology of MSC stands in stark contrast to Temple’s. It represents a 
capitulation to the logic of the capitalist market, a misconstrual of the theological 
raison d’être of the Church’s mission. Salvation becomes a marketable product which, 
given the fragmentation of society into many fraternities, means it needs to be 
marketed in specific ways. This removes from the Church the necessity of habitus – the 
sets of theological sensibilities and dispositions that have shaped and defined the 
Church’s behaviours and practices, and which enable it to witness to the sacramental 
reality of the whole of creation. Temple argued that the Church needed to be 
charitable, offering an embodied vision of a peaceable society; the Church itself was 
an offering, a gift, an icon to the Divine peace. This concept has been largely lost in 
MSC, where Church has become a matter of communication not a performance of 
faith. The sociological vision of MSC is limited in comparison with Temple: salvation 
is seen in an individualistic manner where people come to church to be redeemed – 
people’s social interactions, practices and interrelations would appear to matter little. 
The Church’s task finds its basis in nominalist (there are no prior existing norms in the 
Church’s order and worship) and voluntarist theology (that faith can be achieved by 
human will alone rather than a free gift of grace in God through the sacraments of 
baptism and eucharist), the will is prioritised as the dominant factor contra the activity 
of God in Christ. Whereas in Temple’s ecclesiology he stressed that every person’s 
social, economic and political relationships mattered a great deal, but they were only 
transformed through people’s participation in the life of the Church, and the free 
offering of God’s grace, human will alone was not enough. This transformation came 
through the offering of the self in worship, living for the good of others, and the 
nurturing of a pattern of living that re-enacted the hospitality and grace of God. In 
MSC the believer’s subjective freedom is kept intact because key elements of the 
 118
  Temple 1934: 3.488
Gospel message – needing to become slaves in order to be truly free, that in losing 
one’s life one finds it – have been lost. 
!
The Sacramental life of the Church: sacrifice and love 
Temple also used a number of secondary images to further flesh out what he meant by 
describing the Church as a sacrament. They unpacked the practical dimension of the 
sacramental – that is the ethical requirements of such a view. The defining 
characteristic of which was sacrifice in love. Temple’s concept of sacrifice was greatly 
influenced by Maurice’s account. Maurice argued that sacrifice was “the doctrine of 
the Bible, the doctrine of the Gospel. The Bible is from first till last setting forth to us 
the meaning of sacrifice.”   Although he saw the cross as the perfect expression of 489
sacrifice he argued that it was the totality of Christ in his birth, life, death and 
resurrection that reveals the true nature of God and the nature and law by which God 
orders and governs the universe. Maurice, like Temple, refused the choice between 
penal substitution and exemplarism, where Christ death was either sacrificial for 
humanity or Christ’s life was an example to be followed by believers, instead they both 
pursued a more comprehensive doctrine.   Maurice argued that humanity was called 490
to participate in this nature and law, for Christ’s death is not simply representative it is 
also indicative of the life to which the Body of Christ is called.   A life of sacrifice 491
manifested itself in the offering of worship through participation in the eucharist and 
in service to others. Maurice argued that self-sacrifice was found at the heart of the 
eucharist and that to participate in it was to recognise that believers were called to a 
life of sacrifice. Maurice clearly rejecteded a materialist or utilitarian basis for 
morality.   Maurice’s view was influential on Green and also the writers of Lux 492
Mundi, particularly Gore, who emphasised kenosis and self-sacrifice as being at the 
heart of both the Incarnation and the Christian life.   Temple shared these same 493
views and in Christus Veritas argued that the Incarnation represented the unveiling of 
the Godhead, for God was Christ-like and in God there is nothing that is un-Christ-
like.   Temple’s theology was thus very Johannine, because it stressed that in the 494
 119
  Maurice1854: xlvi.489
  Ramsey 1951: 68.490
  Bradley 1995: 171.491
  Ibid: 174.492
  Gore 1896: 159-160.493
  Temple 1924: 105f and 173f.494
totality of Christ (his life, death, resurrection and ascension) we see the very revelation 
of God. Ramsey even suggested that the whole of Temple’s theology is essentially his 
attempt to unpack the fullest meaning of “he that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father” ( John 14.9).   Temple argued that “[t]he principal of sacrifice is that we 495
choose to do or to suffer what apart from our love we should not choose to do or 
suffer. When love is returned this sacrifice is the most joyful thing in the world, and 
heaven is the life of joyful sacrifice.”   Love characterised Temple’s view of sacrifice. 496
God’s self-giving love is manifested perfectly in the Trinity and made most visible to 
us in the incarnation of Christ. Humanity participated in Christ’s sacrifice through 
service and work for the Kingdom of God. Through such participation humanity 
reproduced – though not in an exact form – the sacrifice of Christ. This sacrifice was 
an attitude in one’s actions, rather than the action itself, in that it sought to serve 
others rather than oneself. Such actions for Temple were a true expression of the self 
because they were authentically free actions in that they reflect Christ’s sacrificial 
action.   Just as Christ’s sacrificial love on the cross was expressed in a non-reciprocal 497
way, so Christians, and the Church, offer sacrifice because they love freely not because 
they expect love in return. In this manner it could also be seen as having a quality of 
defiance and resistance, moving sacrificial love into the political and social arena.   As 498
Christ died for those who both loved and did not love him (indeed may hate him and 
claim to be his enemies) so the Church as the Body of Christ in the world must offer 
itself, its resources, and its life, on behalf of those who have little or nothing. This view 
led Temple to engage with issues of social justice in his own time. He felt the Church 
and its members should become a challenge to those in power, for 
[w]hy should God’s children have the full opportunity to develop their capacities 
in freely-chosen occupations, while others are confined to a stunted form of 
existence? The Christian cannot ignore a challenge in the name of justice. He 
must either refuse it or, accepting it, devote himself to removal of the stigma. The 
moral quality of the accusation brought against the economic and social order 
involves the Church in ‘interference’ on pain of betraying the trust committed to 
it.    499
 120
  Ramsey 1951: 148.495
  Temple 1939: xxix-xxx.496
  Temple 1923: 216.497
  Dackson 2004: 126.498
  Temple 1944a: 37.499
Temple exemplified this attitude in his own actions. He was the first bishop in the 
House of Lords to become a member of the Labour Party and was President of the 
Worker’s Educational Association for sixteen years, and spoke against the 
Government in the House of Lords on issues such as workers’ rights, working hours 
and working conditions.   He also made many notable speeches against the Nazi 500
persecutions in 1943.   The Church, as the bearer of the life and personality of 501
Christ, must attempt to express – in acts of love – that same life and personality in its 
relations with others, by living for others, perhaps most especially for those who were 
seen as the least in society, in order that it may be an “effectual sign of grace, and 
God’s good will towards us.”   502
Temple’s emphasis on sacrifice counters MSC’s focus on the needs of the individual 
and its submission to the logic of consumerism. His account offers a counter vision to 
the logic of the market, where the Church needs to compete with other products by 
making itself desirable as a consumer product, an ideology that MSC succumbs to. 
Within Temple’s writings there is a clear account of the cost of Christian belief, and 
the need for believers to be educated so that they may be critically aware of the way in 
which various aspects of their lives are complicit in economic, political and social 
structures that are unjust. Discipleship is costly, it requires a real conversion and 
turning around, an embrace of a form of fellowship that was increasingly alien in 
Temple’s time, and a commitment to a way of life based on sacrifice and service. In 
MSC conversion requires little, the life of the church replicates the conditions its 
context so closely so as to lose the very demands of the Gospel that Temple 
emphasised. MSC tends to treat the Church’s context as neutral, structural injustices 
and ideological injustices are essentially hidden and never called into question. Yet, for 
Temple, participating in the Body of Christ and witnessing to Christ meant living a 
life of sacrifice modeled on that of Christ. Discipleship meant conforming ever more 
deeply to that vocation. We shall explore what this may mean for the Church of 
England’s present context in greater depth in the final section. 
!
 121
  Grant: 288.500
  Temple 1943d.501
  Temple 1944a: 35.502
The Church in Judgement 
A final component of Temple’s sacramental ecclesiology was the Church’s call to act in 
judgement. Temple used judgement in a double sense; he saw it both as a faculty of 
the mind in apprehending a right course of action and also as an ethical category. The 
contemporary understanding of judgement at that time was rather negative. Making 
decisions about right and wrong was seen as less than charitable due to increasing 
social pluralism and the lack of consensus on common moral and ethical issues. 
Temple, however, argued that thought could not proceed without judgement and this 
judgement formed a basic unit of thought.   In his writings on this subject he drew 503
explicitly on Old Testament imagery of God as King and Judge in order to introduce 
and frame this issue.   He argued that good thought needed good judgement, and to 504
judge one must properly understand and see reality. A failure to judge is evidence of a 
lack of this, for “it is an abdication of reality (and responsibility)”.   Participation in 505
sacramental worship sharpened the believer’s appreciation of the way God was at work 
in the world. It helped the believer make assessments of the world based on this 
knowledge, which developed the believer as a person, not just spiritually, but morally 
and aesthetically too. Christian faith carried with it the responsibility to represent the 
Gospel as truthfully as possible. As the 1922 Doctrine report argued, holiness in the 
Church meant that even though the Church was charged with a vocation to be 
present in, and to, the world there was invariably a tension and the first duty of the 
Church was to maintain the faith and life entrusted to it, which may have meant 
withdrawal from the world. Such a withdrawal was not an abandonment of the world 
to its own tendencies but was a means of bearing witness to the Gospel before the 
world.   It acknowledged the reality of human selfishness and greed, and the manner 506
in which this manifested itself in the very structures of society. Yet Temple also 
stressed the need to focus attention back onto the life of the Church, for if the Church 
is to judge its first judgement must be on itself. It must ask how faithfully it presented 
the sacramental reality of God’s intended order in its own life in its own time. It was 
against this reality that the reality of the world must be judged. The Church must 
proclaim and demonstrate the love of God in ways that were accessible to all persons 
 122
  Temple 1923: 52.503
  Temple 1924: 176ff.504
  Ibid: 208.505
  Commission on Christian Doctrine 1938: 108.506
and societies. If it fails to do so then it comes under judgment for it has failed to live 
the life of perfect love and to present that life to society.   507
Temple wrote of the need to discern between false and true religion – that is religion 
that represents most fully this sacramental reality and that which does not. As he put 
it, writing around the time of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, “[r]eligion itself, 
when developed to real maturity, knows quite well that the first object of its 
condemnation is bad Religion, which is totally different from irreligion, and can be a 
very much worse thing.”   This reinforced Temple’s view that people’s religious beliefs 508
do indeed have a bearing on the state of the nation. For Temple, Hitler’s presentation 
of a nationalistic folk religion suggested a profoundly evil view of both humanity and 
the world and was deliberately presented in order to attempt to gain political 
advantage. Temple argued that the standard of judgement the Church must apply is 
not one that can simply be reduced to a set of regulations applicable in all time and 
places. For its criteria to judge was found in the sacramental reality of the Divine, 
whose ultimate criterion was located in the joy of the resurrection: “[t]he Church of 
Christ is before everything else the Church of the Resurrection … and the 
Resurrection is the burden of [its] preaching.”   The Church must therefore hold 509
forth the hope of redemption and resurrection in the face of the world, showing that 
God’s intention and desire was that of restoration rather than destruction, one of 
embrace rather than exclusion.   The Church itself must pursue this vocation by 510
helping its members to become fully human. Temple’s focus was, like Gore’s and 
Maurice’s before him, firmly set on the Incarnation. He argued that the standard of 
the Church was held aloft in the humanity of Christ, since the Son was judge in virtue 
of His humanity. Temple was keen to repudiate the idea that believers were judged by 
the standards of a remote and awful deity, and instead sought to assert that “we are 
judged by the standard of human perfection, found in Christ.”   511
Temple’s account of the Church as an agent of God’s judgement contrasts with MSC’s 
understanding of the role of the Church in the world: MSC assumes the Church’s 
cultural context to be neutral, as such it offers a proper basis for ecclesiology. The 
double understanding of judgement Temple developed is a model which MSC lacks: 
 123
  Dackson 2004: 137ff.507
  Temple 1934: 22.508
  Temple 1913: 245-246.509
  Dackson 2004: 136.510
  Temple 1939: 114.511
the ability to both discern one’s context and then adequately respond is absent. In 
omitting this, MSC essentially mirrors a contemporary secular, consumerist, ahistorical 
and atomistic philosophy in its ecclesiological model. It defines holiness as being 
“willing to die to its own culture in order to live for God in another” (page 97). Such 
as view of holiness overlooks the calling of the Church to be set apart, and is very 
different to how Temple understood the Church in judgement, where the Church was 
also to be separate from the world (in Pauline language). Had MSC explored this 
definition more closely, it might have ended up with a more critical approach to 
contemporary society and culture than it did. Newbigin – one of the main 
missiologists quoted in the report – as we previously explored, also developed a model 
that was similar to Temple’s. He too was also critical of contextual theological 
methodologies that were too sociologically determined.   Temple, in representing the 512
Church in critical dialogue with its context, developed an ecclesiology that enabled 
the Church to work with other social bodies positively and also to witness against the 
sinful elements within them. Both Temple and Newbigin saw the difficulties 
contextually based ecclesiologies, such as MSC’s, had in forming a critical relationship 
to their own culture. 
Temple’s ideas are consistent with the viewpoints of contemporary Anglican thinkers 
such as Oliver O’Donovan as articulated in The Desire of Nations, where the Church is 
a witness to the truth as expressed in Christ.   Like Temple, O’Donovan insists that 513
the Church’s mission is one that brings Christ to the state and to its citizens, that 
offers a model of citizenship and community that elicits desire within all that 
encounter and see it, a desire to do likewise.   Temple’s views on judgement also 514
enabled him to avoid some of the difficulties Idealistic theology had led to in the late 
nineteenth and early twentieth century, when the task of the Church became too 
closely associated with the colonial efforts of Britain. MSC, in lacking this critical 
hermeneutic, essentially makes the same methodological mistake that people such as 
Fredrick Temple, Moore and Illingworth did, in associating the British Empire too 
closely with the purposes of God.   515
!
 124
  MSC, even though it references Newbigin some six times (MSC 2004: 31, 46, 91, 94, 95 and 158), does not appear 512
to be aware of his model.
  O’Donovan: 1999.513
  Ibid: 219ff and 385ff.514
  See Moore 1890: 96-98, Illingworth 1890: 205ff and Temple 1861: 100.515
Temple’s practical work 
Now that we have traced the contours of Temple’s ecclesiology this next section will 
briefly explore how he attempted to make these theological and ecclesiological 
imperatives manifest in his own life. His involvement in industrial disputes and 
national church controversies exemplified his insistence on the importance of history, 
the possibility of the reconciliation of all things through the Logos, and his vision of 
society as a community together working for the common good. Throughout his life 
he asserted his Christian Idealist views, where a common social purpose and common 
understanding of citizenship were deployed in order to counter narrow class and 
economic interest groups. Temple hoped his writings and practical action would 
engender a wider sense of social belonging and social obligation. This approach was 
exemplified in five areas of Temple’s ministry: first, the Life and Liberty movement; 
second, the COPEC council; third, his ecumenical work, including the founding of 
the WCC (World Council of Churches); fourth, the Malvern conference; and finally, 
his work in the House of Lords. 
The Life and Liberty Movement was launched in July 1917 with Temple as 
Chairman. It sought to reform what it termed to be the “antiquated machinery” of the 
Church of England by putting in place structures that would enable the church to 
pass its own legislation, thus avoiding the extremely tortuous and difficult 
parliamentary route. Thompson notes that between 1880 and 1965 the Church of 
England had introduced twenty-two Bills on the sale of livings, forty Bills to create 
new bishoprics, suffragen bishropics and archdeaconries and thirty-two Bills dealing 
with ritual and liturgy, of which eighty-three were dropped and only one was debated 
in Parliament.   Temple argued that “[i]f the church is to have new life, even if it is to 516
maintain the life which it has, it must have liberty” and “if the church is to be 
democratic, it must be through representation, councils or Synods possessed of real 
power to act … Only so can we be again the Church of the people.”   Through the 517
work of the Life and Liberty Movement, Temple desired to make the church more 
democratic in its decision making processes by allowing the laity to partake in its 
governance through the creation of an autonomous Church Assembly. This new 
assembly would make political intervention possible by allowing the church to put 
 125
  Thompson 1970: 158.516
  Temple 1917a.517
pressure on Westminster in a way in which, at that time, it could not.   Temple saw a 518
new assembly as a means of gaining the Church of England independence in its own 
life, enabling it to make its own decisions regarding liturgy and doctrine, and also free 
to change, organise and critique society as it saw fit, whereas at present it was 
constrained by its own administrative systems.   His involvement with this campaign 519
casts light on his theological commitment to a vision of a Church that was engaged 
socially as well as one that sought to resource its members sacramentally through their 
participation in the liturgy. Again, we see in Temple’s ecclesiology a breadth and depth 
that is missing from MSC. Whereas the missional focus of the Church in MSC lies 
purely in the local, whether this is a parish or a fresh expression, Temple saw the 
institutional aspect of Church life as indelibly linked to its mission. 
In 1918, Temple led a delegation to Lambeth Palace to meet Archbishop Davidson 
and outline the aims of the movement. Following this the Representative Church 
Council drafted a scheme that was adopted by Convocations in May 1919 and The 
Enabling Act of the same year resulted in the creation of the Church Assembly. Yet 
Temple was concerned that his vision had only partially been fulfilled. The Assembly 
did not admit women, nor did its initial agendas debate the role of the church in 
wider society. Instead, as the Spectator noted, the Church Assembly was largely 
satisfied with the leadership and direction that was presently offered by those in 
episcopal government.   520
Due to the failure of the Church Assembly to have the sort of social and political 
impact Temple had originally envisaged he elected to continue pressing ahead for 
reform through the Conference on Christian Politics, Economics and Citizenship 
(COPEC) which he organised in 1924. Through it he sought to guide the British 
churches towards political action on a wide range of issues both national and 
international. COPEC produced twelve reports which examined the nature of God, 
the role of the sexes, education, the home, the function of leisure, how to treat crime, 
international relations, the Christian faith and war, industry and property, politics and 
citizenship and the social function of the Church.   The conference met at a difficult 521
time in British politics: the wartime coalition had collapsed, the Labour party had 
formed a minority coalition in early 1924, and the Conservative Party had reemerged 
 126
  Kent 1992: 47.518
  Dackson 2004: 93ff.519
  Kent 1992: 77ff.520
  See COPEC Commission Reports 1924.521
in opposition to what it saw as the socialism of the Labour party, suggesting that they 
were not radicals but rather captives to the Trade Unions. This context was not ideal 
for the sort of radical social transformation envisaged by the COPEC delegates. 
However, the Industry and Property report does stand out for embodying some of 
Temple’s radical theological vision. It spoke of the need for an alternative vision for 
society, a vision of equality and community rather than competition and accrual of 
wealth.   It encouraged Christians to work for the motive of service and not gain, 522
and suggested that industry should become a cooperative effort rather than the end of 
one individual or group over and against another. All those who worked in industry 
should have a voice in its running. The report also condemned the effects industry had 
had on unemployment rates and the resultant poverty, which had led to a lack of 
education and poor health. This document extolled Temple’s vision of a just society 
where there was a more equal distribution of wealth. The distribution of property, for 
example, should be to the betterment and development of both the individual owner 
and the whole community.  
Plans to develop a movement beyond COPEC quickly petered out and the new 
‘spiritual factor’ that the conference delegates believed Christianity could introduce 
into the politics of the day did not materialise. In the late 1920s it became clear that 
right wing politicians and industrialists were prepared to surrender little to organised 
labour, which in turn led to the General Strike. This was followed by a middle-class 
reaction to that strike and the failure of the miner’s strike of 1926.   That the trade 523
unions were defeated, coupled with the resignation of the Labour government in 
1931, owing to the financial crisis caused by the Wall Street crash, defeated the idea 
that the COPEC agenda could influence either the social consensus of the day or the 
party in power. It became clear that the majority of people wanted social peace rather 
than social change, even those who were considered churchgoers.   Norman is critical 524
of Temple’s vision for society, suggesting that it was only to be located in the 
“episcopal palaces, in study groups and Conferences, in Theological Colleges and 
University common rooms. In 1926 the door had been opened and a very cold blast 
had withered the hothouse growths. The Church’s passion for social criticism survived 
the experience, but its growth was stunted.”   Suggate and Kent were similarly 525
 127
  COPEC Commission Reports 1924.522
  Kent 1992: 134.523
  Ibid.524
 . Norman 1976: 340ff.525
critical.   Although these criticisms are valid, the conference further illustrates 526
Temple’s dedication to enabling people to reach their full cultural and social potential. 
He hoped that COPEC might help the Church exhibit these cultural and social 
realities in its own life, acting as a form of judgement on the unjust cultural and social 
realities that he perceived existed in the industrial era. The attention given to 
understanding the social and cultural context in which people lived and worked, and 
the desire Temple had for leaders in the Church to see how the Gospel and the life of 
the Church related to the contemporary issues of poverty, wage levels, 
industrialisation, and the more complex theories of the emerging capitalist politics 
and economics further illuminate the expansive concept Temple held of the Church’s 
role and mission in society. In contrast MSC offers a much more constrained and 
privatised understanding of the Church, and does not offer an account of the role 
education, for instance, may play in discipleship in the same way that Temple does. 
Temple’s involvement in the nascent ecumenical movement during the 1930s helped 
to establish the provisionally-agreed WCC, which he saw as a potential place for the 
various Christian denominations to come together and give voice to concerns they 
had regarding current social issues in the world.   Temple saw the role of the WCC 527
as an extension of his view of the role of the Church of England. It had the potential 
to bring a unified Christian voice to bear on the social and political needs of the 
world. Kent notes that many of the ideas that came out of the early meetings of the 
WCC can actually be traced back to the Oxford Life and Work conference held in 
1937 and organised by Temple. He can thus be seen as one of the key people who 
contributed to the WCCs formation and early work.   Through it, he argued, that 528
local and international churches could steadfastly enter into a deeper unity, which was 
“full of hope for the future of Christendom and through it for all mankind.”  529
Though the WCC has achieved mixed success with regard to Temple’s idealistic vision 
for it, it is clear that Temple saw the WCC and the wider ecumenical movement as 
part of his theological vision for a global Church that was able to speak to the social 
and political needs of all people. Though ecumenism is not discussed in MSC its 
understanding of mission is essentially limited to England, offering no account of how 
ecumenism can enhance its understanding of the Church or the Church’s mission. 
 128
  Suggate 1994: 146-150 and Kent 1992: 143.526
  Although the WCC would not be officially established until 1948, over one hundred church leaders voted for its 527
creation in 1937.
  Kent 1992: 144.528
  Temple 1943: prologue.529
Temple would have wished to expand this narrow view because fellowship in the 
Church was not complete until all were brought into the life of the Church, which 
meant that part of the mission of every local or national church must also include this 
ecumenical dimension. 
The Malvern conference in 1941, organised when Temple was Archbishop of York, 
was an attempt to ensure that at the end of the Second World War the Church of 
England would be at the forefront of any social reconstruction processes. The 
conference further illustrated Temple’s commitment to enable Christians to 
comprehend contemporary social and cultural ills. It was an attempt to prepare the 
church for whatever eventualities lay after the war and to avoid the unprepared state 
that the church had found itself in when similar needs had arisen at the end of the 
First World War. Kent notes that Malvern represented a return to the radical 
Anglican attitudes towards unemployment and poverty espoused before 1926. These 
attitudes had re-merged in response to the economic collapse of 1929-31 and the 
advance of Nazism and Fascism.   Temple drew up the Malvern statement which 530
consisted of six propositions that he hoped would lead to a more Christian society. 
First, every child should find itself a member of a family housed with decency and 
dignity. Second, every child should have an opportunity for education up to maturity. 
Third, every citizen should have sufficient income to make a home and bring up his 
children properly. Fourth, every worker should have a voice in the conduct of the 
business or industry in which he works. Fifth, every citizen should have sufficient 
leisure — two days’ rest in seven and an annual holiday with pay. Sixth, every citizen 
should be guaranteed freedom of worship, speech, assembly and association.   These 531
themes demonstrated that Temple had not moved away from the optimism of his 
early theology, and was still attempting to encourage the Church to bring about 
radical social and political reform.   532
Temple’s continual calls for reform in the Church over the course of his lifetime and 
his attempts to reposition the Church as the location and trustee of national 
community were not an isolated effort. They were rightly seen by Kent as a mirror of 
the alarm many nations and institutions felt in Western Europe in the early twentieth 
century due to the perceived loss of agreed common values and a concomitant desire 
 129
  Kent 1992: 164ff.530
  Temple 1942a.531
  Kent 1992: 155.532
to rediscover or build new ones that would once again hold society together.  533
Temple deplored what he saw as the rampant religious individualism that pervaded 
the West and longed for the recovery of a moral and spiritual corporate life. This life 
“if not the whole end of man [was] nonetheless part of his end, and therefore to be 
regarded in proper proportion as a true end in itself.”   His theological vision for 534
‘organic unity’ found a political expression in the Beveridge Report which led to the 
founding of what would later be termed the Welfare State. Temple saw the report as 
an ideal way of manifesting the Divine desire for human relations in social terms. It 
would result in a society that would look after the health, work, education, housing, 
old age, and basic needs of its own citizens. He argued in a letter in 1943 that he 
hoped it would “show the world what is not so much the middle path between 
communism and individualism as a genuine expression of the sound principles lying 
behind each.”   Ideas of equality and cooperation would, in his mind, triumph over 535
the capitalist ideals of acquisitiveness and competition, as they represented the higher 
ideals of human life. The contrast between the views offered by Temple and the views 
of MSC are again stark. Temple’s vision of the life of the national church is deeply 
embedded in the needs and context of the time he was living in. It came out of a 
desire to truly understand the philosophical ideologies that lay behind the economic 
and political realities of his time. Only with this understanding did Temple believe 
that the Church of England could witness adequately, living out its Gospel calling, 
which was always public, not purely private, and always communal not purely 
individual. 
Temple from 1921 – when he was made Bishop of Manchester – also actively engaged 
in the work the Lords Spiritual undertook in the House of Lords regarding national 
constitutional law. Throughout the twenties and thirties he made speeches regarding 
the housing conditions of the working classes in Manchester and argued that factory 
workers were paid solely on the basis of the material value of the objects manufactured 
rather than a wage that ensured workers could live a dignified life.   He also feared 536
that the rising use of technology to increase output in industrial processes might lead 
to mass unemployment. Temple thought that human beings were in danger of being 
replaced with machines and those people still involved in these industries would come 
 130
  Ibid: 51.533
  Temple 1923: 330.534
  Kent 1992: 179.535
  Temple 1925b.536
to be regarded as mere tools, marking the beginning of a new form of slavery.  537
Dackson also notes that he frequently spoke out against the increasingly speculative 
forms of currency exchange taking place at the London Stock Market and actively 
encouraged legal mechanisms to be put in place to curb such transactions.   As 538
Temple himself said, 
[m]oney is in its own nature a medium of exchange, and therefore, if you use it as 
a commodity in the sense of trying to profit yourself by variations in its value 
over goods, you are destroying it for its proper social purpose; and there are some 
kinds of activity in that direction which I think public opinion is tending to 
think ought to be prohibited, as for example, speculation in foreign currencies.   539
Temple went on to link explicitly the manipulation of the market with the 
manipulation of production, which in turn had devastating effects upon the wellbeing 
of the workers.   He argued that laws concerning the fair use of money and trade 540
were necessary to protect and ensure the dignity of workers, particularly those at the 
low end of the economic scale. Restriction needed to be “put upon economic 
development by the elementary requirements of human life.”   541
He also campaigned for the raising of the school leaving age from 14 to 16 and he 
sought to move the education curriculum away from its utilitarian emphasis that 
prepared young people for work that was of economic benefit.   Temple suggested 542
that education should place young people in a “social life or community in which the 
individual may feel that he has a real share and for which he may feel some genuine 
responsibility” in order “to draw out from him the latent possibilities of his nature.”  543
He was very active in campaigning for religious education and daily Christian worship 
to be compulsory in all schools and was partially responsible for the inclusion of this 
requirement in the 1944 Education Act.   It ensured the teaching of religious 544
education in all state schools as well as enshrining in law the need for a daily act of 
worship, both of which vindicated Temple’s long-held view that all education needed 
to be religious in character.   Temple was railing against what he saw as an erroneous 545
 131
  Temple 1944a: 87ff.537
  Dackson 2004: 155ff.538
  Temple 1944: 154.539
  Ibid: 155ff.540
  Temple 1927: 74.541
  Temple 1943e.542
  Temple 1944: 89.543
  Grimley 2004: 204.544
  Ibid: 204ff.545
secular ordering of means and ends, something which his theology consistently 
repudiated. 
!
Some Criticisms 
Before examining the key ways in which Temple offered a more robust ecclesiology 
than MSC it is necessary to deal first with some of the criticisms that are made of 
Temple and his legacy. Within Temple’s work there are several minor weaknesses that 
would not have been immediately apparent, or would have seemed trivial, to Temple 
during his own lifetime. Kent points out one of these regarding Temple’s views of 
other religions in public life. Britain was not then the place of religious diversity it is 
now and that partially accounts for his more prescriptive views.   Today British 546
society has embraced social pluralism, that is it seeks to allow a plurality of smaller, 
less cohesive (at the national level at least) world-views that sometimes seem to be 
largely irreconcilable with each other, of which the Christian faith is but one main 
player, even if historically it has been the dominant one. Kent, in his assessment of 
Temple’s legacy, is overly critical on this point, positioning Temple in such a fashion 
that he seems hopelessly out of date. He misses that within Temple’s work there was 
an account of revelation that is generous, and if developed would have allowed for a 
generous accommodation of other faiths, and indeed secular reasoning, even if he 
would still have insisted on the final revelation of Christ. There is also debate within 
the Church of England about whether the secular thesis of late-modernity, with its 
insistence on a secular basis for social and cultural plurality, is actually correct. 
Anglican theologians such as Milbank and Ward think the foundations of secular 
modernity are actually distortions of Christian theological sensibilities, and that only a 
thoroughgoing Christian metaphysic can provide a necessary foundation for social 
and cultural plurality, a view not dissimilar to Temple’s.   Kent also ignores Temple’s 547
early work that outlined a theory of natural revelation that acted as a bridge between 
the language of the Church, based as it was on certain dogmatic assumptions, and the 
language of other social bodies, such as the State. 
The second criticism that Kent makes of Temple is his lack of experience of life 
outside Britain. Kent suggests this leads to his theology being overly optimistic. He 
 132
  Kent 1992: 54.546
  Kent 1992: 179. See chapter one in Milbank 1990.547
compares Temple’s optimistic theology to the theologies formed in the aftermath the 
traumatic events in continental Europe, such as those of Barth and Tillich, who each 
give less hopeful accounts of human progress. Kent argues that Temple still held to a 
view that was confident, paternalistic and reformist and “dreamed of re-identifying 
church and nation, and of making the Anglican Church in its turn the centre of a 
worldwide Christian unity.”   However, Kent overstates Temple’s emphasis on the 548
place of the Anglican Church in this global Christian unity, and whilst it may be true 
that the influence the Church has on the state has deteriorated, it is also true that 
ecumenism has occupied the Church of England for much of the latter half of the 
twentieth century. This preoccupation has resulted in sustained dialogue with the 
Roman Catholics and the Orthodox Church as well as substantial agreements with 
the Lutheran churches of Scandinavia. Temple was also not so focused on the 
Incarnation that it eclipsed the need for the atonement: he very clearly – following 
Maurice – gives an account of human sin, both structural and individual, and the great 
need humanity has for redemption in and through Christ. 
However, what cannot be denied is that the social, political and economic landscape of 
Britain has changed since Temple’s time. Grimley notes that during the twentieth 
century British views of community, citizenship, and the common good developed in 
ways that take them away from Temple’s conceptions. Grimley charts the evolution of 
the word community, suggesting that it lost its national tones in the sixties and 
seventies and is increasingly used to refer to local interest groups, as well as functional 
and racial groups that do not even need to share geographic proximity. Community 
now suggests limited ends, and limited views, constricted by group interests rather 
than anything wider, a view that emphasises the plural rather than the integrative.  549
The post-war state also emphasises material rather than moral progress, and civil 
rights rather than civil obligations, and welfare entitlements rather than duties, 
reversing the pre-war period of Temple that had emphasised moral behaviour and 
modest welfare.   The Weberian idea that social research should be value free or 550
neutral also served to undermine any idea of a common end or aim and the 
theological idea of the connectedness of all areas of human endeavour – a view 
embraced by Temple – diminished in such a hostile environment. Temple predicted in 
1942 that the medieval idea of knowledge as a unity, with Christian religion at its 
 133
  Kent 1992: 33.548
  Grimly: 210.549
  Grimly: 214.550
centre, was beginning to die in the universities.   These changes have led to a lack of 551
common vocabulary to maintain the attention of the public when talking about 
matters of public interest and pursuit and the vocabulary provided by the British 
Idealists is simply no longer as meaningful as it once was. The role the Church of 
England now plays, according to Grimley and Taylor, has also changed, it was the civil 
religion of the nation in the nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain. Being 
Christian and being part of a national community went together, and despite 
denominational pluralism the Church of England could express national identity in a 
way in which it also stood for other religious groups, and retained its hold on not its 
own members but on the national community as a whole.   Yet this does not 552
diminish the power and theological integrity of Temple’s ecclesiology and missiology 
even if it clearly makes it historic and in part contingent, which far from being a 
limitation is exactly the emphasis Temple made in his theology. That it must always 
seek to be incarnational and particular, though never in an uncritical way, and always 
seeking to bring the theology of the past into dialogue with the present. 
!
Conclusion  
We can now move on to summarise how Temple’s ecclesiology is of contemporary 
relevance for the life and witness of the Church of England today. Alongside this we 
shall examine how, and whether, Temple’s views accord with the formularies and 
ecumenical reports of the Church of England as well as contemporary Anglican 
scholarship.   This will show that Temple does not stand in theological isolation but 553
that his work bears the hallmarks of an Anglican tradition continued to this day. 
For Temple, the starting place for his ecclesiology was the Church’s sacramental 
character, where the Good of the Divine was instantiated through the bread and wine, 
which had the Value of the Logos. His restatement of the real presence of Christ, the 
risen, ascended and glorified Christ, in the bread and wine through his use of a 
 134
  Temple, Church Looks Forward: 37.551
  Taylor, Varieities of Religion Today, ch. 3 and Grimley: 214ff.552
  Although in the Church of England the Canons, the Thirty-Nine Articles, authorised liturgy (e.g. Common 553
Worship, the Ordinal, the Book of Common Prayer), the publications of the Doctrine Commission, and also 
implicitly, some of the Acts of Synod represent the official sources of its doctrine, ecumenical reports are attempts 
to represent the church’s doctrine in dialogue with other historic traditions. Their status can be seen as standing 
somewhere in between official sources of doctrine and opinion expressed by Anglican scholars. They represent a 
key source for Anglican theology and remain a largely unexplored body of work that contains important 
articulations on a variety of key doctrinal issues facing the Church today.
philosophy of moderate realism enabled him to break out from previous controversies 
surrounding transubstantiation. It also provided a basis from which his whole 
ecclesiology would develop a deep concern for the material and cultural world. He 
argued that the eucharist was the place where the believer most fully encountered 
Christ. He understood the life of the Church in a thoroughly sacramental manner; for 
him baptism and eucharist were not optional to the life of the Church or the makeup 
of the local church, but essential to it. It was through baptism that believers entered 
into membership of the Body of Christ, and it was through participation in the 
eucharist, as the central act of Christian worship, that believers were sustained and 
nourished in their faith through the activity of the Holy Spirit, because they truly 
encountered the risen, ascended and glorified Christ. It was through sacramental 
participation that believers were shaped and moulded into the likeness of Christ. MSC 
likewise states quite clearly that, “[a] mission initiative that does not have an 
authorized practice of baptism and the celebration of the Eucharist is not yet a 
‘church’ as Anglicans understand it”; and that “[t]he Eucharist lies at the heart of 
Christian life ... if they [Fresh Expressions of church] are to endure, they must 
celebrate the Eucharist.”   However, it fails to develop these themes, and the 554
emphasis of the report lies in its insistence that Fresh Expressions of church be 
allowed to dictate their own practices according to their context. This is made clear in 
its lack of attentiveness to sacramental theology, which only occupies two small 
paragraphs in the report whereas contextual theology is discussed in great details over 
the course of some forty pages.   MSC fails to reconcile these two ‘requirements’ 555
because it fails to see that the sacraments are essential to life of the Church – they 
enable the Church truly to be the Church, as Temple argued. They were the starting 
points for the life of the Church, not an aspirational goal. Fresh expressions of Church 
which meet and do not celebrate the sacraments represent a diminishment of the 
power of the Gospel to transform and renew the people of God, and through them to 
be effective witnesses and signs of the Kingdom. It is ironic that witnessing is the 
focus of MSC, and yet it misses the key place where God meets with God’s people, 
and where they are transformed into the likeness of Christ, made present in bread and 
wine, and received by the whole body. This sacramental emphasis led Temple to 
engage with the material and historical reality of his own day. His view of the real 
presence of Christ in the eucharist, where the bread and wine signify and were 
 135
  MSC 2004: 101.554
  Ibid: 43-84 for an account of contextual theology and 101 for a discussion of the sacraments in relation to Fresh 555
Expressions of church.
substantiated by the highest Value, that is Christ, who was not merely representative 
of a figure who lived in the first century AD, but of the whole of a redeemed 
humanity, enabled him to argue for the importance of the created order and all 
material and historic things. MSC’s view of material and historic reality is largely 
utilitarian, culture is an empty vessel devoid of any value, it is merely a vehicle that 
enables people to become Christian. 
Temple’s sacramental understanding of the Church is also well attested in the 
formularies of the Church of England and ecumenical reports of the last fifty years. 
Canon B14 states that the eucharist should be celebrated every Sunday and on 
principal feast days and Canon C15, sees the administration of the sacraments as 
essential to the ministry of the Church. The ARCIC report, Growing Together in Unity 
and Mission, states that, “Roman Catholics and Anglicans agree that the Eucharist is 
the effectual sign of koinonia” and that “Baptism is the sacrament of faith, through 
which a person embraces the faith of the Church and is embraced by it.”   The joint 556
Anglican-Orthodox report Church as Communion argues that a local church is “a 
gathering of the baptised brought together by the apostolic preaching, confessing the 
one faith, celebrating the one eucharist, and led by an apostolic ministry”.   The 557
Church of England report Eucharistic Doctrine states that, 
[t]he visible communion of Christ’s body, entered through baptism, is nourished, 
deepened, and expressed in the eucharistic communion when believers eat and 
drink and receive the body and blood of Christ. When his people are gathered at 
the Eucharist to commemorate Christ’s saving acts for our redemption, he makes 
present and effective among us the eternal benefits of his victory and elicits and 
renews his people’s response of faith, thanksgiving and self-surrender.   558
Other reports also restate these same claims.   559
Temple's view also finds affinity with the work of Pickstock and Milbank who both 
share Temple’s concern to defend orthodox Christian belief from secularising 
tendencies, including materialism and utilitarianism, though they also actively seek to 
 136
  The Archbishops Council 2008: § 19 and 33.556
  Anglican 1991: § 34.557
  Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission 1972: § 3 and 1986: § 15 and 24.558
  Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission 1986: § 16 and 1991: §18. Anglican - Roman Catholic 559
International Commission 1986: §18, Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Discussions 1984: section III, § 4, and 
Anglican Communion Office 2004: §56. Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Discussions 1984: §17. Council for 
Christian Unity 1988: §VIII, Council for Christian Unity 1993: §XXVI and Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal 
Discussions 2010: section VI and 1984: section I part 8ff. and 2008: sections VI and IX.
refute the postmodern turn in philosophy. Their work, alongside Ward’s, which forms 
part of the growing Radical Orthodox movement, presents a contemporary 
reconfiguration of some of the major themes within Temple’s sacramental ecclesiology, 
and in particular his defence of the real presence of Christ in the eucharist. 
Pickstock in After Writing boldly re-asserts through her incarnational theology the 
Christian claim to the centre stage of social possibilities. She defends the doctrine of 
transubstantiation, holding that the words of consecration in the eucharist, ‘this is my 
body’ “are the only words which certainly have meaning, and lend this meaning to all 
other words.”   The basis for her work lies in the establishment of the human being 560
as a liturgical subject, where worship enables the participant’s subjectivity to be seen as 
a gift, a gift that is a repetition of the gift the subject receives in the eucharist. This 
eucharistic gift is corporeally instantiated in the world of time and space, which 
Pickstock understands to be an affirmation of the material world in all its particularity. 
Her understanding of sacramentality reflects an acceptance of the graced state of 
nature and the refusal of a contradiction between reason and revelation, echoing the 
positions of both de Lubac and von Balthasar, as well as Temple. She argues that from 
the late mediaeval work of Duns Scotus onwards there emerges a rupture between 
God and creatures, an “unmediable difference and proximity” that develops against 
Aquinas’ “likeness and proximity”.    She traces the genealogy of this rupture into 561
modern and postmodern culture, in particular through the work of Derrida. She 
argues that postmodern civilisation can best be described as a Necropolis, because of 
its quiet unease with death. For her this represents the nihilistic heart of modernity, 
the desire of the self to become rid of the horror of mortal annihilation by way of 
rushing to embrace and anticipate it. As Pickstock argues  
in seeking only life, modernity gives life over to death, removing all traces of 
death only to find that life has vanished with it. And so there is a nihilistic logic 
to this necrophiliac gesture, this sacrificing of life to a living death so as to ensure 
that when death arrives to unmask life of its tinsel, he finds only the presence of 
absence, life reduced to the deathliness of equivalence.   562
Her defense of transubstantiation is a corrective to the desire overcome this distance 
from, and this fascination with, death. She then outlines in more detail in the second 
 137
  Pickstock 1999: 263.560
  Ibid: 129.561
  Ibid: 104.562
part of the book a dense theological reflection on the pre-Vatican II Roman rite. 
Pickstock takes us through the transformation of time and space in the ritual of the 
Mass, wherein “the configuration of language as simultaneously 'gift' and 'sacrifice' 
exalts a different and salvific formulation of the various dichotomies which have been 
seen to reside at the heart of immanentism: orality and writing, time and space, gift 
and given, subject and object, active and passive, life and death.”   She argues, contra 563
Derrida, that in the eucharist there is a true middle voice that transcends the duality 
of activity and passivity because Christ’s sacrificial presence is “God ineffably both 
human and divine, active and passive.”   Language is redeemed from its Babylonian-564
Derridian fragmentation – where the sign is divorced from signified, presence 
divorced from absence – through the words of Jesus, who, referring to the sign of the 
bread and wine as identical with what they signify, “is identifying with his dead body 
in advance of its absence or death by pointing to something outside of himself, thus 
claiming death as an act of giving.”   She argues that the Derridean ‘linguistic turn’ 565
can itself be ‘turned around’ or converted so as to restore the sign to its life-giving 
signified and to reweave death into the fabric of life. As the author herself shows, the 
perfect model for this is Christ who, having embraced death as a "gift" to humanity, is 
resurrected from the dead in the anagogic return to the Father. It is precisely this 
dying and rising up from death that the Mass celebrates. This enables the agency of 
the believer to be determined by the transcendental gift they receive which reconciles 
life and death, material and spiritual, reason and revelation.   566
Milbank and Pickstock develop Pickstock’s earlier theology in Truth in Aquinas. They 
argue that the bread and wine at the eucharist, following their controversial reading of 
Aquinas, provides “the greatest inexhaustibility of meaning” and provides “a basis for 
the possibility of ‘truth’”.   They also use this eucharistic theology to critique 567
Derrida’s account of the sign, his emphasises on the “indeterminacy and flux of 
meaning” which leads Derrida to a “fetishizing of presence”.   Following de Lubac 568
they argue that the eucharist makes, and constantly reproduces, the Church; it is not 
simply a isolated presence, nor merely an empty symbol, for symbols, our signs, cannot 
be disconnected from the real, the presence of Christ truly and fully. Like Temple, 
 138
  Ibid: 169.563
  Ibid: 157.564
  Ibid: 163.565
  Ibid: 178.566
  Milbank and Pickstock 2000: 89.567
  Ibid: 92.568
they stress that only through the faithful reception of the eucharist can we experience 
our material surroundings as the possible vehicle of the divine, for if bread and wine 
can now be a vehicle for the divine flesh and blood then all things material things 
carry within themselves further depth and significance and truth.   The rupture of the 569
eucharist becomes the potential rupture of the whole of the material world to become 
a sacramental presence of the divine life. Like Temple, they argue that this can only 
make sense if the incarnation is perpetuated throughout time after Christ’s ascension 
in the eucharist. Like Temple they understand they see the eucharist as a synthesis of 
Divine gift and human labour, represented by the production of the bread and wine, 
which also symbolises all human sociality, indeed all materiality. This leads to a 
Temple like affirmation of the particularity of human culture, language and materials, 
that all are made one in Christ, all are redeemed, now open to seeing within creation 
the infinite depth of the divine life. The bread and wine “help us understand the 
miraculous created reality of the everyday”.   In this work they re-inforce Pickstock's 570
earlier insistence that “[o]utside the Eucharist, it is true, as postmodern theory holds, 
that there is no stable signification, no anchoring reference, no fixable meaning, and so 
no ‘truth’. This means that there is no physical thing whose nature one can ultimately 
trust. We have seen how the Eucharist dramatizes this condition, pushes it to an 
extreme, but then goes beyond it.”   But they maintain, as Temple did, that this is not 571
a discrete miracle it is rather a sign of promise that pulls all of human culture along 
with it and within it. The beginnings of trust established in taking the bread and wine 
is now extended and dispersed into all things, the trust in the gift of all creation, 
especially the ordinary and the everyday.   572
Temple also had a particular view on the Catholicity of the Church, or its koinonia, 
which led him to reject the idea that the local church should be made up of only one 
particular group of people. He argued that this was a diminishing of the Gospel, and 
an undermining of its power to reconcile people to God through Christ. Temple 
offered a broader and richer conception of church life through his insistence that 
believers were reconciled to each other by Christ alone and not through their own 
interests or commonality; his thoroughly Christocentric ecclesiology enabled such a 
position. In contrast, the starting point of MSC’s ecclesiology is dictated by its cultural 
 139
  Ibid: 96.569
  Ibid: 105.570
  Ibid: 109.571
  Ibid: 111.572
analysis. It states, following on from its adoption of the HUP principal, that, “[t]he 
incarnation principle points to the planting of churches that are culture-specific for 
those being reached” and “[s]ociological study shows that, when two cultures are 
together in a social context, a healthy heterogeneous mixture does not result – one 
tends to dominate the other.”   Therefore, the “Church has seldom effectively reached 573
[the poor]. Good news for the poor is only truly good news when it empowers the 
poor or marginalized to form their own communities of faith, in which indigenous 
people work together for change and renewal.”   MSC takes this understanding and 574
applies it to all areas of social life, suggesting that there should be churches for 
mother-and-toddler groups, age-related groups, or churches based around a common 
social concern, or ‘network’ interests such as leisure interests, music preferences, and 
even a particular disability.   The uniting element within Fresh Expressions of 575
Church are primarily found in people’s interests rather than in the reconciling work of 
Christ. The starting point for Temple’s ecclesiology was a vision of plenitude where all 
things were reconciled to God through Christ and all relationships were made new 
and whole in the light of this. MSC capitulates to a consumer-orientated form of 
ecclesial life where people go to church because they meet similar people. 
Temple’s understanding of the local church was also developed in contemporary 
ecumenical literature, where the church was understood to be Catholic “because its 
vocation is to unite in one eucharistic fellowship men and women of every race, 
culture and social condition in every generation.” This Catholicity “is the fruit of the 
work of Christ upon the cross, destroying all barriers of division, making Jews and 
Gentiles one holy people, both having access to the one Father by the one Spirit (cf. 
Eph. 2:14-18).”   Church as Communion also states that “[a]mid all the diversity that 576
the Catholicity intended by God implies, the Church's unity and coherence are 
maintained by the common confession of the one apostolic faith, a shared sacramental 
life, a common ministry of oversight and joint ways of reaching decisions and giving 
authoritative teaching.”   Going on to say, 577
 140
  MSC 2004: 108. The Homogeneous Unit Principle (HUP) states that: ‘People like to become Christians without 573
crossing racial/linguistic/class/cultural barriers.’ In other words, they prefer to remain who they are culturally while 
changing to being Christian. Culturally they remain the same, and tend to gather with others from the same culture 
who share their faith. It is this sameness that marks the group as ‘homogeneous’.
  Ibid: 109.574
  Ibid: 62-63.575
  Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission 1991: § 34.576
  Ibid: § 39.577
God intends the Church to be the re-creation in Christ Jesus of all the richness 
of human diversity that sin turns into division and strife (cf. Eph. 1:9,10). Insofar 
as this re-creation is authentically demonstrated in its life, the Church is a sign of 
hope to a divided world that longs for peace and harmony. It is the grace and 
Gospel of God that brings together this human diversity without stifling or 
destroying it; the Church's Catholicity expresses the depth of the wisdom of the 
Creator. Human beings were created by God in his love with such diversity in 
order that they might participate in that love by sharing with one another both 
what they have and what they are, thus enriching each other in their mutual 
communion.   578
Other ecumenical reports make similar arguments, stating that “Communion 
(koinonia) is true life (zóé alethine) because it overcomes ‘being-unto-death’, namely 
individualization and separation, the opposite of communion.”   579
Temple also argued that the Church should be the first fruits of the Kingdom, 
exhibiting within its own life the fullness of human life. We have already seen how 
this meant that the local church should be inclusive of all people and that the primary 
experience of the Kingdom was through participation in the eucharist. Temple’s 
ecclesiology developed out of this understanding. He conceived the Church as the 
Body of Christ in the world, and individual believers as representative of the Body of 
Christ in the world. The Church was called to witness to the Kingdom in its own life, 
and in its interaction with other social bodies, as were individual believers. His 
understanding of the specificity of the incarnation and the graced nature of creation 
meant that Temple articulated a broad concept of mission that saw the Church 
actively involved in every sphere of life, for the horizon of God’s salvific activity in 
Christ affected every sphere of life. Mission was carried out by a thoroughly educated 
and Spirit led (through sacramental participation) laity; the clergy and bishops were 
involved in this witnessing, but the laity were the most effective means of mission. The 
Malvern and COPEC conferences were both attempts to bring this about. Temple, in 
talking about the way in which participation in the life of the Church disciples, 
educates, and catechises people, saw this as an essential process in the Church’s 
attempt to renew society as a whole. In his own lifetime, Temple attempted to renew 
and reform areas as diverse as education, trade unionism, the post-war settlement with 
Germany, and the League of Nations as well as helping to create what would become 
 141
  Ibid: § 35.578
  Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Discussions 2009: section II, § 30; Section II, § 9 and 31.579
the Welfare State. Temple also provided a detailed account of the Church’s 
relationship with society at large, drawing from a Platonic reading of the virtues and 
the nature of community, which complemented his explicitly theological works. The 
Church neither consumed society nor abandoned it. Instead it stood in critical 
dialogue with society and the institutions that govern society – what he would term 
the judging aspect of the Church’s life. 
In contrast, MSC construes mission primarily as the activity of the Church gathered. 
It does not offer an account of discipleship nor envisage believers being empowered 
for mission and witness in the social, political and economic spheres of their own lives. 
Nor does it unpack the Church’s relationship to other social bodies, or whether and 
how the Church might partner other social bodies in order to effectively witness to 
the Kingdom. Essentially, MSC represents a capitulation to a privatised and 
individualised understanding of the Church and of the Kingdom. By implication 
Anglican ecclesiology is seen as something that is essentially isolated from the 
mandate of the Church to be the true image of the Kingdom of God in the world, 
witnessing to the reality of a Kingdom that affects every area of life. 
Yet recent Anglican writers, such as Milbank, in Theology and Social Theory, have 
argued for a return to a more comprehensive, Temple-like, ecclesiology.   The work of 580
Radical Orthodox theologians counters the secular notion that Christian religious 
belief (indeed all religious belief ) should be confined to the private sphere having no 
public place. Williams also suggests that the Church attempts through its actions in 
the world to demonstrate and embody the way in which the infinite variety of human 
life and human concerns can be made welcome and at home in its own life which is 
the life of Christ.   The Church of the Triune God states that, “[t]he Church’s mission is 581
to open up every human situation to the possibility of transfiguration; ... [i]n this new 
and unique context culture, together with every other aspect of human life, is 
transfigured, and becomes an occasion for love towards God and love towards the 
image of God, the human being, as well as the entire cosmos.”   The Porvoo 582
statement also says: 
The Church, as communion, must be seen as instrumental to God's ultimate 
purpose ... the reconciliation of humankind and of all creation ... the Church is 
 142
  Milbank 1990 and 2009: parts two and three and Ward 2000: 1-24 and 2005: 117ff.580
  Williams 2002: 57.581
  Anglican, Triune, Section III, § 38.582
sent into the world as a sign, instrument and foretaste of a reality which comes 
from beyond history ... it points to the reality of the Kingdom. The Holy Spirit 
bestows gifts [which] are for the common good of the whole people ... [a]ll 
members are called to discover, the gifts they have received and to use them ... for 
the service of the world to which the Church is sent.   583
However, the mission of the Church and its members in the world calls for a 
discerning understanding of the world, of each and every context in which the Church 
finds itself. To understand ones context materially and historically was a theological 
imperative for Temple and he developed his idea of double judgement as a means of 
understanding the world and discerning truth in the world. The Church needed a 
right understanding of its context – a cultural hermeneutic – which led to, and 
enabled, the Church to be critical of some aspects of the state or other social bodies. 
MSC does not develop, nor draw upon works that develop, an account of its context in 
such a critical fashion. On the one hand, the report does appear to be alert to some of 
the insidious aspects of its consumerist context when it recognises that consumerism 
“creates a self-indulgent society”, but it then goes on to say that “[i]n one sense there 
is no alternative to a consumer society ... [t]hat is what we are, that is where we are 
and that is where we must be church and embody the Gospel.”   It recognises that 584
the values in such a society have “moved from ‘progress’ to ‘choice’ – the absolute right 
of freedom to choose [and that] choice lies at the centre of consumerism, both as its 
emblem and as its core value.” MSC then, as we have stated previously, makes choice 
the centre of its ecclesial missiological strategy, a strategy that we have demonstrated 
is clearly at odds with the Anglican tradition. Ecumenical reports also stress the need 
for the Church to be discerning, acknowledging the imperative to bring the Gospel to 
each and every culture, whilst also aware of the dangers of doing so. The ARCIC 
report, Life in Christ, admits the needs to be open to the world, acknowledging that 
the Church should not be “an inwardly pious and self-regarding group, withdrawn 
from the world and its conflicts”.   Likewise in Salvation in the Church, “[t]he Church 585
is required to carry out this task in such a way that the Gospel may be heard as good 
news in differing ages and cultures, while at the same time seeking neither to alter its 
content nor minimise its demands.”   The Church of the Triune God states that the 586
 143
  Council Porvoo, §14.583
  MSC, p. 10.584
  Anglican, Life, § 15.585
  Anglican, Salvation, § 27.586
Church “must remain faithful to the tradition received from the apostles.”   For “[i]n 587
seeking to express Christology in terms of its own setting, each local church has a 
responsibility to the whole Church to be loyal to the Gospel. The communion 
(koinonia) of the local churches implies dialogue among them on their understanding 
of the Christologies of the New Testament and the Ecumenical Councils.”   This 588
process – the sharing of the Gospel in every age – “constitutes what is called the living 
Tradition, the living memory of the Church. Without this the faithful transmission of 
the Gospel is impossible.”   These reports, like Temple’s work, offer a much more 589
robust view of the Church, enabling them to see the Church’s need to be in continual 
critical dialogue with the cultures amongst which it finds itself. 
It has become clear that the ecclesiology of MSC stands in stark contrast to the 
ecclesiology of Temple. Yet it is Temple’s ecclesiology that is in continuity with 
contemporary Anglican thought and practice, the theology of Anglican ecumenical 
reports and the Canons of the Church of England. It was faithful to the sacramental, 
communal and Catholic understanding of the Church and to the Church of England’s 
own tradition as well as the broader Christian tradition. Yet Temple sought to write a 
theology that was deeply contextual, taking seriously his own context over the course 
of his lifetime. He desired to be faithful to the faith he had inherited, yet was always 
open to the manner in which new philosophies, new social contexts, and new social 
concerns, could enliven and deepen that faith. His work can only be understood 
against his context, it cannot – though others have erroneously attempted this – be 
detached from it. Knowing his context actually enlivens his writings and his practical 
work vividly illustrates his theological vision. This therefore means that to respond 
critically to the ecclesiology of MSC with Temple’s ecclesiological vision is also to take 
seriously the current context the Church of England finds itself in. For the 
incarnational and sacramental emphasis of Temple’s ecclesiology must lead us directly 
into an account of the Church of England’s reciprocal relations with the culture in 
which it is situated. 
!
 144
  Ibid, § 29.587
  Ibid, § 32.588
  Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Discussions 2009: § 27. See also Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal 589
Commission 1998: I.4.
Chapter Four

The sociology of MSC 
Introduction 
This chapter will focus on assessing MSC’s sociology, that is its description of the 
Church of England’s contemporary context. We will examine the claims of the report, 
seeking to ascertain its sources and whether it accurately represents their views. Then 
we shall employ the work of a sociologist in order to examine whether the sociology of 
MSC is adequate and also to construct a comprehensive account of English social 
reality. 
There is a need at this point to ascertain what sort of sociology this thesis needs to 
employ in order to construct a critical account of MSC’s sociology. First is the question 
of whether to use a social theorist, such as Bauman, Beck, Habermas or Giddens or an 
empirical sociologist, such as Davie, Woodhead or Bruce. The empirical sociology of 
Davie, as well as Bruce and Woodhead, is based upon empirical data gathered to 
ascertain the continuing relevance of religion socially and to assess in what form 
religion is developing alongside the emerging economies of the world. Their work is 
not principally concerned with the various ideologies at work within the social world 
of the West and the manner in which individuals, institutions (including the Church), 
and societies are affected by these. Their work is useful in tracing the continuing 
significance of religious belief and the patterns and forms this belief takes as well as 
critically tracing the social conditions and ideologies that shape and/or direct that 
belief. Yet this critical focus is often underdeveloped. For example Davie's work 
focuses almost exclusively on religious belief itself rather than the general social 
conditions within which religious groups find themselves. She is interested in the 
patterns of religious belief, and as such she is helpful in understanding the continuing 
significance of religious belief in England. Even though her work touches on 
consumerism and its development in late-modernity, she is less interested in these 
social forces, their development, and the manner in which they have affected society, 
whereas the work of social theorist, such as Bauman, is keen to trace exactly these 
sorts of developments and their import on every aspect of contemporary life. So 
although empirical sociology would assist this thesis in tracing the continuing 
influence religion has in and on British society, as well as assessing the empirical 
merits of MSC’s sociology, it is not a natural partner for a critical engagement with the 
sociology of MSC, which is largely determined by a social theorist (Bauman). The 
social theories of Bauman, Beck, Habermas and Giddens are more capable of 
assessing the sociology of MSC (and in turn, understanding the Church of England's 
present context) because their work is exactly interested in the ideological forces that 
have, and do, shape and govern contemporary sociality, which MSC’s sociology itself 
attempts to trace. 
The work of Beck, Giddens and Habermas does not feature in MSC at all, whereas the 
work of Bauman does serve (in MSC’s opinion) as one of its sociological sources. The 
work of Beck, Giddens and Habermas can best be summerised as being concerned 
with the various social processes at work within modernity. Habermas’ is concerned 
with the influence of social and political systems on the life-world of actors (the 
‘background’ environment of competences, practices, and attitudes representable in 
terms of one's cognitive horizon).   He is interested in the way in which 590
communication is stifled in modernity due to the increasing isolation of actors from 
the various systems of control and the way in which actors life-worlds are increasingly 
shaped by the system. Habermas believed that communicative competence has 
developed through the course of evolution, but in contemporary society it is often 
suppressed or weakened by the way in which the major systems of social life – the 
market, the state – have been given over to or taken over by strategic/instrumental 
rationality. This led to the logic of the system supplanting that of the lifeworld of the 
actor. He traced the growing intervention of formal systems in actors everyday lives 
which lessened the ability of actors' to communicate meaningfully in, and to, the 
widening areas of public life. He argued that the result of this was that boundaries 
between public and private, the individual and society, the system and the lifeworld 
were deteriorating. For Habermas democratic public life only thrived where 
institutions enable citizens to debate matters of public importance. His theory of 
communicative action, whereby ‘pure speech’, free from interference by the media, 
economic, and political processes, could reveal open communication for the 
transmission and debate of ideas in order to better people’s life-world, would, he 
hoped, lead actors to be emancipated from these systems of control. Although 
Habermas’ work would certainly enliven the Church’s understanding of the difficulty 
of participation, in particular, through communication in Western democratic states, 
and the ways in which this is being impeded, it lacks the specific focus and breadth 
that is required in order to understand the multiple ways in which actors' lives are 
 146
  See Habermas 1981 and 1985.590
shaped by the differing forces of modernity and is therefore not best suited for use in 
this thesis. 
Beck’s work has largely been concerned with the concept of risk.   He argues that in 591
late modernity people's behaviours are preoccupied with how to avoid, prevent, and 
manage risks, whether they are new pandemics, environmental pollution, or terrorism. 
He developed the theory of risk society, which is a major characterisation of reflexive 
modernity (his and Giddens’ term for contemporary modernity), concerning how risks 
can be prevented, minimized, or channeled. These risks are produced by the sources of 
wealth in modern society. Industry, for example, produces a wide range of hazardous 
consequences that reach across time and space. Beck has also argued that science has 
become a protector of a global contamination of people and nature. His most recent 
works have suggested that subgroups, such as large companies, are more likely than 
the governments to lead the way when coping with risks. For the purposes of this 
thesis Beck’s work is too focused on the forces of risk in a globalised world, although it 
offers insight into the way in which risk often characterises actors' behaviour. Like 
Habermas it does not offer a overarching multi-faceted understanding of the Church 
of England’s context, nor would it easily lend itself to a critical analysis of the 
sociology of MSC. 
Giddens developed several major sociological theories, the most well-known being 
structuration theory, which is a form of social ontology.   It sought to define what 592
sorts of things exist in the world, rather than setting out laws of development. It tells 
us what sociologists are looking at when they study society rather than how a society 
works. As such it rejected functionalism and evolutionary theory (with regard to 
sociology) because for Giddens they were closed systems, whereas social phenomena 
and events were always contingent and open-ended. His theory attempted to close the 
gap between action and structure by suggesting that social practices by actors produce 
and reproduce structures through rules and resources. His later concept of Historical 
Sociology explored, by way of his structuration theory, how time and space are 
important in understanding social theory and social analysis, particularly the way in 
which society binds together time and space. 
Giddens has also worked on a sociology of modernity, which he argues is given 
dynamism by three processes.   First: time and space distanciation, referring to the 593
 147
  See Beck 1992, 1999, 2009.591
  Giddens 1984.592
  Giddens 1990 and 1991.593
tendency for modern relationships to be increasingly distant. Second, and related to 
this, is his idea of disembedding, which involves the lifting out of social relations from 
local contexts of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time-
space. In such a system, trust becomes necessary because we no longer have full 
information about social phenomena. Third: reflexivity, the idea that the social 
practices of modern society are constantly reexamined and reformed in the light of 
incoming information. Although out of the sociologists examined thus far Giddens 
work has the broadest range of approaches to sociology in modernity, his work is very 
closely tied to understanding structures within modernity rather than focusing closely 
on the affects of these structures on actors. His work, as well as that of Habermas or 
Beck, would certainly counter many of the deficiencies of the sociology of MSC but it 
does not adequately deal in depth with a culture of consumption and consumerism, 
which shapes the ecclesiology and missiology of the report. 
This thesis contends that it is the work of Bauman that offers the most compelling 
theory which can best help us can understand the Church of England’s social context 
and offer a substantive critique of the sociology of MSC. He is a mature social 
theorist, and his work has gone through several modifications, being the product of 
over forty years of writing and researching. Significantly, his work, in contrast to the 
above sociologists, is deliberately written from the perspective of the UK  (though the 
same could be said of Giddens), where he has lived for the last forty years. He has 
recently developed a sociological theory of solid and liquid modernity, building on his 
early works on modernity and postmodernity. This theory seeks to trace the 
continuing development of contemporary modernity. His work is truly innovative, 
because it is able to represent many sociological traditions, using the strengths of each, 
leading his sociology to be rich and varied in its methodological sources.   He draws 594
from the insights of Habermas, Beck and Giddens, whilst always focusing on the 
affect of the social environment and systems on actors. He is concerned with the 
difficult aspects of contemporary sociality, the often hidden more insidious forms of 
culture. Central to his work is his theory of consumer culture. He traces the influence 
of this ideology across the many contours of contemporary society, from industry, to 
politics, and globalisation. Given that MSC itself also attempts to construct a theory 
of the development of modernity, and the emergence of postmodernity Bauman’s 
work is  a natural partner to assess how well MSC achieves its goal. Yet the strongest 
reason for using Bauman is that he is also one of the main sources of the sociology of 
 148
  Beilharz 2010.594
MSC. Given that a critical examination of MSC forms the basis of this thesis it is 
therefore important to critically access Bauman’s sociology, accessing how well he is 
represented, and if he is not well represented whether his work might actually have 
been of benefit to the construction of MSC’s sociology. However, before we consider 
the sociology of Bauman we must first trace the sociology of MSC itself. 
!
The Sociology of MSC 
In chapters two and three we explored the theological development and genealogy of 
MSC. We noted the importance of contextual theology and sociological material as 
the basis for its missiology and ecclesiology. Within the working papers of MSC it was 
clear very early on to those compiling the report that, “[t]he post-modern context is 
accepted as the given – [it is characterised by] mobility, fragmentation, connectivity, 
materialism/consumerism.”   The report goes on to describe the apparent widespread 595
and systematic social changes that have occurred over the last few decades of the 
twentieth century in England. First, it asserts that society is increasingly dominated by 
the power of networks, which affect family life, employment patterns, housing 
patterns, financial markets, the economy, the power of the nation state and social 
mobility on a national and international scale. This results in what it terms “a 
fragmented society”.   It claims these local changes are also mirrored within the 596
wider Western world, which is also increasingly dominated by the emergence of a 
network-based society.   Second, MSC argues for the emergence of consumer-597
orientated culture; people’s identity is now found in what they consume not what they 
produce. Citizenship is no longer predicated on the modern notion of progress, where 
what one produced contributed an overarching vision of better life; we now contribute 
by being ‘good’ consumers. A core value of this new society is that the proliferation of 
choice fulfills the needs of the individual. Truth claims have become based on choice 
and relativised to the desires of the individual, and what they understand best fulfills 
their needs. MSC suggests that such a networked and consumer society is essentially 
theologically neutral, stating that “there is no alternative to a consumer culture. This is 
where we are, and where we must be church and embody the gospel.”   However, it 598
 149
  Notes from Breaking New Ground 2 Meeting 2002b.595
  MSC 2004: 1-4.596
  Ibid: 4-5.597
  Ibid: 10.598
does argue that consumerism, at its worst, can create self-indulgent societies, where 
the poor are excluded because they cannot consume.   MSC sees these social changes 599
as part of the emergence of a postmodern society, which presents unique problems to 
the contemporary church, and as such requires some unique missiological and 
ecclesiological responses, as we previously explored. Several of the Fresh Expressions 
explored in MSC are introduced as responding to this postmodern culture.   We also 600
noted in chapter one that there is a notable reliance upon the early work of Bauman 
(through secondary literature), who MSC uses to reinforce its theory that Western 
society had undergone a sociological shift from the culture of modernity to that of 
postmodernity. The report also draws on qualitative research from the Henley Centre 
to further illustrate these changes.   MSC describes a radical discontinuity between 601
the present modern culture of the Church of England and the culture(s) of 
postmodernity. This results in an ecclesial discontinuity between the present ordering 
and practices of the Church of England and the emerging ordering and practices of 
Fresh Expressions of church within these new cultures. Crucially for this thesis, the 
argument that the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries brought about a 
cultural shift from modernity to postmodernity allows MSC to suggest that these 
extreme social changes create a parallel need for the Church to explore radical shifts in 
its ecclesiology in order adequately to address the requirements of these new contexts. 
Yet are the claims that MSC makes shared up by other sociologists? Does the work of 
Bauman construct such a harsh distinction between the cultures of modernity and 
postmodernity to justify the ecclesial turn that MSC makes? Or would Bauman reject 
such a reading of his work? I will demonstrate over the course of this chapter that 
MSC actually misrepresents Bauman, and also draws on a particular strand of 
sociology that has seriously been questioned in the last few decades. 
MSC also couples the emergence of postmodernity with the emergence of post-
Christendom, relying on the work of Murray-Williams.   MSC links the demise of 602
Christendom to the rise of individualism and the emergence of consumer culture, 
where people can now ‘pick and mix’ their religious beliefs as they see fit, seeing no 
need to adhere to traditional religious frameworks, nor institutional forms of 
religion.   As a result of this in the last half of the twentieth century the Church of 603
 150
  Ibid.599
  Ibid: 45 and 64.600
  MSC, p. 5.601
  Murray-Williams 1998 and Bartley 2005.602
  MSC 2004: 6.603
England has experienced a rapid decline in attendance, as well as the number of 
baptisms, confirmations and funerals, resulting in what Brown calls, “the death of the 
culture that formerly conferred Christian identity upon the British people as a 
whole.”   For Brown, if a core identity survives for British people, it is certainly no 604
longer Christian. The culture of Christianity has gone in the Britain of the new 
millennium. 
MSC’s advocacy of social postmodernity is also partially based in its adoption of 
certain contextual missiologists’ positions, as well as its reliance misinterpretation of 
Bauman. In chapter two we traced the genealogy of MSC, noting how it drew upon 
the sociology found in Bosch, Newbigin and Murray-Williams. Each argued that a 
significant cultural shift had occurred within the West that called for an entirely new 
mission strategy and ecclesiology. Bosch advocated that a paradigm shift was 
underway from the culture of the Enlightenment to a post-enlightenment, or 
postmodern, culture.   Following Bosch, Newbigin also argued that the West had 605
moved from a modern to a postmodern era, placing the Western church in a new 
missionary situation which required radically new missionary methods.   Stuart 606
Murray-Williams – quoted several times in MSC in relation to its assertions that 
Britain is entering a post-Christendom era – also emphasised that a postmodern 
culture was the setting for the demise of Christendom, and that there is a close 
relationship between the end of modernity and Christendom, and the emergence of 
postmodernity and post-Christendom. He, like MSC, argued that there needed to be 
a radical discontinuity between the mission practices and ecclesiology in Christendom 
and the mission practices and ecclesiology in post-Christendom.   607
The social description of English culture that MSC outlined has not been revised in 
current Fresh Expressions of church literature or teaching material. The official Fresh 
Expressions website states that Fresh Expressions of church are primarily a response 
to the emergence of a postmodern culture within Britain. Fresh Expressions core team 
member Norman Ivison states that, “I have always been amazed at the imagination 
and daring some Christians show as they begin to take mission seriously and want to 
encourage others to take real risks in this post-modern age.”   The Fresh Expressions 608
 151
  Brown 2001: 193.604
  Bosch 1991: 349-362.605
  Newbigin 1996: 7-12 and p. 64ff and 1995: 27 and 46ff.606
  Murray-Williams 2004 and 2005: 12ff and 228ff.607
  Fresh Expressions 2012d.608
webpage describing ordained pioneer ministry states that pioneers are those who have 
“opportunities to focus on Christian engagement with postmodern society”.   On the 609
Share the Guide website   under the section ‘Fresh Expressions and post-modern 610
society’ it states that “Fresh Expressions can be seen as more personalised forms of 
church – Christian communities that are ‘customised’ to specific networks and 
neighbourhoods.”   The website also allows practitioners to contribute with stories 611
and reflections from their own Fresh Expressions of church: the majority use the term 
postmodern as a general cultural descriptor.   It also states that Fresh Expressions are 612
churches that “are wrestling with the challenges presented to the Christian faith by 
‘post-modern’ culture, thought and behaviour.”   The ‘Mission Shaped Ministry 613
course’, a taught introduction to starting and developing Fresh Expressions of church, 
states in its introductory session to culture that, “[t]here are obviously a host of factors 
in our post-modern world, such as advancing technology, expansive media, increasing 
opportunity for local and global travel, not to mention individualism and 
materialism.”   614
In summary, we can see that MSC argues that a cultural paradigm shift has taken 
place from the culture of modernity to the culture of postmodernity. We see that it 
constructs this social account partially based upon its reading of Bauman. It goes on to 
claim, based on this paradigm shift, that the Church now needs to be market-driven, 
placing itself as another product which must compete in the marketplace of religions. 
However, the report fails to develop any sort of critical hermeneutic towards such a 
culture, an important weakness that will be explored further when we outline 
Bauman’s own critical take on consumer culture. 
We shall now move on to explore the work of Bauman. Given that his work forms 
part of the theoretical basis of MSC, it is important to consider whether it adequately 
represents him and whether the report’s assertions regarding missiology and 
ecclesiology are justifiable in light of a critical reading of his work. We shall also 
explore whether current sociology broadly accepts the postmodern thesis that MSC, 
Bosch, Newbigin and Murray-Williams all advocate. 
 152
  Fresh Expressions 2012e.609
  A site hosted by Fresh Expressions that gives advice on starting and sustaining Fresh Expressions of Church.610
  Accessed from http://www.sharetheguide.org/section1/3/postmodern on 12/12/2010.611
  Share the guide 2012a-i.612
  Ibid 2012i.613
  Mission Shaped Ministry Course 2012.614
!
!
!
Introduction to Bauman’s work 
Bauman can best be described as a sociologist, yet attempts to place his work in a 
particular sociological discourse or category are difficult because it steadfastly refuses 
any such categorisation. Jacobsen and Poder state that he has variously been called a 
“‘storyteller’, ‘socialist’, ‘structuralist’, ‘critical theorist’, ‘humanistic Marxist’, 
‘existentialist’, ‘hermeneutic sociologist’, ‘postmodernist’ [and even a] ‘poet-
intellectual’”.   Bauman resists attemps to classify his work and deliberately uses a 615
variety of sociological discourses, including those listed by Jacobsen and Poder, to 
elucidate and enliven his work. Bauman himself, when explaining his own method, 
says that, “[i]n all my books I constantly enter into the same room, only that I enter 
the room through different doors. So I see the same things, the same furniture, but out 
of a different perspective.”   Bauman’s approach can best be described as a form of 616
cultural sociology, which holds together the strands of culture and power, image or 
symbol and human relationships.  
His work constantly dialogues with existing sociological categories, criticising their 
assumptions and developing new ideas by bringing together previously disparate 
elements. Metaphors are used systematically to illustrate the lived experience of 
different people. Central to his sociology is a deep concern for the human 
consequences of social development. He does not deal with abstract social processes 
but is always turned towards the effects of social change and social occurrences on 
people’s lives, particularly those who are marginalised and excluded by new social 
developments and conditions. His work therefore always has political and moral 
concern. Blackshaw suggests that the whole gamut of his sociology can be understood 
as seeking an answer to the question of how social development in modernity has 
affected the “morality and suffering of human beings and their concerns with 
 153
  Jacobsen 2008: 3.615
  Welzer 2002: 109.616
community, love and memory and the pain and happiness [these social processes] 
bring.”   617
His method also exposes his concern that sociology can be wedded too closely to 
descriptions that have outlived the era that gave rise to them, for “concepts tend to 
outlive the historical configurations which gave them birth and infused them with 
meaning.”   Development within his own sociology suggests that Bauman takes this 618
claim seriously. He sees sociology as part of an ongoing communal effort by humans 
to understand and comprehend their social environment in order to better it, and in 
particular to help focus on the way in which social conditions affect people’s freedom 
and morality, causing some to suffer. Smith, Bielefeld and Bunting have each traced 
these central concerns of Bauman to two key experiences. First, Bauman’s own 
experience as a Jewish member of the exiled Polish Army, who fought in the battle to 
liberate Berlin and in Poland during the fifties and sixties. He was an initially loyal but 
increasingly critical member of the Communist Party, being expelled in 1968 and 
having to flee to Britain as a political refugee because of the increasingly anti-Semitic 
sentiment towards him and his wife. Second, his wife’s experience of surviving the 
Warsaw ghetto and then hiding for two years from the Nazis in order to avoid 
deportation to the death camps.   619
Bauman’s use of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Freud and Foucault, as well as insights from 
the Frankfurt School, can best be seen in light of these formative experiences. They 
also clarify his desire to explore the darker side of modernity. Bauman develops the 
the work of the Frankfurt School which was critical of Marx because it believed his 
work had succumbed to economic determinism, was too mechanical, and was too 
focused on a purely economic critique when it needed to focus on the whole of social 
life.   It attempted to broaden Marx’s thesis to include the cultural realm, and it was 620
critical of existing modern sociology because of its scientific posivitism which made 
sociology captive to the existing society and unable to critique it by transcending it. It 
could not help people who were oppressed because it focused too narrowly on the 
society as a whole rather than on individual actors. It could not say anything 
meaningful about political change, and became “an integral part of the existing society 
 154
  Blackshaw 2005: 16.617
  Bauman 1982: 192.618
  Bunting 2003 and Bielefeld 2002 and chapter three Smith 1999.619
  Ritzer 2006: 144-148.620
instead of being a means of critique and a ferment of renewal.”   Bauman followed 621
the Frankfurt School’s reorientation of Marxism and incorporated a subjective 
element in his own work, enabling him to bring to the fore an understanding of the 
influence of the subjective elements of the social at both individual and cultural levels. 
Bauman also developed their thinking on ideology, the role it played within culture 
and the manner in which people were dominated by it, of particular interest for this 
thesis is his thinking regarding consumer culture and commodification.   622
Bauman also followed the Frankfurt School in suggesting that domination in the 
modern world occurred more often via cultural than just economic processes.   He, 623
like the Weberian-Marxists, focuses on cultural domination at work in modern 
societies, particularly the increasing rationalisation of modernity. He adopted Weber’s 
distinction between formal rationalisation – that is technocratic thinking whereby the 
goal is simply to find the most efficient means to ends – and substantive rationality – 
the hope for society founded in terms of the ultimate values of peace, justice and 
happiness. The Frankfurt School identified Nazism in general and concentration 
camps in particular as formal rationalisation, a theme Bauman would reflect in his first 
major work.   Though Bauman’s work focused on late capitalism in modern or liquid 624
modern culture, he developed the Frankfurt School’s work on domination and 
technology through his exploration of globalisation and virtual geography, the concept 
of the stranger, the subsuming of politics to consumerism and the reorientation of 
desire.   625
Bauman was also influenced by several other theorists who helped him to modify and 
develop his early sociology. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish gave Bauman a way to 
conceptualise society in general as analogous to the society of the factory: an 
institution of confinement and discipline itself.   Bauman was also influenced by 626
Freud in his critiques of nationalism, and its reliance upon the figure of a scapegoat.  627
Bauman argued that if classical culture was shadowed by Sisyphus, Prometheus and 
Oedipus, then modern Western culture’s striking figures are Frankenstein – the 
hideous other that must be destroyed – and Faust – the willingness to sacrifice 
 155
  Tar 1977: x.621
  Agger 1991 and Schroyer 1973.622
  Ritzer 2006: 144ff.623
  Bauman 1989b.624
  Ibid.625
  Foucault 1991.626
  Freud 1965: 295-296.627
everything to satiate one’s own desires. Bauman saw nationalism as the cultural 
embodiment of these figures because it encouraged citizens to destroy or expel those 
who did not fulfil certain racial types, and was also willing to remove or suspend 
certain civil liberties to carry out this task. Bauman was interested in the dark side of 
these forces, arguing that nationalism rests on the postulation of the ‘other’, an enemy 
to be overcome and destroyed. He developed this idea using Simmel’s category of the 
‘stranger’ (one who comes and goes, who is offered provisional or probationary 
belonging or assimilation, but whose type of belonging is always tentative, open to 
suspension at the will of the host).   Bauman’s later work on liquid modernity, would 628
give the ‘stranger’ and the ‘other’ new names – the ‘vagabond’ and the ‘tourist’ – 
representing a new type of master-slave relationship, a domination based on mobility 
rather than just capital.   629
The starting point for Bauman’s work was a severe critique of some of the classical 
assumptions sociologists held about modernity. Although this thesis will use Bauman’s 
theory of Liquid Modernity both to critique MSC and to provide a more adequate 
sociological basis, it is necessary to trace the manner in which this theory developed 
from within his oeuvre, for its sociological hallmarks emerge from these earlier works. 
We shall briefly trace the two major foci – modernity and the holocaust and 
potmodernity – that would lay the groundwork for his most recent and mature theory. 
!
Bauman and Modernity 
The sociology of MSC argues for social postmodernism based partially on its 
misreading of Bauman it is important therefore to demonstrate that Bauman's work 
actually takes seriously the continuing significance of modernity. Even though he 
would later modify his thesis of modernity and postmodernity the themes of 
modernity would still continue to animate and guide his work. MSC’s use of his theory 
fails to take this into account. MSC posits a clean break between the culture of 
modernity and the culture of postmodernity that Bauman himself does not argue for. 
Bauman’s early work focused on the culture of modernity, which he characterised as a 
“movement with a direction”, driven by universalisation, systemisation and 
 156
  Simmel 1950.628
  Bauman 2000.629
rationalisation.   Modernity was a way of organising society that was geared towards 630
resolving the problem of order. It sought to bring about the homogenisation of 
individuals, who were expected to share similar values, attitudes and beliefs. Bauman 
suggested that the kind of societies we now call modern emerged in the eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries.   Prior to this, society was largely ordered by religious 631
world-views, but during the eighteenth century religious world-views began to break 
down and as a consequence people saw that the world was actually less ordered than 
they thought, it was more contingent and people became increasingly disenchanted. 
He suggested that people responded to this by seeing difference, discord and chaos as 
the enemies of society.   This discord led people to construct a society around order, 632
marking the beginning of modern society, a society that sought to “disqualif[y] any 
uncertified agency.”   Every attempt was made to preclude activities that destabilised 633
society in its struggle for survival and there was a firm belief that progress could only 
be sustained by the state ignoring the judgements of individuals and acting in what it 
believed to be its own interests. Bauman argued that the modern mind was like the 
mind of the gardener who is horrified by the weed that ruins his view of the garden: 
the key knowledge was that he knew what a weed was.   Bauman argued that this 634
was why utopias played such a prominent role in modern society. They provided an 
endpoint, functioning as a beacon to guide the long march of modernity, they enabled 
it to continue to rid itself of difference in the hope of progressing towards a perfect 
society.   635
Bauman was interested in the darker aspects of modernity, and his first major work on 
modernity, Modernity and the Holocaust, mounted a serious critique of the forms of 
society modernity had created. In this work, he argued that when people thought of 
the Holocaust they thought of it as an exception, a regression into barbarism, 
something unique and peculiar that had happened to the Jews.   Most sociologists at 636
that time viewed the Holocaust as a breakdown of modernity or a special route taken 
within it.   Yet, Bauman asked, was there a closer connection between the holocaust 637
and modernity? Was the Holocaust a natural result of modernity rather than a 
 157
  Bauman 1991a: 188.630
  Bauman 1991b: 31ff.631
  Ibid: 61ff.632
  Bauman 1991a: 190.633
  Bauman 1989: 219ff.634
  Bauman 2002: 222-223.635
  See introduction Bauman 1989.636
  Varcoe 1995: 221-223 and 231-234.637
regression? For Bauman, the Holocaust was a byproduct of the modern quest to 
establish an ordered world. The modern paradigm of rationality was found in the 
Holocaust, for “considered as a complex purposeful operation, the holocaust may serve 
as a paradigm of modern bureaucratic rationality.”   Bauman, following the same line 638
of thinking as Arendt’s famous work, Eichmann in Jerusalem, argued that the 
Holocaust needed modern means for its implementation: modern bureaucracy.   He 639
rejected the thesis that the Holocaust was caused primarily by anti-semitism. Instead 
he argued that anti-semitism was a modern form of social engineering – the desire to 
create a better social order by either the modification, or in this case the eradication of 
those elements that are not as desired.   The Holocaust involved the application of 640
the basic principals of industrialisation – factory systems in particular – to the 
destruction of human beings. It treated humans as cargo, the raw ingredients of the 
factories, which poured forth the smoke of smelted human beings.   Bauman argued 641
that “[t]he truth is that every “ingredient” of the Holocaust – all those many things 
which rendered it possible – was normal; not “normal” in the sense of the familiar … 
but in the sense of being fully in keeping with everything we know about our 
civilisation, its guiding spirit, its priorities, its immanent vision of the world.”   He 642
then focused on the increased efficiency of action and the effects it has on individual 
morality, using both the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures and 
Zimbardo’s experiment on the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or a guard 
as comparable evidence.   He argued that these modern methods had given rise to a 643
disconnection between the actor’s actions and the victim’s suffering by virtue of 
providing a substitute morality of duty and discipline; this disconnection was also 
observed by Milgram and Zimbardo in their own experiments. Historically, these 
forms of rationality and organisation also promoted cooperation by the Nazis’ victims. 
The Jews were themselves part of the process, in that it encompassed them; the ghetto 
itself was “an extension of the murdering machine”   – the leaders of the ghetto 644
communities carried out most of the preliminary bureaucratic work. Bauman argued 
that as social relationships are rationalised so the possibility of these sorts of inhuman 
 158
  Bauman 1989: 149. Arendt 1963.638
  Bauman 1989: 76ff. The Holocaust was also dependent on the modern phenomena of racist theory and the 639
medical-therapeutic syndrome.
  Ibid: 65.640
  Ibid: 8.641
  Ibid: 8.642
  Milgram, 1974 and Haney 1973.643
  Bauman 1989: 136.644
immoral action increases.   Yet the Holocaust was not an end in itself - it was a 645
means to an end. It was a moment when the quest for order was carried out in its 
most brutal fashion. It was made possible by, and unthinkable without, the rational 
world of modernity. 
Jacobsen argues that Bauman’s thesis undermined much modern sociology which had 
argued that modernity was essentially a civilising process.   Weber saw modernity as 646
providing the progressive rationalising of all spheres of social life, he missed its darker 
side which Bauman illuminated.   Bauman suggested that the Holocaust had fatally 647
exposed the true telos of modernity and had contributed to its unraveling, an 
unravelling which resulted in the emergence of postmodernity. This was a theme that 
would occupy Bauman for his next three major works. 
Modernity and the Holocaust has received some criticism: some suggested that 
Bauman’s view of modernity as a quest for order is a little too simple and one sided.  648
Mann, for example argued that Bauman downplayed the specificity of the Holocaust 
– particularly the coming together of important factors such as ethnic nationalism, 
that embraced racism in its own self-understanding, and imperial expansion through 
militarisation, which became linked to the expendability of certain ethnic groups.  649
Despite these shortcomings however, Modernity and the Holocaust represented a key 
development in sociology, introduced some of the central themes that Bauman would 
develop in his later works, and also clearly reflected his concern with the darker 
aspects of modern culture. This focus shows how MSC in postulating a neutral view of 
culture misrepresents Bauman, for Bauman’s work is always turned to the shadows, to 
the sinister. By ignoring one of the central concerns and critical aspect of his sociology 
MSC succumbs to a form of cultural positivism which neglects – at great cost – the 
more destructive aspects of the Church of England’s cultural context. MSC even 
occasionally makes these an essential component of its missiology and ecclesiology, 
suggesting, for example, that poor people should have their own form of church, or 
that increasing social fragmentation into cultural ghettos should be embraced by the 
church, further highlighting the acceptance of a market and consumer driven ideology. 
Bauman categorically rejects the idea of cultural neutrality, and, like the Frankfurt 
 159
  Ibid: 154.645
  Jacobsen 2008: 7-8.646
  Ibid.647
  Marshman 2008: 85ff.648
  Mann 2004.649
School, sees such a line of thinking as incapable of critically assessing its own culture, 
and, by implication, remaining largely unaware of, and therefore incapable of, re-
imagining society away from its more destructive elements. 
!
Bauman and Postmodernity 
Given that MSC emphasises Bauman's theory of postmodernity it is necessary to 
assess how well it represents him. In particular MSC’s depiction of the relationship 
between modernity and postmodernity. Has MSC placed too much emphasis on the 
discontinuity between the two and does Bauman himself make such a move in his 
own sociology? 
Bauman has been described as one of the foremost sociologists of postmodernism, its 
high prophet.   During the late eighties, and early nineties, Bauman published a 650
trilogy of books that argued that a postmodern turn had occurred during the late 
twentieth century in society, theory, culture, ethics and politics, representing a new 
stage in modernity.   These works mark his second major foci. In contrast to 651
modernity Bauman viewed postmodernity as: “[m]odernity conscious of its true 
nature”, a form of modernity that was self-critical, self denigrating and self-
dismantling.   The most visible characteristics of postmodernity were 652
“institutionalised pluralism, variety, contingency and ambivalence.”   Bauman was 653
particularly concerned with this last characteristic – ambivalence –characterised by 
action that takes place within a habitat where individual human agents have to choose 
between many rival and contradictory meanings. Bauman argued that increased 
ambivalence in politics had led to greater inequality, as access to knowledge, and the 
ability to understand and process that knowledge, was the key to freedom and 
enhanced social standing. He argued that over the course of the twentieth century 
there had been an increasing disenchantment with modernity which lay in its inability 
to confront three challenges: preventing moral anaesthesia, coping with subcultural 
heterogeneity and encouraging a sense of personal moral responsibility.   Each of 654
these failures contributed to creating a climate of ambivalence that meant people were 
 160
  Smith 1999: xff.650
  Bauman 1989a and 1993 and 1995.651
  Bauman 1991a: 187.652
  Ibid.653
  Smith 1999: 134ff.654
unable to commit to personal moral responsibility. Bauman thought that these 
conditions could not be overcome, they were part of the nature of modernity, 
fundamental flaws that made it unacceptable. Increasing rationalisation, culminating 
in the Holocaust, had robbed modernity of its emancipating power – it had simply 
become another weapon in the hands of the state. A new intellectual order had been 
imposed that forced a particular vision of truth and reality, that of capitalism. Bauman 
follows Marx’s critique of capitalism, suggesting that it emerges and sustains itself 
culturally and materially as entirely natural and always seeks to deny the possibility of 
an alternate reality.   His work in the nineties on postmodernism placed great stress 655
upon the irrepressibility of difference, otherness and ambivalence within society and 
culture. Each of these characteristics was extirpated by scientific posivitism. 
Bauman argued that unlike modernity postmodernity could not be reduced to 
statistical formulae. Instead, personal agency was carried out in a habitat that was 
totally undetermined, chaotic, and made up of many competing potential solutions. 
Individuals were able to construct and deconstruct their personal image and make-up 
seemingly without end. He argued that this “process of self-constitution ... has no 
visible end; not even in a stable direction.”   The focus of identity construction was 656
on what people ingested and what people wore – all commodities. The possibility of a 
life-project where people could advance their lives through meaningful stages in a 
fixed landscape was impossible. Instead people were forced to orientate themselves in 
whatever ways they could and form allegiances through their own choosing, rather 
than on any predetermined basis.   Bauman suggested that there was a close link 657
between the advanced forms of consumerism that emerged in the eighties and 
nineties and the emergence of postmodernity, a claim he would refine and develop in 
his work over the next fifteen years.   Postmodernity was a globalised version of 658
capitalism, where the idea of a local community making local decisions had been 
annihilated due to the power of the global markets.   Whereas within modernity 659
people were primarily seen as producers in a Fordist world – you were what you did – 
in postmodernity they were primarily consumers – you are what you own.   660
 161
  Beilharz 2000: 43.655
  Bauman 1997: 194.656
  Ibid: 194.657
  Bauman 1991a: 59.658
  Bauman 1998a: 51ff.659
  Ibid 32ff.660
Bauman argued that in a postmodern society there was no longer a set of experts who 
handed down knowledge and interpretation. This created a great deal of uncertainty in 
people and led them to try to compensate for this by creating mutual meanings for 
themselves through what might be termed consumer cooperatives.   This process 661
could be seen as a form of bricolage, where the cultural fragments of modernity were 
put into new uses and developed in new ways in many different contexts. This gave 
rise to the re-emergence of the assembly, of sociality, where people felt part of a crowd, 
an ‘imagined community’. Such eruptions were short lived and tended to focus on 
singular issues, or interests, which united people for a time.   Ethics were affected in 662
the same way, changing irrevocably in postmodernity. Whereas in modernity ethics 
were largely fixed, handed down and contained in a rulebook, within postmodernity 
there was no fixed framework.   This could lead to paralysis, an inability to act, which 663
was further reinforced on a global scale where there was an even greater lack of 
coherence in order and determinacy and frequently meant that the ‘other’ was ignored 
in society, or passed by, and global issues were not possible to address.   664
Bauman’s sociology of postmodernity represent a development of his sociology of 
modernity. He saw postmodernity as the natural result of the culture of modernity. It 
offered new perspectives on community, ethics and politics, founded largely on the 
end results of the modern concepts of individualism and consumerism. Although we 
can see clear parallels between Bauman’s description of social reality and that offered 
by MSC; they both depict a stark fragmentation of society, leading to the loss of a 
common sense of purpose and identity; they both argue that society has fractured into 
groups that are united by self-interests fuelled largely by consumerism. It is Bauman 
alone who develops a critical re-action to this development. MSC in contrast views 
postmodern culture as neutral. MSC also over-emphasises the break between 
modernity and postmodernity whereas Bauman, although keen to ascertain the 
differences emerging within postmodernity (the centrality of choice fuelled by 
consumer desire, truth as a set of competing narratives rather than a singular 
metanarrative, the ability of actors to engage in identity construction via technological 
development and particularly new media), also stresses its continuity with the culture 
of modernity, seeing postmodernity as a natural development of modernity not 
 162
  Ibid: 140.661
  Bauman 1993: 143.662
  Crone 2008.663
  Bauman 1993: 210ff.664
something new. Bauman would go onto modify his language, introducing the 
metaphor of liquidity in order to better illustrate these changes, but his analysis would 
remain largely the same. His continuing analysis of his own work would result in these 
two early foci – modernity and postmodernity – being further refined in his theory of 
liquid modernity. Which would distill further his understanding of contemporary 
social conditions. 
!
Critical remarks on postmodernity 
Given that MSC, as well as the secondary Fresh Expressions literature, assumes that 
the conditions of postmodernity stand in stark contrast with those of modernity, it is 
relevant to ask whether or not this is actually the case. In the last twenty years many 
social theorists such as O’Neill, Frow, Kumar and Calhoun have seriously questioned 
the theoretical assumptions, and practical analysis, of postmodern sociology, and 
leading social theorists Habermas, Beck and Giddens have also produced counter 
theories of modernity.   One of the most frequent contentions of these critics is that 665
while there are undoubtedly elements of modern thought that have been seriously 
questioned, such as the monolithic idea of progress, others are still seen as vitally 
important and are socially retained – for instance, the power of reason and argument 
and the importance of individual autonomy are two simple examples amongst 
many.   The clean cultural break described in MSC is simply not reflected in these 666
sociological accounts, and certainly not in the work of Bauman. 
There is also a difficulty that arises with the use of the term postmodern. Giddens 
argues that modernity has always had its critics and always been reflexive to those 
criticisms.   The work of Marx, Adorno and Nietzsche are all indicative of this. The 667
hubris of postmodernity is that you can somehow stand outside of modernity and, 
looking beyond it, announce its end with a triumphant finality. In Bauman’s work on 
postmodernity the basic values that animate his discourse are still those of modernity 
– freedom, justice and human dignity, never does he develop a thesis that totally 
abandons these modern conception, instead they still animate and dominate his work. 
Kumar and Antonio argue that the substantive analyses of postmodern theory 
 163
  O’Neill 1995 and Calhoun 1993 and Frow 1991 and Kumar 1995.665
  Giddens 1990: 2-3 Habermas 1987: 197.666
  Giddens 1990: 38.667
culminated in a one-sided emphasis on cultural and social fragmentation that ignored 
societal interdependencies and devalued social solidarities.   We see this same one-668
sided emphasis in MSC. Moreover, Ritzer concludes that classical theorists, including 
Marx, Durkheim, and Dewey, conceptualised the interdependent and integrative 
features of modernity, and the forms of disintegration and fragmentation, providing 
illuminating and broad perspectives on contemporary social formations.   These 669
works, alongside Bauman’s, thus avoided the rather one-sided emphasis that we see in 
MSC. 
Antonio and Kellner argue that postmodern social theory lacks the language and 
theoretical basis to critique oppressive social movements, because such movements can 
be classified as ‘simulacra’. They conclude that such theory reflects “a vision of an 
isolated and alienated intelligentsia within a social ordering sliding towards more 
extreme inequality and polarization, about which they are unable to theorize.”  670
Postmodern theorists, such as Baudrillard, also reproduce the theoretical despair of 
Adorno and Horkheimer, seen in Dialectic of Enlightenment in the face of the triumph 
of fascism.   Baudrillard’s work succumbs to an overarching framework of pessimism, 671
with its focus on the culture of death in society, which results in a profound 
catastrophe. There is no hope beyond this catastrophe, nor any sense of how to avoid it 
– it just is.   Frow argues that in the end, postmodernists' totalising claims continue 672
in the tracks of classical sociology, but without the conceptual tools and analytic 
methods to provide a satisfactory account of the alleged postmodern condition.  673
MSC’s claim that “in one sense there is no alternative to a consumer society. That is 
what we are, that is where we are and that is where we must be church and embody 
the gospel”   carries within it a profound pessimism that echoes that of Baudrillard, 674
that the cultural context the Church finds itself in cannot be changed or transformed, 
it simply is. 
Some of the leading social theorists today – Habermas, Giddens and Beck – also 
argue that we still live in a society that can best be described as modern and about 
which we can theorise in the same way previous social thinkers have. Giddens uses the 
 164
  Kumar 1995: 153ff. and Antonio 1994: 142.668
  Ritzer 2008: 502-503.669
  Ibid.670
  Adorno 1979.671
  Baudrillard 2010.672
  Frow 1991: 36ff.673
  MSC: 10.674
terms radical, high or late modernity to describe society today to indicate that it is not 
just the same as the one described by classical theorists.   Beck contends that early 675
modern society was best associated with industrialisation processes, whereas 
contemporary modernity is best associated with risk society. Habermas sees modernity 
as an unfinished project, whose central issue is still rationalisation (as Weber 
suggested) – the utopian goal is still the rationalisation of the system and the life 
world.   Bauman’s work would also go onto modify his language, lessening his focus 676
on modernity and postmodernity and instead reflecting the manner in which the 
culture of modernity has and is changing. 
MSC appears to be unaware of this recent scholarship on modernity and 
postmodernity and is cutoff from resources that would have indicated that its 
sociology is underdeveloped and one-sided. A deeper reading of Bauman would have 
also alerted it to its one-sided reading of his work. MSC and other Fresh Expressions 
literature overstate the level of change that has occurred socially and in doing so 
weaken their argument for radical missiological and ecclesiological change. Had MSC 
argued that the social conditions within England had only altered incrementally 
rather than significantly, it would not have been able to make as strong case for its 
ecclesiological recommendations; instead it would have had to pursue a less radical 
agenda. As we have seen, there is much consensus amongst social theorists that we are 
still indelibly in the modern era, and modern social theories still have much to offer 
analysing of our contemporary context, even if they need to be attuned to its 
technological and social complexities. Bauman’s work in particular offers a nuanced 
reading of our context, especially as he would continue to develop it further to take 
into account some of the above criticisms of postmodern theory. Given that the social 
description offered by MSC is an inadequate basis for understanding the Church of 
England’s contemporary context, we will now explore whether this latest development 
in Bauman’s thesis, his theory of solid and liquid modernity, offers a more complete 
and compelling basis from which to reconstruct an Anglican ecclesiology and 
missiology. 
!
 165
  Giddens 1997.675
  Habermas 1992.676
Liquid-modernity and the ideology of consumption 
Bauman’s account of liquid modernity arose out of his desire to continue to try and 
test his own sociology against the ongoing changes in contemporary western society, 
as well as to take account of those who were critical of postmodern sociology. He now 
wished to draw a distinction between two phases of modernity – the solid and the 
liquid, echoing Beck and Gidden’s. I shall now explore three facets of Bauman’s thesis 
that offer a better basis than MSC for understanding the Church of England’s social 
context. We will briefly rehearse what Bauman understands by solid modernity, that is 
the social conditions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, how these 
began to change and in what ways, and also the conceptual framework and tools that 
Bauman’s thesis uses. We will then go onto explore the specific social conditions that 
have now emerged. First, his concept of the consumer society, and the manner in its 
ideology dominates daily life. We will also examine in what ways this ideology can be 
seen in MSC’s ecclesiology and missiology. Second, the casualties of consumerism, that 
is the effects that is has on those who are on the margins of society, whether or not it 
creates a new type or class of ‘poor’, and as such what this might mean for the 
Church’s understanding of its mission. Third, the death of utopian thinking with 
liquid modernity and its concomitant affect upon social life and whether this also 
enlivens an aspect of the Church’s mission. We will then briefly examine some critical 
remarks concerning Bauman’s thesis before drawing some general conclusions 
regarding the usefulness of Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity as both a critique of 
MSC’s sociology and also a basis for understanding the Church of England’s context. 
!
A brief history of solid modernity and the emergence of liquid modernity 
Modernity, as we previously explored, was ushered in with the collapse of certainty. 
Bauman characterises its solid phase as one that emerged with the rise of industrial 
capitalism and scientific knowledge, which people used to erect new structures, 
replacing older traditional frameworks. In solid modernity people were primarily 
producers employed in factories and nationalised industries protected by unions and 
welfare state provisions. For Bauman the key descriptive metaphor for solid modernity 
was Fordism – representing increasing industrialisation, rationalisation, bureaucracy 
 166
and constant mechanisation.   Bauman saw Fordism as representing the 677
epistemological building site upon which solid modernity was constructed. Within 
such a society, gratification was characterised by long-term security, and the storing up 
of goods.   Value was placed in reliability, trustworthiness, order, and durability. 678
Economically, Keynesian theory was prevalent and the governments of the post-
Second World War period sought to establish healthy growth in partnership between 
government owned businesses and private companies. This era was marked by a closed 
market attitude and an emphasis on state intervention in the life of the individual. 
Within England this changed significantly under Thatcher in the eighties. She 
introduced privatisation and opened up the marketplace to external competition, 
encouraging a free market economy, which paved the way for a competition-based 
economy. Credit constraints were liberalised to fuel growth, and manufacturing output 
continually dropped.   Unions were dismantled and in their place market forces and 679
consumerism began to provide security and demand for jobs. Labour, under Blair, 
became increasingly influenced by ‘Third Way’ theory, continued privatisation and 
reduced the regulation of the market.   Competition was introduced into the state 680
sector, and previous welfare legislation was slowly eroded. 
A second important change that precipitated the collapse of solid modernity was the 
decline of the modern idea of progress, the slow march of society towards its 
perfection. The two World Wars had significantly weakened people’s belief in modern 
progress and eventually by the end of the twentieth century the belief had largely 
eroded all together: as we shall see, time became focused on the present moment 
rather than some future possibility or potential.   Bauman terms this new age liquid 681
modernity and we shall now briefly trace its contours before exploring three of its 
facets in more detail. 
Bauman argues that in this new liquid modern age, older social structures are 
melting.   By this he means that we now live in a world where nothing can be relied 682
upon to stay the same. The forces of individualism and globalisation have led to the 
collapse of the solid modern era of nation, state and territory and the emergence of a 
 167
  Bauman 2000: 57ff.677
  Ibid.678
  Beckett 2006: 2.679
  Giddens 1998 and Blair 1998.680
  Bauman 2000: 29.681
  Ibid.682
new world order where only the ‘global elite’ – the opposite of a ‘vagabond’ or ‘stranger’ 
– are totally at home and able wholly to participate in a consumer society. As Bauman 
states, “liquid life is a precarious life, lived under conditions of constant 
uncertainty.”   Structures such as the family, class and neighbourhood, which 683
previously provided a solid robust framework for society, are now being ‘liquidated’, or, 
as Beck would say, becoming ‘zombie categories’, reconfigured in new ways that reflect 
the ideology of consumption.   Individuals can no longer count on these older solid 684
modern structures to provide meaning and order for their lives. People no longer train 
for a job for life – they are told that they need to be flexible. Life in this new world is 
characterised by insecurity and fear, fear of being left behind, for those who succeed 
are those who are the most agile. Looseness of commitment is an asset – commitment 
can constrain the individual – human bonds and partnerships acquire a fluid and ever-
changing character. Bauman even argues that the State has lost its once-dominant 
position of political power – for there is a growing divorce between power and politics. 
Power is sucked up into the abstraction of global markets, and sucked down into the 
individual, who is now forced to reckon with the end of the welfare state and an 
increasingly privatised form of care.   Collective solidarity – the idea of the 685
community – is an increasingly hollow idea. The concept of citizenship has been 
fatefully undermined. The link between the well-being of the individual and the well-
being of the community has been removed. Individuals now compete with one 
another; collaboration is no longer the norm. The art of public life is increasingly 
privatised by the needs of the many and various individual concerns. 
Bauman argues that the metaphor of liquidity best captures the present state of 
contemporary life. He writes we should “consider ‘fluidity’ or ‘liquidity’ as fitting 
metaphors when we wish to grasp the nature of the present, in many mays novel, 
phase in the history of modernity.”   Fluidity is “[t]he truly novel feature of this 686
social world [and describes] the continuous and irreparable fluidity of things which 
modernity in its initial shape was bent on solidifying and fixing.”   Jacobsen and 687
Marshman compare Bauman’s use of metaphors to describe social reality to the action 
of a fisherman casting his nets into a sea attempting to catch fish, though Bauman is 
 168
  Bauman 2005: 2.683
  Bauman 2000: 4ff and Beck 2002: 202ff.684
  Bauman 2000: 185ff and 192ff.685
  Ibid: 2.686
  Bauman 2004a: 19-20).687
attempting to catch insights into our present and past social conditions.   These 688
metaphors also illustrate Bauman’s utopianism, as they are designed to be open-ended, 
indicating possibility rather than mere descriptions of things as they are, both describe 
what is happening and what could happen. Bauman observes that, “we live in a society 
which no longer recognises any alternative to itself and therefore feels absolved from 
the duty to examine, demonstrate, justify (let along prove) the validity of its outspoken 
and tacit assumptions.”   689
Bauman’s use of metaphors within this new thesis also extends beyond those of 
‘solidity’ and ‘liquidity’, but these additional metaphors still chiefly concern the way in 
which modernity has dominated different social groups, particularly immigrants, the 
unemployed and those in short-term, low-paid and unskilled employment. Such 
groups are termed the ‘waste’ or ‘vagabonds’ of liquid modernity. These metaphors 
represent a “people without role, making no useful contribution to the lives of the rest, 
and in principal beyond redemption.”   Bauman suggests that in liquid modernity 690
such people are ‘disposed’ of, deliberately invoking his earlier work on the treatment of 
the Jews in the Holocaust and showing that his work on liquid modernity focuses on 
this same basic issue and how it manifests itself in a world of global capitalism and 
consumer culture and ideology. Those who do the disposing are characterised as 
‘gardeners’ who rid the ‘garden’ of ‘weeds’ or ‘waste’. Bauman himself argues that using 
metaphors is an important sociological strategy because it helps him avoid the 
temptation to construct a systematic sociology. He states that, “I flirted once with the 
idea of an all-embracing, all-accounting-for and all-explaining system of knowledge, 
composed as a series of points and sub-points and narrated in a compact story with a 
clear beginning and even clearer end … enthusiasm for such a project gave way to 
outright resentment.”   Instead, Bauman goes on to argue that he understood his task 691
as “an ongoing conversation with human life experience, and the last thing I soon 
began to expect in that experience was the king of systemness, cohesion, 
comprehensiveness, iron-clad logic and elegance once sought, and occasionally found, 
in philosophical argument.” Over time, Bauman admits to “becoming wary of 
imputing to the human condition more logic that it contained and could conceivably 
ingest and absorb – lest the sociological portayals of that condition shall miss that 
 169
  Jacobsen and Marshman 2008: 22.688
  Bauman 2001: 99.689
  Bauman 1998a: 66.690
  Z. Bauman 2008: 235.691
most crucial, even if infuriatingly elusive, attribute that makes it human.”   He goes 692
on to argue that the 
non-sequiturs, ambiguities, contradictions, incompatibilities, inconsistencies and 
sheer contingencies for which human thoughts and deeds are notorious should 
not be viewed as temporary deficiencies not-yet-fully-extinct … [t]hey are rather 
the crucial, constitutive features of the human modality of being in the world … 
and sociological analysis needs to attune itself to their ubiquitous and perpetuate 
presence.   693
He sees his own work in this light, suggesting that “each successive [sociological] 
response should be aware of being a gambit, an introduction and an overture – not an 
Endspiel, conclusion or final verdict.”   Bauman sees the task of his sociology as “the 694
hope to enhance the scope and the potential of the actors’ freedom through offering 
them a better insight into the social setting in which they perform their tasks and 
which they (most unwittingly) co-produce.”   Bauman sees his, and sociology’s, task 695
as one that helps humans to comprehend or make sense of their life experience, and 
ultimately helps people to have a degree of control over their own life-pursuits. 
Sociology should enable people to be critically aware of their own social conditions 
and conditioning and should open the door to possible alternative social arrangements 
by mitigating against the prevailing ideologies and life philosophies. 
Bauman also argues that in liquid modernity the task of critical theory has changed. 
Its task used to be protecting the individual from the domination of society, from the 
panopticon – as seen in the work of Foucault, Hawkheimer, Adorno.   The task now 696
is not to protect the individual but rather to reinvent and reinvigorate the public 
domain, which is at risk of disappearing.   The danger today is that the political 697
domain will be stripped of all its power and that the private will engulf the public, 
leaving nothing but talk of private pursuits. Within society, Bauman argues that there 
are several contested areas of life where the processes of liquid modernity are fatally 
undermining the idea of the public domain: consumerism and relationships, strangers, 
and the eradication of utopianism. We will now examine Bauman’s claims for each of 
these areas, asking whether his theory can withstand critical scrutiny (bearing in mind 
 170
  Ibid.692
  Ibid.693
  Bauman 2008: 236.694
  Ibid: 236.695
  Ibid: 25ff.696
  Ibid: 38ff.697
the above criticisms) and if so what these processes and areas of contestation say to 
the life, work and witness of the church. 
!
The consumerist society 
Sociology has nearly always had a productivist bias and has historically focused on 
industry, work and workers. This is most obvious in Marx and neo-Marxian theory, 
but is also found in the work of Durkheim and Weber. Yet within their analysis 
consumption was rarely explored: only Veblen’s work on conspicuous consumption 
and Simmel’s thinking on money and fashion ventured into this terrain, until 
recently.   Initial postmodern sociology saw consumption as playing a central role in 698
social life – society was a consumer society. Baudrillard’s Consumer Society and 
Lipovetsky’s work on fashion both reflected a growing interest in this area.  699
Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity places consumption at the heart of liquid life. 
For Bauman, consumerism can now be seen as “the principal propelling and operating 
force of society”,   in that it co-ordinates systemic production, provides social 700
integration and social stratification; it is the essential component in individual 
formation and helps in the process of individual and group self-identification. 
Bauman suggests that the solid modern notion of Hegelian progress, where the telos of 
time is discernable and desirable, has disappeared; instead, life is hurried from one 
experience to another.   Time is consumed: once each moment is passed it is 701
disregarded and replaced with the next moment and experience. Society now thrives 
on the rapid turnover of commodities, as evidenced in viral marketing campaigns that 
desperately try to garner attention in those few moments before a product is launched, 
before it is swept away under the ever-increasing tide of new things. Liquid modern 
time emphasises transience and novelty, a reversal of the solid modern emphasis on 
durability and lastingness.   This results in a shortening of the gap between desire, 702
gratification and disposal: embodied in the language of advertising: ‘this autumn’s 
destination is’; ‘this month’s look is sequined and pleated skirts’. A month can be an 
eternity, with the obvious implication that whatever is bought will shortly be 
 171
  Veblen 1994 and Simmel 1972.698
  Baudrillard 1998 and Lipovetsky 1994.699
  Bauman 2007a: 28.700
  Bauman 2000: 91ff.701
  Ibid: 125.702
redundant and must quickly be disposed of or changed.   This desire for the new is 703
not just constrained to products – cosmetic surgery can enable the body to be renewed 
to match the norms presented in magazines, television and billboards. This power to 
annul the past, and even change one’s body, as Shestov notes, was once the sole 
preserve of God, yet it is now a way of life – past events, past looks, past relationships, 
can all be negated, and their power to effect life reduced or even eradicated 
altogether.   Such statements are however, difficult to sustain as a purely liquid 704
modern phenomena. Distorting the body in order for it to conform to various social 
norms has a long social history going back thousands of years, Chinese foot binding 
being an obvious example. Bauman’s argument is over-reaching itself. It would be 
better to suggest that the ability of actors to change and transform their bodies has 
become much more obtainable on a mass scale and much more widely practiced than 
it has been historically marking the continuing development of the ability of actors to 
create new and different selves in myriad ways. 
Bauman argues that this ability to change continually and transform one’s life could 
be seen as a present day substitution for religious salvation or redemption, yet one that 
is more attractive because it can be realised in the immediate horizon of the 
everyday.   The promise of happiness and satisfaction permeates a consumer society’s 705
value system; happiness is promised in this earthly life, in this instant. Yet this promise 
is also based on a lie,  for people cannot become satiated but need to remain on the 
move, advancing to the next new thing that promises satisfaction; there must be a gap 
between what is promised and what is experienced. Bauman recognises that were 
society suddenly full of satiated people the economy of consumption would stop, and 
consumers would disappear, for satiated people are the death knell for a consumer 
society.   Recent statistics on debt, both individual and national, support Bauman’s 706
argument: individual debt per household at the end of 2010 was nearly £9000 (rising 
to nearly £18,000 including mortgages),   an increase of 350% since 1993.   Waste 707 708
levels have risen by over 25% between 1984 and 2004,   and Government borrowing 709
has grown from also a surplus of -£243 million in 2001/2002 to record levels of 
 172
  Bertman 1998: 97.703
  Shestov 1966: 2.704
  Bauman 2007a: 113.705
  Ibid: 46.706
  Creditaction 2012a.707
  Creditaction 2012b.708
  DEFRA 2012.709
£106,510 million in 2009/2010.   Bauman sees consumption as a means to invest in 710
one’s own social membership, and products offer themselves as having investment 
value. A persons vocation is as a consumer: products are potent signs of membership 
and social standing and remaining part of a consumer society means continually 
partaking in consumption. Consumer markets are the battleground where the rights 
to build these identities are fought. So whereas some would attempt to see this new 
consumer self as the final mastery of society, homo eligens,   Bauman rightly suggests 711
that “the conquest, annexation and colonization of life by the commodity market has 
resulted in the elevation of the written and unwritten laws of the market to the rank 
of life precepts.”   However, Bauman’s negative assessment of individuality and 712
identity construction in liquid modernity also has its positive sides in comparison with 
the fixed forms of identity construction that were characteristic of solid modernity. By 
arguing that “the idea of individualization is the emancipation of the individual from 
the ascribed, inherited and inborn determination of his or her social character,”   he 713
marks the transformation of identity from a ‘given’ to a ‘task’. 
Bauman argues that the commodification of everyday life has also had a profound 
effect upon the way individuals conduct relationships.   Hochschild’s research 714
validates his view and shows that 
[c]onsumerism acts to maintain the emotional reversal of work and family. 
Exposed to a continual bombardment of advertisements through a daily average 
of three hours of television workers are persuaded to ‘need’ more things. To buy 
what they need now, they need money. To earn money, they work longer hours. 
Being away from home for so many hours, they make up for their absence at 
home with gifts that cost money. They materialize love. And so the cycle 
continues.   715
Bauman argues that people are becoming less and less socially adept in relationships, 
increasingly lacking the resources to deal with confrontation, misunderstandings and 
conflict; instead these are seen as the pretext to break off communication, escape and 
burn up relational bridges behind you.   This cycle of relational disappointment 716
 173
  Guardian 2012a.710
  Twitchell 2005: 269ff and Danziger 2005: 238ff.711
  Bauman 2007a: 61.712
  Bauman 200: 144.713
  Bauman 2000: 160ff.714
  Hochschild 2003: 208ff.715
  Bauman 2000: 148ff; Independent 2012.716
further re-inforces people’s reliance upon anything but the immediate object of their 
own desires. As Levinas prophetically said, “society may be a place where self-centred, 
self-referential, egotistic people emerge, who neutralise or silence the haunting 
responsibility for the ‘Other’ which is born whenever the face of the other appears.”  717
The rise of internet dating, which two-thirds of single people in the UK are now 
using,   and the proliferation of social networking sites such as Facebook, further 718
illustrate Bauman’s argument. Relationships are increasingly treated in the same way 
people would think about buying a house or a car – they are commodified. This way of 
relating is, for Bauman, the opposite of true I-thou relationships, where devotion, 
solidarity and love are key elements,   and as Klima notes, consumer relationships 719
represent the de-legitimisation of questions.   The safety provided by the knowledge 720
that you can cut someone off with just a mouse click is much easier, more trouble free, 
and more instantaneous, than actual physical relationships.  
It is clear that Bauman’s work on consumerism and commodification does offer 
genuine insight into the social conditions in which the Church of England is called to 
minister. Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity and the ways in which this manifests 
itself through the dominant ideology of consumerism and its subsequent effects on 
open social relations is particularly pertinent to the ecclesiology of MSC in two ways: 
first, the manner in which daily life has been commodified; second, the re-alignment 
of desire, where desire is satiated in the desiring itself rather than the object of desire. 
Miller, in his recent study on consumerism, Consuming Religion, outlines several 
important ways in which Christian faith and Christian communities have been 
particularly affected by consumerism.   His work offers an important theoretical 721
framework, developed from the work of Bauman, through which we can understand 
and examine the ecclesiology of MSC. Miller argues that religion and religious 
communities are not isolated from the effects of liquid modernity, nor the ideology of 
consumerism. He goes on to say that this is because religious practices are akin, 
though not identical, to a proper culture. Religious life consists of dogma, symbols, 
values and practices, and the meanings of religion are interwoven in these 
interrelations; they provide a coherent structure of theology and are related to 
 174
  Levinas 1981: 9.717
  Bristow 2012.718
  Bauman 2007a: 21.719
  Klima 1999: 60-62.720
  Miller 2006.721
religious authorities and the institutions that help relate these things to each other.  722
Religion itself is subject to these same forces and is equally susceptible to abstraction 
and reification. Within a consumer culture, religious dogma, symbols, values and 
practices are treated in the same way as other commodities, and suffer the same 
degrading treatment. They are removed from the complex cultures, histories, 
traditions, and communities that enable religious practices to shape daily life for 
believers. Instead, they are reduced to “abstracted, virtual sentiments that function 
solely to give flavour to the already existing forms of everyday life or to provide 
compensation for its shortcomings.”   723
Consumer culture disturbs the traditional make-up of religious life by allowing people 
to decouple religious practices from their setting. Commodification in particular has 
deeply affected religious life in England. Miller suggests that the most obvious 
response from religious communities has been either to attempt to confront the 
heretical elements of consumerist ideology or to condemn the unjust practices and 
behaviours it elicits.   Yet this tactic, though historically well attested, simply does 724
not work. The problems religion faces in a consumer culture are of a different order, for 
consumerism has little interest in censoring or condemning activities of religious 
communities. Any beliefs, even those that are most hostile to consumerism and most 
critical of capitalism are embraced with enthusiasm. Prosaic examples of this would 
include the appropriation of the organic and slow food movement by the supermarket 
giants and the incorporation of the anti-capitalist protest movements into popular 
mainstream culture through the commodification of its signature leaders (Che 
Guevara, for example). This process occurs because beliefs are not seen in competitive 
or conflicting terms. They are merely invitations, people are invited to choose, and 
then to choose and choose again. Whether each choice, when thoroughly scrutinised 
by a philosopher or theologian, brings some sort of ideological or dogmatic conflict is 
not an issue. 
The pursuit of choice, and the ongoing need to choose, have also manifested 
themselves in religious communities in the guise of the religious ‘seeker’ or the 
‘spiritual tourist’. Such people, and communities, detach religious belief from its 
institutional and traditional communal setting and construct their own forms of 
 175
  Ibid: 5-7.722
  Ibid: p. 105.723
  Ibid: p. 5.724
religious life that are synthesised from diverse traditions and sources. They represent a 
commodification of the religious life. Such communities and people are not 
necessarily shallow nor narcissistic: they are simply seeing religion in the same manner 
in which they see food or clothes and are happy to construct hybrid communities and 
practices which are totally abstracted from their original setting. As Miller suggests, 
this is not something new – syncretism has always taken place – but the ease with 
which we can do it and our endless ability to reconfigure it are new.   However, a key 725
contemporary difference is that people are also able to draw from a dizzying array of 
global sources to construct these new forms of religious life. It is perfectly feasible for 
a religious service to use elements from every major historic era and every continent. 
Bauman also argues that within liquid modernity there has also been a reshaping of 
desire: desire has stopped becoming attached to things but is found instead in the 
pursuit of things, it is about the joy of desiring itself, and a desire for this to be 
endless.   The actual consumption of things is disappointing as the object can never 726
live up to its promise. Miller, developing Bauman’s thinking, suggests that desire drives 
the process of consumption and commodification, and is constituted by the never-
fulfilled promise of consumption.   The fulfillment of desire is most found not in the 727
consuming act itself but rather in the joy of the desiring. Banal, everyday objects are 
marketed in a manner that offers profound values and unmitigated joy. This form of 
desire is similar to religious desire and resembles “longings for transcendence, justice, 
and self-transformation enough to be able to absorb the concepts, values, practices of 
religious traditions into its own form without apparent conflict.”   728
This subverts the religious quest into something more sedate and domesticated. 
Elements of religious belief and tradition are now fragmented into discrete, free-
flowing signifiers which are abstracted from their interconnectedness with other 
religious doctrines, symbols and practices, and from the conditions of their production. 
This abstraction has weakened the ability of religion to affect people’s daily practices 
because the prior comparative coherence of religious belief and behaviour has been 
lost and contemporary practices are subjected to more basic religious desires and 
sentiments. The concept of ‘spirituality’ is one such occurrence of this form of religious 
practice. However, ‘spirituality’ is not necessarily, as is often accused by therapeutic-
 176
  Ibid: 5.725
  Bauman 2003: 9ff.726
  Miller 2006: 107ff.727
  Ibid: 144.728
based critiques, narcissistic or shallow, although it does correlate with a modern, 
socially isolated form of individualism and it is this isolation that is the source of its 
problem. Commitments to a religious set of disciplines and practices are difficult to 
sustain and develop without a form of shared communal life and belief. This shared 
life also provides a coherent framework of social structures that enable these practices 
to develop and mature. 
Miller’s thesis is a convincing development of Bauman’s understanding of 
consumption applied to contemporary religion; although it primarily focuses on 
religion in the United States, it is clearly applicable to a British context. Using Miller’s 
theory, we can see that the ecclesiology of MSC represents a commodified form of 
church life, because MSC’s understanding of the Church is largely conceptualised in a 
manner that is detached from the traditional Church of England understanding. 
‘Church’ has become a free-floating signifier that can be marketed and branded in the 
same manner as other commodities according to the needs of a given context or the 
desires of a certain market. We can see this in the way in which MSC suggests that 
there need to be churches for mothers-and-toddler groups, age-related groups, or 
churches based around a common social concern, or ‘network’ interest such as leisure 
interests, music preferences, and even a particular disability.   The practices of these 729
Fresh Expressions are contextually determined, with each community discerning for 
itself the manner in which it will worship, and the form that this will take.   Because 730
of this Fresh Expressions of church become much more susceptible to manipulation 
and misappropriation by their own members: Christian practices that have deep 
historic meaning can be put to multiple uses that can potentially be in contradiction 
to their original purpose. Fresh Expressions can easily become decoupled from the 
symbols and practices – the eucharist, baptism, common liturgical texts – and dogma 
– the canons, liturgy and ecumenical reports – of their origin. There is the possibility, 
and danger, that such communities will simply change and adapt their practices from 
one thing to another, repeating the endless cycle of desire. 
We noted in chapter two Newbigin’s warning about contextual theology that is too 
contextually determined, and how the Church always needs God’s ‘no’ as well as God’s 
‘yes’ to culture; we also explored Temple’s concept of double judgement. MSC’s 
missiological theory appears to have ignored or been unaware of such critical thinking. 
 177
  MSC 2004: 62 and 63.729
  Ibid: 43-84.730
The effect of the commodification of Fresh Expressions is threefold. First, it removes – 
as we also explored in the previous chapter –  some of the central transformative 
resources and practices that enable believers to become like Christ. Instead, it 
replicates the experiences people would have with any other product, and encourages 
people to think of religious life, religious practices, and beliefs, like any other product. 
Second, Fresh Expressions of church become unable to relate to other Anglican 
churches because their forms of church life are so different. Third, this 
commodification also significantly weakens the possibility of maturity because the 
basis of religious belief remains harnessed to consumerism, tied to cultural bonds 
rather than the Catholic, Apostolic faith that we discussed in the previous chapter. 
A key problem with this form of consumer culture is that it also misdirects well-
intentioned people, who are seeking to do good things, and show solidarity with other 
people. They remain unable to find spiritual transformation and a community that will 
sustain this ongoing process. People see consumer culture as liberating. It frees them 
from the closed constraints of small communities, and the prescribed gender, class and 
political roles that previous generations endured. Consumer culture liberates them 
from the multiple sources of authority such as teachers, bishops, pastors, friends, as 
new sources of authority can be created and assimilated in an instant. It is a narrative 
that is alluring and seducing, bringing myriad options to people’s daily routines, and 
offering a counter-soteriology to that of the Christian faith – acting as a faithful 
consumer.   For such people the moment of choice is seen as the key means by which 731
they develop, the choice itself is the resolver of conflict, bringing inner happiness and 
peace. Traditional patterns of self-transformation are subordinated to this process and 
a chasm erupts between belief and practice as “people sincerely and mistakenly assume 
they are acting on the beliefs they are choosing.”   Bretherton draws attention to this 732
process when he examines the potential for social media to lead to social change. He 
uses the example of Facebook.   Within Facebook, users can be invited to join causes 733
that have a group page, which you can link to and repost so that others can join. 
Bretherton rightly points out that people joining such groups may be confusing the 
desire to give to a charity or advocate a cause with the actual act of giving or acting. 
 178
  Consumer soteriology has been explored by Beaudoin, who argues that consumer society functions in a way 731
analogous to a religious society, what he terms ‘Theo-capitalism’ (Beaudoin 2004). Christopher Dawson also 
suggests that the collapse of the nation state has created a vacuum for the church in terms of religious support, and 
it is perhaps into that gap that maybe the consumer society has produced its own ‘religion’. Dawson 1998: chapters 
six, thirteen and fourteen.
  Beaudoin 2004: 225.732
  Bretherton 2012.733
Essentially social media has been fetishised – it is given the value that should be given 
to concerted action – and the process of fetishisation (valuing good things in the 
wrong way – or what theologians call idolatry) dissolves the ability to act together. 
Communication as a form of exchange medium has replaced action.   When people 734
do encounter religious practices they are often made present to them in a fragmented 
and commodified form, meaning that the original connections between desires, beliefs 
and practices are broken apart, and as such religious practices are far less likely to 
result in personal transformation where participants lives are drawn away from 
conformity with consumer culture. Instead, religious practices become something 
altogether different, being somewhat decorative, a gloss rather than a deeply 
connected set of disciplines that shapes and informs the whole of life, social, political 
and economic. 
The ecclesiology that MSC outlines potentially suffers from exactly this sort of 
problem. The Church actually needs to deepen people’s ability to understand and read 
the culture(s) they are situation in, and the manner in which the Christian tradition 
enlivens, affirms and critiques that culture(s). This is not to say that some Fresh 
Expressions do not enable people to connect with the Christian tradition: they do, 
albeit in a modified and basic way. They should allow and encourage people to deepen 
their understanding of, and familiarity with the riches of Anglican worship, acting as a 
bridge between local parish churches and the communities they are situated in. The 
Church of England needs to begin this process by significantly modifying the 
recommendations of MSC in order that Fresh Expressions of church relate more 
deeply to the understanding of the Church explored in the previous chapter. The 
Church needs to model relationships that emphasise devotion, solidarity and love, 
based on care and respect for the other, rather than the self-centred ways of relating 
outlined by Bauman. In addition, churches need to be places that are full of the social 
diversity of the areas they minster to: MSC merely mirrors the social and relational 
fragmentation occurring within Britain, whereas the Church is called to welcome all, 
because we are all reconciled to God through Christ rather than our cultural 
similarities. The theological and liturgical framework conveyed by baptism and the 
eucharist offers a way of doing just that because it enables people to encounter the gift 
of love made present in the grace of Christ in a community being made holy. The 
biblical narrative contains a profound counter narrative to that of consumptive 
 179
  Dean 2012.734
relationality, emphasising the need for those who preach and teach to be excellent 
hermeneutists of both Scripture and culture.   735
!
Consumerism and its casualties 
Bauman’s thesis of liquid modernity also focuses on the destructive impact 
consumerism has had upon the poor, who are often hidden, or whose voices are often 
marginalised.   A key figure in his work in this regard is that of the ‘stranger’. 736
Bauman brings together Simmel’s work on the stranger with a reading of Levi-
Strauss’ Tristes Tropiques.   In this work, Levi-Strauss speculated that if we examined 737
cultures from the outside we could potentially distinguish between two types of 
culture. First, those who are cannibals, who consume individuals who posses 
dangerous powers as a means to neutralise those powers, and even turn them to an 
advantage. This is the anthropophagic (from the Greek meaning man-eating) that 
annihilates strangers by devouring them and then metabolically transforms them into 
a tissue indistinguishable from their own. Bauman explored this strategy more fully in 
Modernity and the Holocaust and Modernity and Ambivalence.   Second, those who, like 738
our own society, practice anthropoemy (from the Greek, emein meaning to vomit), who, 
when faced with the same problem, choose to eject such dangerous people from the 
social body, initially building for them habitats away from the central body of people, 
before expelling them permanently.   The strangers are banished, forbidden from any 739
communication with those in the present social order. It is a strategy of exclusion, 
where the stranger is either confined in a ghetto, or made invisible and locked away.  740
Bauman sees contemporary order-building in liquid modernity as a war of attrition 
against the stranger and the strange. 
Anthropoemic strategies are an attempt to overcome ambivalence or difference. The 
tolerance threshold for difference within solid modernity was dependent on the 
 180
  Brueggemann 1993: chapters two and three both use a contextual reading of the books Exodus, Joshua and 735
Jeremiah in order to offer a counter narrative to consumerism. For a New Testament perspective see Wright 1996: 
244ff. and 369ff. Wright argues that the parables and signs/symbols of the Kingdom of God are related to Jesus’ 
historic context, revealing their deeply political and social implications, implications which are also profound for a 
consumer society, though he does not make this connection.
  Bauman 1998b.736
  Beilharz 2001.737
  Bauman 1991b: 62.738
  Levi-Strauss 1955: 508.739
  Bauman 1997: 16.740
political and nationalist sense of limits. Bauman argues that within liquid modernity 
difference becomes much more economically focused because the modernist notion of 
national boundaries and political limits has been diluted. The stranger within liquid 
modernity becomes more prevalent, and economically speaking, can be encountered in 
two different ways: first, for those who have enough money, secure privatised habitats 
and lifestyles can be created. Strangers are then encountered on their own terms, they 
are paid for services rendered, and terminated if they are no longer valuable. The 
stranger is the object of the gaze of desire – engaged as an object.   By contrast, those 741
who are poor cannot choose whom they live next to, or what particular 
neighbourhood they live in; they are incarcerated in a territory from which there is 
little chance of an exit. This means that they are surrounded by strangers, who are 
often perceived as a threat, and so defence of their territory becomes paramount. 
Community therefore takes the form of ghettoisation, as observable in many inner 
city areas in the UK.   742
The social account of reality in MSC fails to adequately address these issues and lacks 
the depth of social analysis that Bauman’s work in this area brings. We saw within 
Temple’s ecclesiology a concern to understand the structural inequality that existed 
within Britain during his time, and his conviction that the vocation of the Church is 
to challenge and critique such inequality and to exhibit within its own life a form of 
society that was inclusive, and overcame the social divisions of his time. The danger of 
MSC is that it is unaware of the manner in which society excludes certain people(s) 
and essentially focuses its missiological strategy on those whom Bauman would 
describe as – borrowing Galbraith’s term – the ‘contented majority’.   Bauman’s work 743
goes on to develop his understanding of the ‘stranger’ and this work will further 
illustrate the depth of his thinking in contrast to the shallow sociology presented in 
MSC.  
Bauman argues that within liquid modernity a new class has emerged, the underclass, 
who are the non-consumers, marginalised without hope.   Bauman’s argument is not 744
new. Murray’s research into the emergence of a new underclass in the 1990 notes that 
such a concept can be traced back the early Victorian period, and is also not unlike 
Marx’s concept of the lumpenproletariat, though Murray claims it originates in a 
 181
  Ibid: 28.741
  Marcuse 2006.742
  Bauman 2001: 154 and Galbraith 1992.743
  Bauman 1998b: 63ff.744
culture of fecklessness and irresponsibility.   Field’s work is closer to Bauman’s in 745
associating the emergence of this new underclass with broader social, political and 
economic factors, including globalisation and commodification.   Young’s work, like 746
Bauman’s, identifies a reordering of class and status that has taken place along the 
lines of sociocultural inclusion/exclusion, and Keyfitz also argues that what marks out 
the ‘underclass’ of the ‘new poor’ is their inability to participate in the sphere of 
market-mediated consumption.   Bauman argues that their place is out of site, 747
removed from public spaces. They are the elderly who are placed in homes until they 
die; they are the illegal immigrants, put in detention prisons until they can be 
deported, or immigrants placed together in social housing.   748
Recent government figures on debt further illustrate Bauman’s argument and show 
that this new underclass has the highest proportion of debt to earnings,   often on 749
the highest interest rates,   both combining to keep them trapped in a cycle of debt. 750
Consumer-driven economic models were also reflected in Labour’s 2008 bill on 
immigration, which emphasised people’s marketability as the central criteria for entry, 
a bill that the Conservatives supported, and, now in government, have actually 
extended.   The obvious implication of this is confirmation of Bauman’s argument 751
that those who have little marketable value should be rejected. The increasing 
ghettoisation of those who are economically poor, and the growing volume of 
behaviour classified as criminal, is another way that Bauman sees consumer society 
exorcising its inner demons, ridding itself of its poison.   Girard’s scapegoat theory – 752
the necessity of violent sacrifice in order to re-inscribe and shore up the essential 
values of any society – is powerfully played out in this process.   Warde also observes 753
that this process serves to “advanc[e the] tyranny of the economically correct.”   That 754
is, whatever ‘makes sense’ economically does not need the support of any other sense, 
be it political, social or ethical. Nor does society need to make any apology for this 
policy.   Even when the underclasses are employed, they are often afforded the least 755
 182
  Murray 1990.745
  Field 1989.746
  Young 1999 and Keyfitz 1992.747
  Bauman 1998b: 72ff.748
  Moneystuff 1012.749
  Guardian 2012b.750
  Labour 2012, Homeoffice 2012 and Conservative 2012.751
  Bauman 1997: 41.752
  Girard 1989.753
  Warde 1997: 23ff754
  Ibid: 24.755
job protection and the lowest wages. Research suggests that they are primarily on 
temporary contracts, working in the lowest band of pay, and rarely, if ever, gaining 
promotion.   They are the most expendable, disposable, and exchangeable parts of an 756
economic system; their jobs require little skill and no face-to-face contact with 
clients.   757
Bauman’s understanding of the casualties of liquid modernity provides some much-
needed insight into the effects of a consumer driven society. Månsson notes that 
Bauman has replaced capital as his measuring stick with mobility and the ability to 
consume, but the result is still the same: the structural inequalities of industrial 
modernity still exist.   Bauman’s thesis of a new underclass develops this further. In 758
some places, such as the UK, they are the minority and are counterpoised to 
Galbraith's ever-free ‘contented majority’ of consumers.   Yet Bauman has a tendency 759
to draw very solid lines between losers and winners in liquid modernity, sometimes in 
a manner that is too simplistic and can stand in opposition to more nuanced and 
considered work, such as that by Savage.   This could stem from his Marxist roots. 760
For he seems to parallel the global elite/localised masses with the capital/labour 
binaries of Marxist thought.   A view shared by Davis.   This is most clear in his 761 762
work in the terms ‘contented majority’ and the ‘new underclass’, which essentially 
continue to reflect the Marxist dualism between the ‘bourgeois’ and the ‘proletarian’. 
Davis points out that such dualisms always fail to convey the rather ambiguous 
boundaries that exists between the two terms and the severe difficulty of plotting a 
given individual on Bauman’s map of cultural types. Such terminology fails to do 
justice to the complexities of modern life, and it is easy to identify social groups that 
simply fail to be represented adequately by Bauman’s dualities. Davis gives as an 
example of social groups that have a wealth of available resources but which refuse the 
hedonistic tendencies of Bauman’s ‘tourist’ on moral, ethnic or religious grounds. Such 
groups do not fit into Bauman’s simple binary.   763
 183
  Kings College London 2012: 7-10.756
  Bauman 2000: 150.757
  Månsson, 2008: 155ff.758
  Bauman 2001: 154.759
  Savage 2004: 205ff.760
  Bauman 2001: 25.761
  Davis 2008: 151.762
  Ibid.763
Despite these criticisms Bauman’s thesis is deeply insightful for the manner in which 
it draws attention to the profound ways in which globalisation and commodification 
have only served to reinforce the structural inequality that he has observed within 
solid modernity. His penetrating analysis of consumerism’s casualties must act as a 
catalyst for the Church of England’s missiology and ecclesiology. If, as we argued in 
the previous chapter, the Church is a place of welcome for all – a true vision of a social 
body cemented through the atoning work of Christ, rather than our own common 
cultural bonds, reconciled to one another and God through Christ – then the Church 
must attend to how and whether it manifests this within its own life, in each locality 
where it is found. We shall explore the implications of this in our concluding chaper. 
!
The death of utopia 
Bauman argues that within liquid modernity utopian thinking has withered away.  764
Mazlish, in his historic analysis of civilisation, also shares this view and states 
regarding modern society that “utopian thinking, except in the form of messianic or 
fundamentalist aspirations, appears either to take other shapes or be in the tepid 
condition or non-existent.”   This loss of utopian thinking has appalling effects on 765
society, and Tester suggests, for Bauman, utopianism “signifies the praxis of possibility 
that seeks to critically open up the world against the ossification of actuality by 
common sense, alienation and brute power.”   Bauman wishes to show that the world 766
need not be as it is and that what presently seems so natural or inevitable does not 
have to be so. Bauman argues that within liquid modernity thinking and imagination 
have taken a u-turn away from utopianism that was firmly embedded in a topos, today 
utopias are conceived in spaceless and visionless deserts. On the surface, this is a 
pessimistic perspective and pinpoints the problems posed by a globalised and 
individualised social world that has forgotten how to imagine alternative ways of 
organising itself. It is unable to think about anything other than that which currently 
appears real and tangible. This tendency for passivity, indifference, and defeatism that 
Bauman locates among politicians, as well as ordinary people, has for decades 
permeated sociological discourses within which the tradition of ‘realism’ has gained a 
 184
  Bauman 1987: 194 and also 2000: 131.764
  Mazlish 2005: 43.765
  Tester 2004: 147.766
new stronghold.   Bauman argues that positions such as Durkheimian sociology have 767
a tendency to naturalise the world, making a second nature of it, allowing common 
sense to prevail. They anaesthetise any kind of creativity, critical thinking or human 
ingenuity regarding the creation of a better or alternative world.   Beilharz agrees 768
with Bauman and suggests that Durkheim deifies society, with the potential effect 
that sociologists cannot imagine there ever having been any other way to live.   769
Utopias within solid modernity were encapsulated within metanarratives that sought 
to dissolve disorder into order and annihilate ambivalence and strangeness in their 
relentless search for structure, symmetry, and neatness.   In liquid modernity, these 770
metanarratives have disappeared, resulting in a suspicion of social engineering aimed 
at creating a better or more ideal future. The idea of, and the interest in, building a 
better future appears pointless, since the mastery of the future has vanished because of 
increasing complexity, individual indifference, and a decline of institutional and 
political control.   Bauman argues that when collective emancipatory politics and the 771
security of nationhood are replaced by politics that focus purely on the needs of the 
individual and the insecurities and uncertainties of global living, liquid ‘utopias’ 
eventually come to undermine the previously solid variant.   He argues that although 772
the solid modernist attempts at enforcing utopia often ended in the opposite – 
tyranny and human suffering – we cannot altogether cease to imagine a different 
world. This is because the now liquefied modern reality will eventually end up being as 
solid as its historical predecessor, since no counter-imaginations or counter-narratives 
exist. Mannheim’s assessment sums up Bauman’s understanding of the importance of 
utopian vision: 
[t]he disappearance of utopia brings about a static state of affairs in which man 
himself becomes nothing more than a thing. Thus, after a long tortuous, but 
heroic development, just at the highest stage of awareness, when history is 
ceasing to be blind fate, and is becoming more and more man's own creation, 
with the relinquishment of utopias, man would lose his will to shape history and 
therewith his ability to understand it.   773
 185
  Bauman 1999: 201-21.767
  Bauman 1976b: 70ff.768
  Beilharz 2010.769
  Bauman, 1989a, 1989b and 1991b.770
  Bauman 1998c: 37-49.771
  Bauman 1999: 211.772
  Mannheim 1985: 236.773
As we have already stated, MSC is captive to a consumer-focused ecclesiology that 
places choice at the heart of its missiological strategy. Its social description of reality 
misses those who are excluded or marginalised from a consumer society. MSC does 
not offer an alternative way for society, or even the Church, to organise itself, where 
those who are excluded are welcomed and included. The utopian strand in Bauman’s 
work is key to his overall thesis for sociology, since it provides the alternative space 
within which a consumer ideology can be reimagined; without it, Bauman’s work 
remains merely descriptive rather than possibly transformative. However, Bauman’s 
thought in this area is significantly underworked and theoretically underdeveloped, 
perhaps pointing to the difficulty of this task. A clear vocation for the Church is to 
witness to a very different form of society than one dominated by the ideology of 
consumption. This requires that those within the church must first become aware of 
the manner in which the ideology of consumption affects contemporary life, only then 
can the church draw from its own history and tradition the ways in which the 
Christian life offers a counter-imagination to this. The lack of appreciation for the 
darker aspects of consumerism means that MSC was not able to do this. We saw in 
Temple’s ecclesiology, and in particular in his sacramental theology, some of the 
resources the Church needs to draw upon if it is able to adequately equip and disciple 
its own members whilst also witnessing to fullness of life in Christ. Temple’s response 
to the perceived excesses of his own time were multifaceted and far ranging; from 
lobbying over government legislation on education and organising conferences that 
sought to respond socially, politically and economically to the urban problems caused 
by industrialisation, to his popular writings, where he sought to communicate to as 
wide an audience as possible the concern of God for the whole of social reality. MSC 
lacks this multifaceted approach; it is simply not as comprehensive in scope as 
Temple’s vision of the Christian life and the mission and witness of the Church. 
Essentially MSC remains captive to a privatised understanding of religion, whereas for 
Temple the Christian religion was that which informed and guided all else. Temple’s 
thinking was permeated with idealism and utopianism; in contrast, MSC lacks the 
same depth of social analysis. 
!
!
!
 186
Critical Remarks on Liquid Modernity 
How well Bauman’s new thesis succeeds has been hotly debated, and several critical 
questions need to be asked. Campain is critical of Bauman’s simplistic and uniform 
descriptions of modernity and liquid modernity, arguing that Bauman fails to 
recognise those who argue for different stages within modernity or the different 
modern mindsets which make it a contested idea.   Bauman’s thesis of solid 774
modernity also suffers from some of the same problems as his conception of 
modernity in that it largely gives singular accounts of socioeconomic, institutional, 
structures and material frameworks.   This new thesis also, as Kellner previously 775
argued, is still largely pessimistic and fails to give any positive account of modernity 
(solid or not), ignoring some of its central features, including for instance, democracy, 
human rights and associations.   The strongest criticism of Bauman’s conception of 776
solid and liquid modernity relate to its ability to provide a general model that draws 
upon contemporary empirical studies of global institutions and processes, as well as 
general sociality in contemporary society. Ray rejects Bauman’s thesis on such grounds, 
suggesting that it “illustrates a tendency within sociology to view theories as 
metaphors to be judged on grounds of appropriateness rather than truth claims judged 
on grounds of explanatory power.”   However, such criticisms rest upon the 777
assumption that social frameworks – such as Bauman’s – are only of use when they are 
empirically grounded in observable processes. Such criticisms could be made of all 
such general theories for each explores all current social phenomenon though “an 
undifferentiated prism – [in Bauman’s case] that of liquidization – and as a 
consequence must write off whatever fails to conform to it.”   Despite this it is clear 778
that Bauman’s work does need supplementing with empirical work so that the local is 
interpreted in a more in-depth manner. 
Bauman’s work also over-simplifies the diminishing power of the state, particularly 
regarding its ability to control global forces and its relationship to transnational 
corporations. His description of the relative impotency of politics appears to create 
another binary when in fact the context is much more complex and the relationship 
much more nuanced than his work makes out. For instance, the work of Hirst and 
 187
  Campain 2008: 193-208.774
  Kellner 1998: 76.775
  Ibid, p. 78.776
  Ray 2007: 64.777
  Elliott 2007: 53.778
Thompson, argues that transnational corporations do not have total control of national 
economies, that the state still has primary control over taxes and welfare spending, 
that international bodies like the UN and the EU are made up of, and dependent on, 
nation-states, and that states are developing increasing control of borders and 
migration.   Yet Bauman’s thesis, if treated as a set of metaphors that offer one of 779
several explanatory prisms through which we can view contemporary society, still 
offers compelling insights so long as it is not taken as a systematic account of reality – 
a claim he would never make himself. 
Warde is critical of Bauman’s work on consumerism, particularly Bauman’s contention 
that we are all “consumers first, and all the rest after”,   suggesting that such a 780
proposition amounts to speculative reasoning based upon modest empirical 
findings.   He argues that Bauman’s work hinders the sociological task, as it skews 781
sociology towards niche categories such as fashion, advertising and social networking, 
each of which relies upon models of highly autonomous individuals who are 
themselves preoccupied with these forms of symbolic communication and identify 
formation.   This amounts to a highly selective outcome and ignores other potential 782
routes for sociology to take regarding identity formation and symbolic 
communication. More traditional sociological views are often ignored or under 
emphasised in their influence on contemporary identify construction – for instance 
the role of the family or an individuals education.   It would be better to suggest, as 783
Blackshaw argues, that consumerism is one of the dominant ideological forces at work 
within contemporary British society.   784
Elliott points out that in Europe some elements of the economy, as well as various 
forms of private life-strategies, are still reliant upon the ordering, structuring, 
classification, hierarchy and control mechanisms of ‘solid’ modernity. Elliott suggests 
that Bauman has ignored this and exaggerated the significance of liquidization. The 
empirical work of Smart and Shipman’s appears to back-up this claim. Their research 
examines the way in which the values and practices of transnational families in Britain 
do not fit with the ideas of Bauman’s liquid modern relationships. Similar research has 
been carried out by Gross regarding the continued existence of the traditional concept 
 188
  Hirst and Thompson 2009.779
  Bauman 2000: 66.780
  Warde 1994: 880.781
  Warde 2005: 152.782
  Ibid.783
  Blackshaw 2008.784
of romantic love and lifelong partnership, yet Bauman argues such practices have been 
swept away by liquid modernity’s view of relationships as fluid and nowist.   It would 785
be better to see the theory of the commodification and liquidification of life as a 
partial transformation of social and social practices, even if it is increasingly dominant. 
Related criticisms of Bauman’s theory aim squarely at its ability to help sociologists 
rethink the relations in the global order, between the north and south, the First and 
Third worlds. Yet such criticisms fail to understand Bauman’s actual thesis, which is 
always primarily focused on the social realities of the West, and in particular Europe 
and Britain. Critics such as Best, who argues that Bauman’s thesis is still indelibly 
modern and Western in orientation and is better suited to explaining social processes 
that are prevalent within the Western world than those elsewhere,   as well as 786
Chesneaux and Paoline, who argue that in globalising his theory Bauman has greatly 
diminished the political and social differences as well as geopolitical space between 
the First and the Third world, each make this mistake.   Elliott contends that these 787
criticms are overemphasised and also fail to adequately represent Bauman’s own views. 
Bauman, throughout his work, is careful to repeat time and again that the processes of 
liquidification take place predominantly in the rich, expensive cities of the West, and 
that those who are isolated by such processes are predominately those in the Third 
world.   Bauman’s work does not develop the specifics of these geopolitical processes 788
in the Third world – the other side of his liquid world – simply because his attention 
is centred on the activities in the West.   789
Crone is critical of Bauman’s insistence on the need for utopian thinking because in it 
he fails to provide a coherent and consistent political theory that could help to re-
imagine society.   Even though Bauman is almost unique amongst sociologists in 790
arguing for utopian thinking, Bauman fails to articulate in any detail how and where 
this might occur. Crone notes that Bauman is animated by Castoriadis’ ambition to 
reinvent the agora - a sphere of life halfway between the public and private spheres.  791
Yet, Bauman appears content to hint at the manner in which this might function, and 
one is left with the impression that despite Bauman’s grand claims for the discipline of 
 189
  Smart 2004 and Gross 2005.785
  Best 1998.786
  Chesneaux 1992: 57ff and Paolini 1999.787
  Elliot 2008: 54.788
  Ibid: 54.789
  Crone 2008: 72-73.790
  Bauman 1999: 86.791
sociology he fails to translate the desire for social and political transformation into a 
clear account of how this might actually come about. Bauman’s work remains 
impotent in this regard: it does not provide the theoretical basis with which to bring 
about the change that he demands. 
The work of Bourdieu also exposes a limitation in Bauman's work, particularly 
Bauman’s concept of capital. Bourdieu expands Marx's concept of capital into several 
other social arenas, building on his concept of the 'field'. 'Fields' were the systems 
actors founds themselves in, they offered options for the actors actions (and also 
conversely ruled out certain actions depending on the type of field the actor was 
within) and in which these actions become meaningful. His work thus defended the 
structuralist notion of the importance of relations and relationships (within fields) in 
forming actors (a position contra those, such as Sartre, who argued for the self-
creating, autonomous subject). He also understand the fields, or systems, actors occupy 
themselves as their habitus (a term borrowed from Husserl). By which he meant the 
actors childhood, schooling, the work they were taught, their developing schemata of 
thinking, perceiving and acting, each contributes to creating a habitus the actor 
inhabits. This habitus enables actors to respond to different situations and tasks. Tastes 
and actors interpretations of the world are formed in this early stage and determine 
options for the actors actions. Though Bourdieu argues that this does not lead to a 
purely utilitarian concept of action, because he allows for the fact that actors can, and 
do, engage in creative and innovative conduct, even though, he argues, they cannot 
totally step out of their own habitus. 
He developed this initial work on fields and habitas by then seeking to explain which 
goods the actors in their various fields struggle over, and what they were trying to 
achieve by deploying their action strategies. He rejected the Marxist assumption that 
social life is exclusively the struggle over economic goods, because it neglected other 
forms of dispute.   Bourdieu then began to argue that capital can take many different 792
forms and introduced three other forms of capital alongside the economic form. The 
cultural, the social and the symbolic. By cultural capital he means works of art, books 
and musical instruments, both present within these objects, and also the cultural 
capacities and cultural knowledge that have been absorbed by actors encounters with, 
and use of, these objects. Within cultural capital he also included those who attained a 
high level of academic specialisation because they were holders of, and acquirers of, 
 190
  Bourdieu 1992: 292ff.792
cultural knowledge. By social capital he means the resources through which actors 
demonstrate membership of a group – family or ones university for instance – and the 
networks of social relationships upon which actors draw to realise goals. He deploys 
the term symbolic capital as a generic term to talk about the interplay between the 
other three types of capital. It is the capital gained through generous deeds, or 
extravagant behaviour, leading people to be held in distinction and occupy a position 
of power or privilege. It is relevant to class hierarchy as much as it can be transformed 
into economic capital. Bourdieu states that this form of capital also represents a 
"transformed and thereby disguised form of physical economic" capital".   It becomes 793
the sum of the actors overall standing, reputation, renown and prestige in society, and 
determines the actors place in societies hierarchy. What is always at issue within 
Bourdieu's concept of the actor is still the accumulation of capital but his theory 
nuances and expands the various forms this takes. 
Through these concepts of capital Bourdieu is able to analyse and model a societies 
class structure in a more convincing manner than orthodox Marxism. Bourdieu's 
theory is also more developed and nuanced than Bauman's, who has a largely singular 
conception of economic capital. Bourdieu also develops a sociology of culture that is 
also lacking in Bauman, whilst retaining a Marxist dimension, for his focus is still on 
describing the cultural apparatus as that of the economy.  In both of these spheres it is 
still the actors' interests which play the decisive role; it is the types of capital that 
differ, the main concern is still the profit and loss and the struggles and disputes over 
them. Bauman's lack of a cultural form of capital narrows his ability to see how 
conceiving of capital in this wider sense could have broadened his critique of 
consumerism through an appreciation (for instance) of the role eduction could have to 
creating actors who can resist a purely economic vision of capital such as that of 
consumerism. It also would have broadened his understanding of the ideology of 
consumerism, how it affects these different forms of capital, and how these different 
forms of capital within a consumer society also work to re-inforce consumerism. 
Bourdieu, in Distinction, develops just such an understanding with regard to cultural 
capital, within which he includes taste, the aesthetic appreciation of music, and 
clothing. He suggests that each of these is conditioned by the actors’ class habitus. Part 
of his aim is to demystify those who give such 'tastes' a quasi-eternal characteristic. 
His analysis of the manner in which the upper classes continually try to eat and dress 
 191
  Bourdieu 1992: 183.793
in ways which give distinction to their social standing, further reinforces class 
boundaries. Attitudes toward art, sport, politics, opinion and film also mimic this same 
pattern, where together they become 'life-styles' which set-apart actors’ of different 
class from each other. Though Bauman's work is hugely illustrative it is blind to this 
way of thinking because he does not have a wide enough conception of capital. 
Bauman is also at variance to Bourdieu over social class and access to resources. 
Bauman argues that those who cannot exercise their consumer freedom represent the 
excluded, the poor. Yet Bourdieu's work shows that this creates a overly simplistic 
binary between the privileged and underprivileged in society. Bauman's focus upon 
economic difference lacks the ability to see beyond this to explain social practices. 
Bourdieu's understanding of the cultural mediation of practices, by way of cultural, 
social and symbolic capital, provides a more sophisticated form of analysis that helps 
understand what shapes consumer choice beyond discrepancies in income levels. 
Yet Bourdieu also suffers from some of the same problems as Bauman, in that he is 
not able, in his scheme, to articulate a manner in which systems, or fields, of 
oppression may be changed or to describe how real discourse may arise that 
precipitates change. For Bourdieu freedom is only possible when actors understand 
and recognises the laws that govern societies; "sociology frees by freeing from the 
illusion of freedom".   His theory of multiple accounts of capital helps illuminate the 794
myriad ways in which people are less free than they think, and enlivens Bauman's 
account of freedom, particularly where he stresses the ability of actors to choose life-
styles, and to re-narrate their life at will. Bourdieu draws attention to the fact that 
consumers are less free than Bauman thinks. 
Although these critical remarks do cast certain aspects of Bauman’s thesis in a critical 
light they do not diminish the force of his work. Bauman always claims that he was 
not writing a systematic sociology that could account for all social possibilities and 
influences, he uses metaphorical language exactly to avoid that kind of systematising 
and to resist his ideas becoming ‘solid’, not open to development. As such his 
sociology contains within itself an openness to the above sorts of criticisms. His thesis 
genuinely sheds light on contemporary social conditions in the West, particularly in 
the Britain and it provides a robust critical response to the sociology of MSC which 
appears shallow and undeveloped in contrast. Even bearing in mind the above 
criticisms Bauman’s work can enrich the Church’s understanding of the present 
 192
  Bourdieu in Dosse, History of Structuralism, vol II, 67.794
cultural and social conditions and help enable a more adequate ecclesiology to be 
constructed with respect to capitalism. 
!
Conclusion 
During this chapter, we have traced the contours of the sociology that underlies MSC. 
We have related this in detail to Bauman’s postmodern sociology, written in the late 
eighties and early nineties, and noted how MSC misconstrues Bauman’s work in 
overemphasising the cultural differences between modernity and postmodernity. We 
argued that this makes the social description that MSC offers questionable in several 
areas. We demonstrated that in arguing that society has moved to a postmodern social 
reality that bears little resemblance to the former modern society MSC holds a 
theoretical position that has been severely critiqued in the last ten years. Many 
sociologists have developed theories that reject the term postmodernism in favour of a 
more modified account of modernity. MSC relies on the polarity between modernity 
and postmodernity to reinforce its argument for a radical discontinuity between the 
missional practices and ecclesiology of the inherited Church of England tradition, 
which it assumes have largely been shaped by modernity, and its contemporary 
context, which is thoroughly postmodern. This argument is now significantly 
weakened. MSC has been shown to be unaware that social theorists, like Bauman, 
have constructed a far more complex and nuanced picture of our contemporary 
context. Their work, including Bauman’s, acknowledges that the sociology that 
developed in modernity, and its subsequent analysis of modernity, still have much 
significance for contemporary life, even if new theories, concerns, and social realities 
have emerged in the last decades of the twentieth century. Given the weaknesses of 
MSC’s sociology it was necessary to seek an alternative contemporary account of the 
Church of England’s social context. Having identified Bauman as one of the key 
sociologists who informs MSC’s sociology (although he is misrepresented), and 
recognising that he is a mature theorist whose work has developed significantly over 
nearly fifty years, we decided to take his recent account of liquid modernity as a basis 
for critical reflection.  
Bauman’s thesis of liquid and solid modernity provides a conceptual framework that 
partially explains the changing conditions of social life. This thesis of liquid modernity, 
 193
which is mature and much more nuanced than that of MSC’s, largely focuses on the 
ideology of consumption. This over-arching emphasis enables the Church to 
understand more precisely the myriad ways in which consumerism, globalisation and 
technology (to name but a few things) impinge on society and create new and 
complex social realities that differ from those fifty years ago. His definitions of ‘solid’ 
and ‘liquid’ enable the Church to question to what extent these new contemporary 
situations differ from their historic variants, and in what ways they impinge on the life 
of society, particularly those on the margins. Although we recognised that there are 
problematic elements to his theory – its reliance on binaries that that over-simplify 
complex social phenomena, and the way in which the use of such blanket categories 
amounts to a highly selective outcome that ignores social processes and events that do 
not neatly fit his schema, as well as his limited and narrow account of capital, 
particularly in comparison to Bourdieu’s – nevertheless, and despite these criticisms, 
Bauman’s thesis is illustrative of the manner within which social life, and social 
freedoms (and un-freedoms) have altered in the last fifty years. Bauman is an astute 
guide, though perhaps more like an early mapper of the English landscape, who, 
whilst lacking the detail of a present Ordinance Survey map, does capture the general 
contours and characteristics of the landscape. 
Bauman’s work has enabled this thesis to build a more complete and complex social 
description of the Church of England’s context than MSC and to describe more 
adequately the context to which the Church is called to minister. It helps the Church 
to see clearly the ways in which MSC uncritically incorporates into its missiology and 
ecclesiology some of the more sinister aspects of consumer ideology that Bauman’s 
work identifies, particularly when coupled with the work of Miller. We examined this 
specifically with regard to social fragmentation, the treatment of the stranger, the 
commodification of the Church, and the increasing detachment, reification and 
abstraction of the Church’s core practices and symbols from their original context. 
Within MSC, this highlights a lurking scientific positivism, where one can simply 
accept a particular sociologist’s theory without any form of critical engagement with 
the assumptions the theorist makes. MSC adopts the idea that one can adequately and 
comprehensively describe social reality, yet we have seen the way in which it fails in 
this regard due to its overly simplistic architecture. 
Bauman’s work illustrates some of the darker aspects of a society increasingly 
dominated by a consumerist ideology. Yet his work contains little that serves to 
 194
remedy his findings apart from some very under developed thoughts on the agoria. It 
is the contention of this thesis that the Church of England has within her past history 
a rich tapestry of thought that is of relevance to its contemporary ecclesial vocation, 
particularly in the work of William Temple that we explored. Bringing the 
sacramental ecclesiology of Temple to bear upon the social reality Bauman describes 
would, I argue, result in a much richer and more profound (as well as more orthodox) 
encounter of the gospel with the Church’s contemporary context. This would lead to 
an ecclesiology and missiology that is alert to the more insidious aspects of liquid 
modernity and able to bring the weight of the gospel to bear upon them whilst also 
bearing witness to the riches of her own tradition. In our final chapter, I shall attempt 
to summarise the three major lines of critical thought regarding MSC, as well as make 
some tentative attempts to use Temple’s ecclesiology as a critical basis to engage 
Bauman’s work, outlining a few possible ways in which the Church of England is 
called to manifest the gospel today. 
!
 195
Conclusion 
This thesis has demonstrated that MSC, as well as its secondary literature, is deficient 
in the following areas: ecclesiology, missiology and sociology. After assessing the 
report and secondary literature in chapter one and demonstrating that the current 
critical responses to the report were either underdeveloped or inadequate, we began 
examining these deficiencies in more detail. In Chapter two we identified and 
explored the sources of the report, ascertaining that these were primarily non-
Anglican, drawing upon work by congregationalist and free church theologians, such 
as Murray-Williams and Bosch. These missiological and ecclesiological sources were 
in themselves a Western utilisation of the methodology of contextual theologians 
based in Africa and Asia during the last century. We argued that there is no issue with 
using such theologies but that they must be held in critical dialogue with the existing 
theological traditions of the Church of England, and tested against the insights of 
those traditions. We then explored some of the major missiological reports and 
movements of the last two centuries within the Church of England. We argued that 
these were also contextual in nature, being highly varied in their approach. Their 
ecclesiology had developed existing Anglican tradition in the light of their changing 
social conditions, but was, and is, recognisably Anglican. Their recommendations, 
structures, and patterning of eucharistically centred worship drew upon, and 
developed, existing Anglican theological traditions and disciplines. Their 
understanding of mission was broad, and reflected a concern for the social, economic 
and political world in which they were situated. These reports and movements 
represent sustained and mature theological reflection as well as practical action over a 
period of nearly two hundred years. Yet they constitute a body of work which MSC 
ignored, for it took a contrasting approach, being written without reference to this 
existing body of work, and largely constructing its own pool of literature from which 
to draw. Ironically, it could be accused of being too ecclesiastical because it does not 
take its own context seriously, and shows a primary concern for the Church’s existing 
structures rather than a desire to understand the Church’s missionary context and 
history. It thus stands detached from a powerful tradition of Anglican social criticism 
and missiology exemplified in the theology of Temple. Simply put, MSC is not 
ecclesiological enough: it does not place itself in continuity with the powerful and 
broad tradition we examined. This is a tradition upon which it actually needed to 
reflect, and recontextualise. 
Chapter three examined the work of Temple as a representative of that tradition. We 
explored his ecclesiology and missiology in both its written and practical forms, 
demonstrating that it provided a more adequate basis for reflecting on the role and 
nature of the Church in the world than MSC’s ecclesiology or missiology. Temple’s 
theology was an attempt to comprehend how the whole of social reality could be 
illuminated by Christ. This theology emerged from his understanding of the 
sacramental universe, which itself was centred on the sacramental encounter with God 
encountered in the life of the local church. Through this theory Temple gained a deep 
appreciation for the importance of the material and social world which led his 
ecclesiology and missiology to develop existing Anglican thought by placing it in 
dialogue with the dominant philosophies, and deepest social needs, of his own time. 
Temple is not exclusive in developing this sort of theology, he stands in a long 
Anglican tradition of theologians who made these same sorts of claims. This thesis’ use 
of Temple is illustrative of the sort of ecclesiology which would have better served 
MSC and enabled it to develop a far more sophisticated ecclesiology, an ecclesiology 
that was not utilitarian and instrumentalist, nor one that sought to confine Christian 
faith to the private sphere as a consumer ‘life-style choice’. 
In Chapter four our attention turned from theology to sociology. After establishing 
the sources of MSC’s sociology in chapter one, this chapter critically examined the 
representation of those sources and MSC’s use of them. We showed that the sociology 
of MSC postulated a radical form of social postmodernity that has attracted 
significant criticism in the last twenty years, and was itself based on a misreading of 
Bauman’s work. MSC’s reliance upon this theory undermines the sociology it presents 
and reinforces this thesis’s view that its sociology is theoretically underdeveloped, 
uncritically accepted, and without sufficient theological reflection. We then examined 
the sociology of Bauman as a basis for critical reflection on both MSC and the nature 
of social reality in contemporary English society. We demonstrated that his thesis of 
solid and liquid modernity provides a robust framework for understanding the 
complexities of contemporary social processes. Bauman’s work, because of its focus on 
the sinister aspects of liquid modernity, illuminates the way in which a society 
dominated by a consumer ideology results in severe cultural fragmentation, increasing 
violence towards the stranger and the strange, and the commodification of daily life, 
each of which lead to the dominance of a seriously under-resourced anthropology. We 
also explored the work of Miller, who develops Bauman’s writings on commodification 
with regard to contemporary Church practices. Using Miller’s thesis we demonstrated 
 197
that MSC had uncritically adopted some of the excessive forms of consumerism and 
commodification by placing personal choice at the heart of its ecclesiological and 
missiological strategy. 
Before drawing together the insights of these chapters, and bearing in mind the above 
criticisms, we must ask whether there are any lessons that the Church of England can 
learn from MSC. The answer must be yes. First, even though this thesis rejects MSC’s 
account of the ordering and practices of the local church, the Church must welcome 
and encourage its call for adaptive and creative missiological responses to our present 
contemporary context, and the need for diversity in ministry, if it is to continue to 
attempt to minister to the entire population of England. If it does not, the Church 
faces the prospect of further decline. 
Second, MSC and the Fresh Expressions of church that have emerged over these last 
seven years affirm the complex and varied ways in which people journey towards the 
heart of the Church. As Williams notes: “those are journeys towards the heart of 
God’s purpose, [which is] quite a long business; in fact it’s one [people] never come to 
the end of.”   We find this same testimony in the gospels, which witness to the 795
various ways, and various situations, in which people come face to face with Jesus 
Christ, as well as the confusion this causes in some and the fulfillment it immediately 
causes in others. The commonality in these encounters is Christ, and the manner in 
which an encounter with Him transforms people’s view of themselves, their 
community and the world. This encounter leads people, or at least it should lead 
people, to continue to reflect upon the possibilities that that encounter brought, and 
continues to bring. The pace of change, or in Christian terms, growth in holiness, that 
occurs through this encounter with Christ also varies from person to person, a view 
attested to by the gospel writers: some are challenged by Jesus to change straight away 
(the rich young man in Matthew 19), whereas with others (most notably the disciples) 
Jesus is depicted as being very patient. MSC recognises this, and many Fresh 
Expressions enable people to slowly begin to explore what an encounter with Christ 
may mean. Fowler’s concept of ‘stages of faith’ explores this issue more thoroughly.  796
His theory has been criticised for its understanding of ‘faith’, its structural ‘logic of 
development’, its over-emphasis on cognition and consequent lack of attention to 
emotional/psychodynamic dimensions as processes of transition and transformation, 
 198
  Williams 2011.795
  Fowler 1981.796
its gender bias and cultural specificity, and its purported difficulty in accommodating 
postmodern trends in psychology.   Despite this Fowler’s work does help illustrate 797
the pragmatic missiological basis for diversity in the life of the Church. Humanity is 
diverse; therefore the Church should expect and enable people to experience Christ in 
diverse ways. 
This should remind the Church that questions regarding the boundaries and essential 
practices of the local church are complicated, and not easy to settle. This does not 
diminish the description of the Church we have developed in this thesis, for the 
sacraments – baptism and eucharist – are the ‘big things’ in the life of the Church and 
its mission. They are what enables the continued encounter with Christ to become 
most vivid, and most real, in the lives of the believer and the believing community. 
This thesis would also strongly argue that it is the vocation of each local church to 
manifest in its own life the reality that all are reconciled to God through Christ. This 
vocation would necessarily resist the homogenising tendencies of the ecclesiology of 
Fresh Expressions. For the Catholicity of the Church, and the witness and centrality 
of the sacraments, in its life raise difficult questions regarding the legitimacy of 
naming as churches in their own right Fresh Expressions that do not see Catholicity 
or sacramental participation as important and essential parts of their own life. Such 
communities could instead be seen as missionary communities, where the presence of 
Christ can be encountered, and faith nurtured and developed. Yet in the majority of 
cases in order to develop a mature faith their members need to make the transition 
into a, or the, local parish church. For it is the embedded nature of the parish structure 
throughout England in every place that provides the richest setting for an encounter 
with Christ, and the propagation of the gospel.   The parish is the church in this 798
place for these people. Each local church is called to be as full an expression of the 
Catholic Church as it can be. MSC, in essentially restricting the make-up of the local 
church to like-minded individuals, diminishes this point, and reduces the capacity of 
such communities to be truly Catholic and impoverishes their encounter with Christ. 
Having finished our critical examination of MSC, we are now in a position to attempt 
to repair the problems we have identified. Before that we must remind ourselves of the 
broad missionary calling of the Church, an understanding we found exemplified in the 
theology of Temple. The life of the Church is centred on Jesus Christ, and the manner 
 199
  Coyle 2011.797
  A view shared by Davison and Milbank, 2011.798
in which an encounter with Him – in baptism, in the eucharist, in the proclamation 
and exposition of the word – transforms a community’s understanding of themselves, 
and of the world. This leads believers to reflect upon the possibilities that this 
encounter brings for all they do. The embodiment of these possibilities is the 
missionary calling of the Church, of every believer, local congregation, diocese, 
national and international church. To discern, nourish and develop a vision for social, 
political and economic transformation is nothing less than to explore the possibilities 
of the Kingdom of God in each and every age, and in each and every place. 
Because of this calling, the concerns of the Church, and the concerns of the state, 
creatively overlap politically, economically and socially. The Church contributes to the 
idea of citizenship. It helps people to develop a public and private dignity. It helps 
people to have a voice and be listened to. It nurtures the understanding that all must 
contribute from what they have to the common project, the common public vision or 
purpose, shared in a community. As Williams argues, to “learn to be a Christian 
therefore is to learn how to exercise decision-making freedom and the maintenance of 
your environment in the context of a vision for all human beings, which is one of the 
things that makes it both exciting and complicated and liable to appalling failures.”  799
Christian citizenship is not ‘pie in the sky when you die’; it has very visible and 
tangible effects in the world. Therefore, the Church ought to be a place where people 
are educating one another about civic questions, human dignity, liberty, responsibility, 
and the creation of a sustainable human environment, and then witnessing to the new 
pattern of life that emerges from this process. Bauman’s sociology suggests that today 
politics in the public square is operating with a desperately impoverished vision of 
what human beings are like, and what they are capable of. This view is echoed by 
Williams, who goes on to say, “the only justification for the public presence of the 
Church in British life ... is its God-given capacity to keep that argument alive, to 
remind people that humanity is never exhausted by any particular political definition 
or social order, that there is always more to discover about human beings made in the 
image of God.”   In MSC this vocation of the Church is diminished. Christian faith 800
is treated as essentially private, and the Church’s vision of humanity is overridden, 
forgotten or marginalised. Yet in the work of Temple, this broad and rich 
understanding of mission remained as an essential strand of his thinking, and caused 
him to call the Church to engage with the deepest social needs of his own day. 
 200
  Williams 2009.799
  Ibid.800
By examining the work of Temple and Bauman we have begun the process of 
rectifying the deficiencies we identified in MSC, and can now begin to reconstruct a 
more adequate ecclesiology that learns from the sociology of Bauman, yet also works 
critically within and upon the social reality that he describes. This thesis argues that 
the Church of England needs to configure its ecclesiology, as well as aspects of its 
missiology, to emphasise the following four areas, each of which emerge from a critical 
reading of Temple against the backdrop of Bauman’s liquid modernity: first, the 
Church’s Catholicity; second, the role of education; third, sacramental ecclesiology; 
fourth, the comprehensive nature of theology. Though we shall attempt to explore 
these issues separately, they do of course overlap, not only with each other but also 
with other areas of theology as well. 
!
Catholicity 
The Church of England believes that the Church is a place of radical inclusion, 
offering hospitality to all. We saw how this view, in the last twenty years, has 
developed to include the idea that the planet, and all its resources, also participate in 
the life and purpose of God’s redeeming activity. In contrast, MSC is content to offer a 
reading of social reality that recognises that consumerism and commodification are 
the dominant social ideologies of today, but it fails to develop its analysis to explore 
the ways in which these ideologies powerfully exclude and marginalise people. Its 
ecclesiology and mission strategy does little to remedy the ills of consumerism: people 
remain isolated, some contented, some exploited. As such it diminishes the power of 
the gospel, or Christ, to reconcile and overcome difference, and actually goes on to 
enshrine the irreconcilability of difference into its own theology. The Church of 
England has in various reports addressed this in a number of specific ways including 
the issues of racism and ethnic exclusion, economic philosophy and ideology, prison 
reform, and environmentalism.   801
The nascent koinonia theology we saw in Temple’s theology also emphasised that 
homogenous churches represent a diminishment of a Catholic vision of the Church 
and a capitulation to secular norms.   He rejected the idea that the Church should be 802
made up of like-minded, or culturally similar, groups of peoples. Such a view 
 201
  See pages 72-80.801
  See pages 113ff.802
diminished the focus on Christ as the reconciler of all things to God. Temple’s stress 
upon a common liturgy, and the need for bishops to function as figures of unity in the 
Church, emphasise his commitment to this Catholic dimension of the Church’s life. 
He resisted the emerging individualising ideologies of his own time in order to re-
assert that the form of fellowship the Church local and universal must exhibit must be 
all embracing, having a continual focus on its oneness in Christ across all time and 
space rather than having too narrower focus on one particular culture or time. 
Temple presents a rich Catholic vision of the Church that forms a powerful antithesis 
to the individuating and compartmentalising aspects of liquid modernity that we see 
described in Bauman’s work. In particular Bauman’s work highlights the ill treatment 
of the stranger and the strange in British society, the manner in which urban areas are 
increasingly ghettoised, and the way in which society is increasingly segregated 
culturally and economically. He illuminates the more sinister areas of a society that 
prioritises pluralism in its own life. The Church of England must not within its own 
life reflect these same tendencies. The vision Temple offered is one in which these 
divisions are resisted and broken down and it offers a radical vision of the Kingdom of 
God. Miller’s work also alerts the Church to the need for further in-depth theological 
reflection of the impact consumerism has on society and the Church, and its resulting 
anthropology, and the manner in which the gospel provides an alternative narrative to 
that of consumerism, which results in a profoundly different anthropology, one based 
on mutuality and gift giving. 
Today the Church needs to equip its members to see how the imagination of 
consumerism is false, how its anthropology fractures humanity, and how it perpetually 
misuses the resources of the planet. Temple’s understanding of the Catholic nature of 
the Church means that humans’ bonds are not simply reducible to materialist or 
utilitarian accounts. For it is Christ, as the head of the Church, who unifies and binds 
people and all things together – not what people wear, nor their social category or 
purchasing power – and it is Christ who reconciles and perfects all things. This 
emphasises the need for each local church to reflect in its liturgy, teaching, and 
preaching, this broad and generous understanding of the Catholic nature of the 
Church. Such communities would then exhibit a powerful and compelling vision of 
humanity that speaks of the possibility of healing the deep divisions that exist within 
society and that are perpetuated by consumerism. The community’s, and believers’, 
 202
encounter with Christ in the eucharist is the horizon that guides and undergirds this 
Catholic vision of the church. 
!
!
Education 
It is ironic that a key feature of contemporary culture is that the laity are the most 
literate and educated they have ever been, yet the Church has not kept pace with this 
growth by equipping them with the dogmatic, liturgical and spiritual depths of its 
own tradition in compelling communications. Literacy rates have soared in the last 
century, classic texts of the Christian tradition are available in print for the first time, 
and theology books are now more widely read than ever.   Yet this increase in 803
knowledge and learning has largely come from secular sources, and as Miller argues, 
“[t]he church desperately needs adult education on a daunting scale.”   804
If we take Bauman’s thesis on commodification seriously, and use Miller’s work to 
further understand its impact upon religion, then there is a danger that believers 
themselves will become content with the way in which they presently consume 
religion and happy with the ‘service’ the Church provides them. Within such a culture, 
believers become members of a community of passive consumers, whose consumption 
equals that of other consumers of professional services, rather than agents of Christ. 
MSC is an example of the manner in which Christian practices can be commodified. 
The Church needs to educate believers from understanding faith as something 
branded to suit a particular people – which robs the gospel of its judging power – to 
understanding Christian faith as that which informs the whole of life, and engages 
critically with the social needs of each and every age. 
Temple emphasised the role education needed to played the life of the Church in 
order to equip its members to witness adequately to the fulness of the gospel. Mission 
could only be carried out by laity who were equipped to understand the context within 
which they lived and the manner in which the gospel critiqued and enlivened that 
context. The Malvern and COPEC conferences, as well as his continual touring and 
 203
  Miller 2006: 8.803
  Ibid: 223.804
speech making as both bishop and archbishop, are illustrative of the way in which he 
attempted to help the Church understand the ways in which the ideologies of 
individualism, capitalism and utilitarianism were damaging society and distorting its 
vision of human flourishing. These educational foci were all underpinned by his 
sophisticated theory of the sacramental universe which affirmed the importance of the 
material and cultural without reifying or idealising them. 
The Church of England needs a specific focus on Christian education; this thesis 
contends that one of the primary focuses of that education should be understanding 
theologically the culture of consumerism. Though MSC purports to be a report about 
mission as expressed in and through the local church, it surprisingly does not focus on 
equipping believers, through on-going discipleship, with the resources they need to be 
effective missionaries in their own places of work. The local church is instead 
encouraged to focus almost exclusively on the forms its own practices take, which are 
orientated towards drawing people in rather than converting people to a different way 
of life. 
MSC lacks the critical hermeneutic Temple had for engaging with the Church’s social 
context. This is because it does not developed a detailed account of the Church’s 
relationship to the world. Christian faith is privatised and individualised, the Church 
has little to say to the totality of social reality, and no account is given of the laity’s life 
in the Church, nor their role in mission. MSC is unaware of the ‘Temple’ method – 
exploring all social problems in the light of the Christian faith and his understanding 
of double judgement enables the Church to become capable of being a partner of the 
state and other social bodies, as well as being critical of those social bodies and of 
itself. Temple is just one figure amongst many – others include Gore, Maurice and 
Ramsey for instance – who showed within his own work the expansive reflection that 
the Church of England has undertaken with regard to its own self-understanding and 
attitude towards its own context.   The Church of England needs in its ordination, 805
reader, and lay training, to address these issues in order that it might equip its 
members adequately for mission in its own context. 
!
 204
  Avis: 1988, Morris 2005 and Chadwick 1990.805
Sacramental Theology 
Temple’s sacramental theology, and in particular his understanding of the sacramental 
universe undergirded his theology and led him to his particular understanding of 
Catholicity, the importance of eduction, and theology’s comprehensiveness. It is this 
aspect of his ecclesiology that most needs re-articulating in the Church of England 
today. For even though sacramental theology and sacramental ecclesiology have seen 
significant development in recent Anglican theology, this is not reflected in MSC. We 
saw how Temple developed a thoroughly sacramental ecclesiology – the sacramental 
worship of the Church was its characteristic activity, which along with the creeds, the 
scriptures and ordained ministry made up the safeguards that guaranteed its 
continuity and fidelity. They helped sustain and develop its vocation as the Body of 
Christ. In the eucharist believers encountered the presence of Christ, are sustained, 
nourished, and transformed into the likeness of Christ, and through the power of the 
Spirit the Church became more fully the true koinonia, the Body of Christ. This body 
witnessesd corporately and individually to the reality of the risen Christ and the 
Kingdom of God. His understanding of the real presence of Christ in the eucharist 
provided the basis from which he developed his theory of the sacramental universe, 
where the bread and the wine point to the sacramentality of all material things. It was 
this that gave value to all material things and led him to have a deep concern for the 
material and cultural world.  
Temple’s sacramental theology saw the world as God’s creation, a gift from God. 
Everything in the world is both a material thing and a sacrament of God’s grace. 
Bauman’s work illustrates how the present economic system in liquid modernity 
creates a rift between the material and the sacramental, making it fundamentally at 
variance with this principle. Such a system de-sacralises material things: they are 
simply something that can be manipulated, branded and commodified.   Human 806
beings are treated in the same way – they are sources of labour for the economy. These 
contemporary accounts of anthropology and social reality are similar to the views in 
the nineteenth and early twentieth century that Temple (as well as Maurice and Gore) 
were seeking to combat.   Today they are stronger, and more prevalent. Bauman’s 807
work further highlights how utilitarianism and materialism dominate the English 
 205
  Bauman 1989.806
  See chapter four.807
economic and social landscape, yet the whole witness of Temple’s theology is that 
human beings are primarily social, rather than primarily materialistic, creatures. 
This thesis argues, alongside Temple, that the Church, in taking bread and wine – 
signs of humanity’s labour – sees labour redeemed and completed by and in God. 
Through this encounter, the community’s understanding of production, consumption, 
and finance is transformed. Material things are not seen as absolute values in 
themselves, but as gifts, a means of grace, that people can use to participate in God’s 
redeeming activity in Christ. This encounter enables believers to act as catalysts, agents 
of social change. Over time, through the liturgy, preaching, teaching, and the act of 
receiving the bread and wine itself, believers, by the power of the Holy Spirit, become 
critically aware of their own social context, and the way in which various aspects of it 
are unjust. They begin to understand that there is a cost to their belief and on-going 
participation in the Body of Christ. They see that various aspects of their own lives are 
complicit in economic, political and social structures that are unjust. Believers are 
empowered to challenge the consumerist, materialist, and utilitarian ideologies that 
Bauman, amongst others, identify as the dominant social philosophies today. This may, 
for instance, lead to believers working to challenge the unjust working practices in the 
third world; increasing exclusion of the elderly from society due to their inability to 
consume; the degrading treatment of immigrants; and the exploitative effects our 
materialist society has on our environment, whether directly in this country or 
indirectly in other more hidden parts of the world. Temple’s sacramental theology 
repudiated the view that worship is a private encounter of the believer with God – 
arguably a view that MSC presents – and instead asserts that worship expressed the 
consecration of all life, for worship and prayer educate believers into a fuller 
understanding of the true nature of materiality, social life and social reality. 
!
The Road Ahead: Comprehensiveness 
Given that Temple’s ecclesiology offered a profoundly rich and varied account of the 
Christian life and its witness to the whole of social reality, it is extraordinary that 
MSC was unaware of, or ignored, this powerful strand of the Anglican tradition. It is a 
tradition that is attested to in other reports we have examined as well as the work of 
contemporary theologians such as Milbank, Pickstock and Ward. MSC is not alone in 
this respect: two other reports in the 1990s addressing the Church of England’s 
 206
missionary vocation suffer from the same shortcoming. Presence and Prophecy and The 
Search for Faith both explored how, and why, the Church was in decline, and how it 
might reverse this situation. Both gave the same form of social analysis as MSC.  808
These three reports are illustrative of the problem of how the body of work that the 
Church has developed – even in reports published in the last twenty or thirty years – 
is continuing to inform its self-understanding. 
The alternative tradition we have examined in this thesis, studied most clearly in the 
work of Temple, shows an alertness to some of the more insidious aspects of modern 
culture, and also liquid modern culture(s) described by Bauman. Though the reports 
we examined at the end of chapter two are not widely available they do hint at the 
manner in which theology provides a rich, profound, and compelling, basis for 
understanding the possibilities of human flourishing today.   Yet, it is clear that this 809
tradition has not influenced, or informed, official missiological reports like MSC to 
the extent that it should. This thesis has attempted to bring this tradition more clearly 
into view, showing how it might inform the Church’s present debates concerning 
ecclesiology and missiology. Whilst it is beyond the remit of this thesis to totally 
address this problem, it is clear that information technology and multimedia 
technology both provide low cost ways to distribute theological material across the 
Church of England. Official reports of the Church of England should contribute to a 
developing library of documentation that lay readers, priest and bishops use as a basis 
to teach and preach. Commissioned reports, in most cases, appear to be rarely read 
beyond General Synod, and are quickly archived. The popularity of MSC stands as a 
testimony that this need not be the case, yet it remains an isolated example. The 
Church of England needs to ensure that it does not remain so. 
This tradition also enlivens and develops perhaps the most important feature of 
Temple’s theology, and arguably Anglican theology – its comprehensiveness. The 
conviction that the believers’ and communities encounter with Christ has 
ramifications for the whole of social reality. Reports on the environment, prison 
reform, free market economy, and race relations have been produced because they take 
seriously the claim that the message of the gospel is for all people in all places and at 
all times. There are simply no social, political or economic conditions that are beyond 
 207
  See Mission Theological Advisory Group 2002 and 1996. Both argue that increasingly individualised culture, 808
increasing materialism through consumption, and the difficulties globalisation has caused are some of the primaary 
causes of decline in numbers attending local churches.
  See 73ff.809
the scope of the transforming power of Jesus Christ, whose body, the Church, is called 
upon to be a witness to the extent of this power in its actions and interactions with 
the world. It could be said, not unjustly, that MSC represents a narrowing of this 
missiological vocation, reflecting the increasing dominance of the secularisation thesis, 
even in parts of the Church itself. MSC should have represented a rich depository of 
wisdom to which future generations of priests and theologians could have turned in 
order to further resource the pressing social, and theological, questions of their own 
day. Had MSC drawn from the rich tradition we have examined, represented so ably 
by Temple, it might have avoided many, it not all, of the theological and sociological 
deficiencies we have identified and attempted to rectify. Yet, as this thesis has shown, 
there is still much work to be done in this area if the Church of England is to 
proclaim the gospel afresh in this generation. 
!
 208
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