People of God is a well-known biblical term used to describe and understand the inclusive, holistic and serving nature of the Christian Church. Currently, members of the worldwide Anglican Communion are discussing discipleship and ministry. This paper explores the deep connection between describing the church as the People of God and the practice of discipleship and ministry. That exploration occurs through an examination of the considerable literature on the topic, and by discussing discipleship and ministry in light of understanding the church as the People of God. Discoveries made from the journey may surprise. Suggestions for church practice emerged with implications for: ecclesial language; parish ministry and mission; the processes of Anglican Diocesan Synods; and potential outcomes for the 2022 Lambeth Conference.

This article examines the way one nineteenth-century clergyman of the Church of England in Australia, William Gore, was influenced by the Oxford Movement. Gore was the incumbent of the parish of All Saints Church, North Parramatta in Sydney. He implemented liturgical practices valued by the Oxford Movement, including wearing a surplice to preach rather than a Geneva gown, reading the Offertory sentences in the service of Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer, celebrating the Holy Communion on the saints days set in the Prayer Book and placing a cross on the holy table. He was supported by his bishop, William Grant Broughton. The reaction from parishioners was surprise, shock and opposition and he was branded as a ‘Puseyite’. This article uses local primary material, including press reports of parish meetings, to describe the reactions of parishioners in parish meetings against Gore’s liturgical uses. Gore’s activities are assessed as an important early example of the Oxford Movement’s influence in the Church of England in Australia. Gore’s practices, discussed in the public domain, provide evidence that the Oxford Movement was beginning to transform the nineteenth-century liturgical worship of the Church of England in Australia.

The aim of the present study is to analyse the qualitative text written on the back page of a quantitative survey concerned with the Church of England’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Of the 1460 rural lay people in England who took part in the Coronavirus, Church & You survey, 501 wrote further (sometimes detailed) comments on the back page (34 per cent participation rate). This study analyses the comments made by a subsection of these 501 rural lay people, specifically the 52 participants who voiced their views on how the Church of England’s leadership responded during the first four months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Analysis identified a number of issues and concerns, including: a lack of quality leadership, comparing with other Churches, becoming irrelevant, centralizing action, closing rural churches, neglecting rural people, neglecting rural clergy, marginalizing rural communities, using the kitchen table, and looking to the future. Overall, rural lay people were disappointed with the response of church leadership to the first national lockdown. If these churchgoers are to be fruitfully reconnected with their churches after the pandemic, then leadership of the Church of England may need to hear and to take seriously their concerns.

There is still much unclear about the nature of the origins of Australia’s most respected and hallowed national day, namely Anzac Day, 25 April, and about who was primarily responsible for instituting a day of solemn commemoration for the fallen in the Great War of 1914–18. Much has been written by mostly unqualified would-be ‘authorities’ that is either patently false, uninformed or hostile to the commemoration. This is either because of resentment in some quarters of the distinctly Anglican contribution to the nature of the commemoration or pacifist misunderstanding that the celebration of Anzac Day is somehow a glorification of war. This paper based on original research into the files of the Queensland Anzac Day Commemoration Committee establishes the key role of Canon David John Garland (1864–1939) in shaping a liturgy of civic religion for the day which he hoped would become a means of reminding the population of their calling as part of the British Empire to emphasize the reign of Almighty God over all nations of the earth. That was the hidden Christian agenda in the mind of Canon Garland. Naturally he had his opponents to this objective.

For some years now the Anglican Church in Nigeria has been contending with the problems arising from the creation of missionary dioceses. Many retreats for the bishops in the missionary dioceses have been held from late 2000 to date, in an effort to find solutions to the problems, yet the problems have continued unabated. The situation provokes concern and interest in public discourse and intellectual circles. This study examines critically the problems of missionary dioceses and the effects of such problems on the workers and their families therein using a historical approach and both primary and secondary sources. The findings show that some of the missionary dioceses were created with poor funding and facilities as there was no adequate preparation for their creation. The study therefore recommends that the Church of Nigeria should support the missionary dioceses to stabilize.

Between the Restoration and the rise of the Oxford Movement, a burgeoning literature of commentaries upon the Book of Common Prayer were produced and circulated in England. This article traces the emergence and development of this little-studied commentary tradition in order to explore the role of the Book of Common Prayer in private devotion. It groups the literature into three primary categories based on genre and function: descriptive, historical and biblical commentaries; devotional commentaries; annotated Books of Common Prayer. I argue that this literature sought not only to defend the prayer book from criticism or inform users of its history and function but to encourage devotional engagement with the prayer book itself. Exploring the devotional strategies that this literary tradition teaches and models deepens our understanding of how the leaders of the Church of England during the long eighteenth century sought to encourage private engagement with the Book of Common Prayer.

Liturgical revision in the Anglican Communion has proceeded relatively slowly since the days of Gregory Dix. While some changes have occurred, especially in the use of modern language, in other ways most rites remain uninfluenced by changes in society and by recent advances in scholarship.

Two influential Anglican scholars, N.T. Wright and M.B. Thompson, have concurrently sought to challenge the Church and the Academy to reconsider their long-held belief in the immaterial soul, and to encourage them to think more biblically about their theological anthropology. Identifying the reasons for, and recognizing the implications of, the challenge, this article responds by addressing the contentions of both scholars and the alternative anthropology they propose, and advances in rejoinder a healthier, dualistic, anthropology. Specifically, the article presents a richer view of the soul, one that is conceptually stronger, and more biblically rooted, than the views Wright and Thompson espouse (as indeed also the views they renounce).

This paper revisits the 1995 IALC Dublin Statement on the Eucharist, focusing on the Eucharistic Prayer. It reviews newer insights and studies on the Eucharistic Prayer, and suggests how that broadly may impact subsequent Anglican use of ‘classical patterns’, It also puts forward suggestions and questions posed by some more recent Anglican revisions as well as revisiting some areas of the Dublin Statement that are still useul or so far have not been fully embraced in Anglican liturgical revision.

In May 2022, the Diocese of Northern California submitted resolution C028 to the 80th General Convention of The Episcopal Church, in which they asked for a repeal of Canon 1.17.7, which limits reception of Holy Communion to the baptized. While the resolution did not make it out of committee, it touched off a church-wide debate about the practice of communion without baptism, generally referred to as ‘open communion’. This article examines the nature of the debate in the summer of 2022, and highlights some issues around discussions concerning baptism and Eucharist in The Episcopal Church. It is hoped that in doing so, this will aid further dialogues in the Church about the practice of open communion.

Drawing on detailed questionnaire data (including personal, religious and psychological factors) provided by 416 pairs of curates and training incumbents, the present study addresses two core research questions. The first research question develops and tests a new measure: the Smith Attitude toward Training Incumbents Scale (SATIS). The second research question explores the influence of personal, religious and psychological characteristics of both the curate and the training incumbent in predicting curates’ positive attitude toward the training incumbent. The data demonstrated that religious factors (Catholic or Evangelical, Liberal or Conservative, Charismatic or not Charismatic) were not significant. However, both personal and psychological factors of the curates themselves were significant. The curates who rated their training incumbent more highly were older and more emotionally stable. Personal factors were also significant for the training incumbents, but not psychological factors. The curates rated more highly the experience of working with younger training incumbents. The most satisfactory experience of curacy was associated with older and emotionally stable curates working with younger training incumbents.

While the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been overwhelmingly condemned by the churches of the world, the support of the Russian Orthodox Church for the war poses difficult questions to the ecumenical community: in particular, whether that church’s support for the war and the extreme nationalist policies of President Putin constitute grounds for suspending it from the World Council of Churches (WCC) and other ecumenical bodies. The current ecumenical emphasis upon ‘dialogue’ acts as a deterrent to such action, but the WCC describes itself as a fellowship of churches that confess Christ as God and Saviour and therefore supreme over all other authorities. There are parallels with previous challenges in ecumenical history, most particularly 1930s Germany and the stand of the Confessing Church. While dialogue has its own importance the prime ecumenical commitment in conflict situations is to confess Christ, whatever the risks of division that this incurs.