This article explores the appeal to catechesis in the writings of Anglican theologian and educator John Westerhoff III (1933–2022). I argue that he proposed the concept of catechesis as a way of critiquing and incorporating the streams of liberalism and neo-orthodoxy from the early and mid-twentieth century into a more comprehensive and theologically substantive approach to theological education. In doing so, he used the language of catechesis as a means of integrating the strengths of liberalism’s emphasis on nurture and enculturation and neo-orthodoxy’s accent on conversion, the church and the uniqueness of Christianity. His appeal to catechesis, then, was not a retrieval or ressourcement of patristic catechesis. While he appreciated the term’s antiquity, the way in which he described the term was more indebted to contemporary education theory than patristics, particularly the anthropological insights of socialization theory.

The Episcopal Church has been engaged in efforts to revise its Book of Common Prayer since the mid-1990s, but a completed revision is still nowhere in sight. This essay explains the process for revision in the Episcopal Church, the working of that process leading up to the adoption of the Book of Common Prayer 1979 and the optimism about a further revision in the 1990s. It then seeks to understand the inability of the Episcopal Church to follow through on the hope of revision in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, despite considerable work on liturgical texts and the involvement of a growing number of task forces and special committees. It follows with discussion of the issues related to revision before the 2022 and the upcoming 2024 conventions and concludes with reflections on the obstacles to a completed revision.

Applying the balanced affect model of clergy psychological wellbeing, as conceptualised by the Francis Burnout Inventory (FBI) and operationalised by The Index of Balanced Affect Change (TIBACh), this study explored the impact of seven sets of variables on individual differences in perceived changes in positive affect and negative affect among 737 clergy in the USA serving in the Episcopal Church during the Covid-19 pandemic. The seven sets of variables were: personal, psychological, contextual, ministry-related, church orientation, theological stance, and attitudinal. The data supported the balanced affect model of clergy psychological wellbeing by demonstrating how different variables predicted individual differences in negative affect and in positive affect. For example, clergywomen showed no differences from clergymen in terms of positive affect, but higher levels of negative affect; active self-supporting and retired clergy showed no differences from stipendiary clergy in terms of positive affect, but lower levels of negative affect; Evangelical clergy showed no differences in negative affect, but higher levels in positive affect. The balanced affect model provides insights into how clergy may be better supported during a pandemic.

Inspired by the objectives of the Church of England’s Living Ministry Research Project (to understand the factors that enable clergy to flourish and to understand how these factors vary according to person, background, etc.), the present analyses were designed to test the capacity of an individual differences approach to the science of clergy well-being for delivering such objectives. The specific case in point concerned understanding the connections between migration to digital technology and changes in clergy well-being during the pandemic. The data demonstrated how the individual differences approach both offered explanatory power and provided insights into how personal support and professional development could be most effectively structured and targeted.

There has always been a debate about the location and role of women during the persecution of Christians under Mwanga II’s first reign as Kabaka of Buganda. Kabaka is the Luganda equivalent of the English word king. The debate is partly fueled by a total absence of women from the pictures of Ugandans historically referred to as the Uganda Martyrs. This paper uses archival research to tell the story of an African woman who, in her adult life, married two devout Anglicans, in whose lives she was actively involved, laying a foundation for Uganda’s Anglican tradition. Evidence shows the first Anglican baptism, teacher and burial in Uganda are traced to her first marriage, which ended in early 1884 with the death of her husband from smallpox. Nakimu Nalwanga Sarah would have been the first martyr if not for the timely discovery that she was Mwanga’s relative. Still, as a punishment, she was ordered to witness the cruel burning of the first martyrs on January 31, 1885. She married again in a marriage that produced Uganda’s first catechist, deacon and priest. Her second husband was part of a team that completed the translation of the first Luganda Bible in 1895.

In light of current debates and historical precedent, this article rejects polarized approaches to growth in the Church of England. Instead, it points towards the significant numerical growth experienced by English cathedrals as evidence for the fruits of a mixed practice approach. Analysing the growth experienced by cathedrals in recent years, it is posed that, combined with rootedness in place and local identity, a mixed practice approach could be a model for a well-functioning mixed ecology, and a growing Church.

The philosophical positing of the necessity of God implies that there is a responsibility placed upon the Church to remind all humankind of our contingency and to speak of God’s presence especially in times of national and international crisis. Recent experience has exposed a certain silence from the Churches and notably from their leadership – notable examples would be the Covid-19 pandemic and the possible perils of continuing conflicts. How does theology prosper an appropriate sense of development and response to changes in culture – both through individuals and wider movements? How can it be made clear that theology is far from being an obsolete discipline in contemporary culture?

Reared in antebellum South Carolina, Peter Fayssoux Stevens was a typical white southerner until Reconstruction. He came of age in the 1840s and 1850s and fought for the Southern Confederacy during the Civil War. Before his military service commenced in 1861, he was ordained a priest in the Protestant Episcopal Church (PEC) of North America. After Appomattox, as Black communicants deserted white Protestant churches in droves, Stevens believed that they might return to the PEC if they could choose their leaders and decide fundamental questions affecting their parishes. When white church leaders refused to follow Stevens’s recommendations, he left the PEC and joined the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC). He spent more than four decades after the war ministering to Black communicants. Although Stevens was not a champion of civil rights, his career provides a compelling case study of a white clergyman who evolved from a traditional southerner and zealous Confederate soldier to an advocate for Black communicants in the church.

Confirmation, one of the seven sacraments in Lombard’s schedule, was retained by the English Reformers, but not as a sacrament and without any distinctive quasi-sacramental grace attributed to it. It became a ceremony to complete the catechizing process for children who, having been baptized as infants, were at the age of discretion now to come to holy communion. The reformers thought that a post-baptismal laying on of hands had been practised from apostolic times, and so commended the ceremony for their church practice. This requirement enabled later generations, such as Gregory Dix, to bid up its significance, teaching that confirmation completes baptism, and thus that water-baptism is of itself incomplete. The underlying premise has been that from the apostles onwards a requisite second initiatory ceremony invariably followed baptism. Both Bible and early church history contradict this thesis, not least the eight post-apostolic authors of the first two centuries who mention baptism. All eight testify to the use of water without any further ceremony. Thus, any insistence upon a two-stage sacramental initiation today lacks historical foundations; Anglicans ought to review residual texts and practices which reflect such a pattern.