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Article Reviews Anglicans and Methodists ECCLESIOLOGY Ecclesiology 9 (2013) 85–105 brill.com/ecso Article Reviews Anglicans and Methodists: On the Cusp of Unity? Paul Avis Lea Hill, Membury, Devon EX13 7AQ, UK [email protected] William J. Abraham and James E. Kirby (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) xvii + 761 pp. £95.00/$150.00. ISBN 978-0-19-921299-6 (hbk). Randy L. Maddox and Jason E. Vickers (eds), The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley (Cambridge and New York, 2010) xxi + 343 pp. £17.99/US$29.99. ISBN 978-0-521-71403-7 (pbk). Charles Yrigoyen Jr. (ed.), T&T Clark Companion to Methodism (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2010) x + 602 pp. £85.00. ISBN 978-0-567-03293-5 (hbk). This is a slightly unusual Article Review because it involves quite a bit of personal investment and a kind of stock-taking.1 For thirteen years I was closely engaged in faith and order conversations with the Methodist Church of Great Britain and in recent years I have also been involved in interna- tional Anglican-Methodist dialogue, in which the United Methodist Church (UMC) is a major player alongside the British Methodist Church and other Anglican and Methodist Churches from around the world. The article focuses mainly on the three titles mentioned above, but also takes into account other recent major contributions to the study of Methodism, 1) I am most grateful to the Revd Dr David M. Chapman, the Revd Dr Martin Wellings and the Revd Kenneth Howcroft for their comments on an earlier draft of this article and several useful suggestions. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI 10.1163/17455316-00901007 86 P. Avis / Ecclesiology 9 (2013) 85–105 particu larly the collection of studies devoted to Charles Wesley at his ter- centenary in 2007. The perspective is that of Anglican-Methodist steps to visible unity. As the Church of England co-secretary of the Formal Conversations that led to the Anglican-Methodist Covenant of 2003 and then as co-convener of the Joint Implementation Commission that was tasked by both churches with monitoring and promoting the implementation of the Covenant, I have worked closely with Methodist colleagues, attending the British annual Conference a dozen times as a Church of England representative and also serving as the Anglican observer on the British Methodist Faith and Order Committee during the same period. Through membership of the Anglican-Methodist International Commission for Unity and Mission (AMICUM) I have become more aware of the developing relations between other Churches of the Anglican Communion and the UMC – notably the Methodist-Episcopal Dialogue in the USA and the smaller-scale Covenant in Ireland. Now, having moved on from my former role as General Secretary of the Council for Christian Unity (1998-2011), leaving much of the work with Methodists for others in the Church of England to continue, to become Theological Consultant to the Anglican Communion Office (2011-12), it seems a suitable moment to take stock of where we are in Anglican- Methodist relations in Britain and further afield. The publication of three reference works on John Wesley and Methodism more generally provides a useful opportunity to do so. Another reason for taking them for review myself is that most Methodist scholars whom one might otherwise approach for a review have contributed to one or all volumes! But to set things in perspective and to highlight the qualitative difference that ecu- menical dialogue has made to Methodist-Anglican relations during the past century, I want to begin by drawing on a work with a rather different flavour, from an age before ecumenism helped us all to think differently about each other. I do so to sharpen the question of Methodist ecclesiology which I take as the guiding thread of my review. When the distinguished scholar of Methodism Albert Outler was asked whether there was a ‘Wesleyan ecclesiology’, he replied with the intriguing words: “Yes” says too much; the answer “No” too little.’2 2) Albert Outler, ‘Do Methodists Have a Doctrine of the Church?’, in Dow Kirkpatrick (ed.), Doctrine of the Church (Abingdon Press, 1964), p. 11; also Thomas C. Oden and Leicester R. Longden (eds), The Wesleyan Theological Heritage: Essays of Albert C. Outler (Grand Rapids, .
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