Resourcing Episcopal Ministry

ecclesiology 10 (2014) 153-157 ECCLESIOLOGY

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Editorial: Resourcing Episcopal Ministry

Paul Avis Editor in Chief [email protected]

When Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey (1904–88) came to write his brief chapter ‘The Bishop’ in The Christian Priest Today, he lamented the dearth of books about the office and work of a bishop. Legions of books had been written about episcopacy, he noted, but ‘few or none about the inner life or the practical problems of being a bishop at the present time’.1 Now two new studies are trying to remedy this lack. David Tustin was the Suffragan Bishop of Grimsby in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1979–2000, and Chairman of the Church of England’s Council for Christian Unity, 1992–98. Bishop Tustin played a leading role, at global, regional and national levels, in Anglican ecumenical relations and dialogues, especially with German Protestants, Nordic Lutherans, British Methodists and Roman Catholics. He is also one of the most thoughtful, careful, widely read and qui etly helpful of bishops. In A Bishop’s Ministry: Reflections and Resources for Church Leadership (2013)2 David Tustin has provided a thoroughly useful and eminently practical companion for new bishops and those bishops already in post who may want to review their ministry and reassess their priorities. The book is full of fascinating practical examples drawn from Bishop David’s own episcopal ministry – which was deeply purposeful, strategically organised and intentional from beginning to end. The comprehensive discussion ranges from pastoral issues and prayer to liturgical vesture and the organisation of time, including time with the family (for married bishops) and time off duty. The approach is consistently sane, sensible and down to earth, but without taking his eyes off the spiritual horizon and divine calling. David Tustin draws from a wide range of relevant documents in the ecumenical domain, Roman Catholic and Lutheran, as well as Anglican, and the text is enriched by substantial quo tations from Pope Gregory the Great’s treatise on pastoral care (Liber Regulae Pastoralis) and St Bernard of Clairvaux’s advice to bishops, which run like a

1 Michael Ramsey, The Christian Priest Today, revised edition (London: SPCK, 1985), p. 94. 2 233 pp. Available from the author: [email protected].

154 Avis golden thread through the book. I think it would be difficult to improve on this combination of personal experience, practical wisdom, mature reflection and classical sources. The only major limitation of A Bishop’s Ministry is that it is definitely and intentionally orientated to the Church of England: the canons, liturgies, church structures and everyday practicalities that are referred to are those of the Church of England. So this book will be essential preparatory reading for new recruits to the that church’s college of bishops, more than 100 strong. But bishops of the Anglican Communion – and indeed bishops and potential bishops of other Christian world families and traditions – will find much here to ponder and to make them turn to their prayers and their ministry with renewed dedication. The second study of episcopal ministry – an attempt to meet the need that long ago Michael Ramsey and more recently David Tustin identified – is a pr oject that I have been putting together on behalf of the Anglican Communion Office. Entitled Becoming a Bishop: Theological Handbook of Episcopal Ministry, the book was commissioned by the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, Canon Kenneth Kearon, and will be published by Bloomsbury/T&T Clark shortly. It concerns ‘the office and work of a bishop in the Church of God’, though it does not presume to venture very far into the ‘inner life’ of the bishop, in Ramsey’s phrase. The main focus is on the ministerial identity of the bishop, especially the tasks and roles that belong to episcopacy. It is not a ‘how to do it’ guide – though it is quite practical in places – but a theological handbook, that is to say a theological account of episcopal ministry. It aims to set the unique work of a bishop within the sort of ecclesiological framework that alone can make good Christian sense of it. The focus is on the bishop – within the Church – within the purposes of God. It is written in the conviction that ‘becoming a bishop’ is a lifelong task of spiritual, theological and moral formation and always remains unfinished business – just as we all remain, as Christians, unfinished people in this life. William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98) gave a list of qualifications that he looked for in a future bishop. Gladstone had plenty of experience of choosing bishops, being Prime Minister of the United Kingdom four times in an age when the selection of Church of England bishops was left largely to the discretion of the Prime Minister after consulting the Sovereign and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Gladstone was a lay pillar of the Church of England, a considerable theologian in his own right and far more theologically learned than most bishops.3 His criteria for episcopal ministry are:

3 For a brief account of Gladstone and the Church see Paul Avis, Anglicanism and the Christian Church: Theological Resources in Historical Perspective, 2nd edition (London and New York:

ecclesiology 10 (2014) 153-157