Working-class candidates continue to experience a “cultural loss” of identity when exploring a vocation to the priesthood, as well as both academic and financial barriers to training, a paper due to be debated by the General Synod next month says.

It was written by the Bishop of Barking, the Rt Revd Lynne Cullens, who chaired a “task and finish” advisory group, commissioned by the Ministry Development Board (MDB), and the Bishop of Chester, the Rt Revd Mark Tanner.

Last February, the Synod voted unanimously for the development of a national strategy for encouraging, developing, and supporting vocations of people from working-class backgrounds, both lay and ordained; and for the MDB to bring that back for debate within 12 months (News, 28 February 2025).

The private member’s motion last year was brought by the Vicar of St Matthew the Apostle, Burnley, the Revd Alex Frost, out of a concern that “some people from a working-class background with a calling to ministry have found it difficult to progress because of expectations and assumptions based on their social class.”

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Working-class candidates continue to experience a “cultural loss” of identity when exploring a vocation to the priesthood, as well as both academic and financial barriers to training, a paper due to be debated by the #GeneralSynod next month says#classhttps://t.co/Shi7fSggR3

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 27, 2026

[JI] Packer and [Thomas] Howard touched on a still deeply-relevant historical truth: it is because Christian communities failed to nurture and transmit from generation to generation the full depth and breadth of the gospel in its intellectual rigor, illuminating every aspect of human life, that faith and reason came to be seen as opposites. Packer knew that especially among North-American evangelicals, anti-cultural and anti-intellectual sentiments disillusioned many younger Christians who hungered for a holistic, integrative view of faith and life. Packer sought to recover a broader Christian vision grounded in the Christ who became human so that we could become fully human by union with him. “To be fully Christian,” Packer wrote, “in other words, is to live; it is to be fully human.” And this is the message taught to us by the Scriptures and the Christian tradition. We hear this message from “some of the most luminous and titanic minds ever to appear on the human scene, as well as from peasants, shopkeepers, kings, hermits, Easterners, Westerners, Africans, Americans, and people of all other sorts and conditions.” And they all share this vision of what it means to be fully human because they know “that to have followed Christ the Savior is to have been brought to wholeness, freedom, and joy,” albeit often through great struggle and pain. These Christians all believed that in Jesus the Christ, God became “the second Adam,” not so that “they could escape from their humanness” but, on the contrary, so that they could “become human” since Christ was “the perfect example of all that humanity was meant to be.”

Needless to say, Packer (and Howard) were not promoting nineteenth-century Protestant liberalism, which offered Christ as universal example of humanity attainable through rational reflection. Rather, they restated classic Christianity in emphasizing that only through union with Christ will we enter into the fullness of our humanity whose inherent dignity and worth everyone possesses by virtue of being made in God’s image. It is only through participating by grace in the humanity Christ accomplished in his passion, resurrection, and ascension, that human beings are freed from the power of sin and death, so as truly to enter into a life without fear, becoming free to serve others in love. 

In all of his writings, including Knowing God, Packer promotes Christianity as a culture-generating force that humanizes all of life. He was critical, however, of contemporary Christian trends that merely mirrored culture, and warned that the humanizing power of the gospel required a Christianity nourished in the fullness of an authentic biblical faith, which places the living, cosmic Christ at the center of all human experience. With this vision, Packer joins giants in the faith like the second century church father Irenaeus, who believed that Christ “recapitulated” every dimension of humanity in himself, making “one new humanity” (Ephesians 2:15), beyond ethnic, racial or other divisions of any kind. Packer believed that schooling in classic Christianity of the kind I have outlined was vital for returning the church to the kind of life-giving, humanizing witness required for today. For the sake of this witness, the church should be unified across confessional boundaries, which is arguably the main reason for Packer’s signing of the “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (ECT) initiative in 1994.

The humanizing power of the gospel required a Christianity nourished in the fullness of an authentic biblical faith.Packer signed the document because he believed it to be “vital for the health of society in the United States and Canada that adherents to the key truths of classical Christianity—a self-defining triune God who is both Creator and Redeemer; this God’s regenerating and sanctifying grace; the sanctity of life here; the certainty of personal judgment hereafter; and the return of Jesus Christ to end history—should link up for the vast and pressing task of re-educating our secularized communities on these matters.”

It is this Christ-centered, and therefore humanistic, unifying theology that I also recall from my encounter with Packer. I first met him in 1994, when I was a UBC graduate student in comparative literature. By this time, I had become intensely interested in Reformation history and literature, particularly the connections between the English Calvinist non-Conformists and the German Lutheran tradition. To supplement my UBC offerings, Packer had agreed to a guided study on Puritan literature, with an emphasis—no surprise!—on John Bunyan, Richard Baxter, and John Owen. During this course, I was inspired by what I would call Christian humanism at its best: deep learning founded on a classics degree (Packer could cite Latin passages from Luther, Erasmus, Calvin, or Augustine at will, and he also commanded classical rhetoric and poetics) combined with Christ-centered theology and a strong concern for humanizing culture. This is the Christian humanist Jim Packer I recall and whose Christian humanist outlook I intend to honor as I take up the Packer Chair this fall. 

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'#JIPacker and [Thomas] Howard touched on a still deeply-relevant historical truth: it is because Christian communities failed to nurture and transmit from generation to generation the full depth and breadth of the gospel in its intellectual rigor, illuminating every aspect of… pic.twitter.com/LNueG7mvqP

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 22, 2025

After months of speculation, the Church of England has finally appointed a new Archbishop of Canterbury. The first woman in the post, she is the current Bishop of London and as such has already played a senior role in the Church for several years.

Her theological training and ministerial experience are minimal. She was enrolled on a local ordination course rather than at a theological college and served a couple of part-time curacies before being very briefly rector of a parish church. She was soon promoted to the episcopate as suffragan bishop of Crediton, but her main achievement appears to be that she was a competent administrator in the National Health Service. Is a track record like that promising for a future Archbishop of Canterbury?

The short answer must be no.

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💬"Everybody in the Church of England will be polite to her, but few will listen to whatever she has to say…"

📢Gerald Bray on the announcement that Sarah Mullally is to be the new Archbishop of Canterbury: https://t.co/ZKEEYPdOoT

— Evangelicals Now (@EvangelicalsNow) October 3, 2025

The reason I do not hesitate to call my experience representative of a multitude of people is that how Packer reached me was the printed word. This is the story of Packer’s life and ministry. Packer never held a prestigious professorship at a famous university, nor did he fill a high-visibility pulpit permanently. Furthermore, he lived before the age of social media and the instant dissemination they confer. When I interviewed Packer for my biography of him, he affirmed his steadfast refusal throughout his life to cultivate a following.

Additionally, Packer was a soft-spoken and unassuming man. No assignment was too small or humble for him. During one of the summers that the ESV translation committee met in Cambridge, England, Packer accepted an invitation to speak to a group of local young people in a church member’s living room. One of the translators and his wife smuggled their way into the meeting. They later reported that the living room was so crowded that some of the young people sat under a table.

In view of this absence of ordinary channels for becoming widely known, how is it possible that surveys of influential evangelicals conducted early in the present century found Packer near the tops of the lists? The answer is that J. I. Packer achieved his prominence through the printed word and its uncanny ability to reach ordinary people in the ordinary circumstances of life. Some of Packer’s books, such as his first book (Fundamentalism and the Word of God), began as a series of addresses to students and lay people. His signature book Knowing God, which sold a million and a half copies, began as a series of articles on basic Christian beliefs for a religious magazine. J. I. Packer is a classic case of someone who was faithful in little and thereby found himself set over much. I cannot think of a better validation of the effectiveness of Christian publishing than the career of J. I. Packer.

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#OTD July 17, 2020:
Death of J.I. Packer evangelical theologian, cleric and writer in the low-church Anglican and Calvinist traditions. He was considered one of the most influential evangelicals in North America. Known for his best-selling book, Knowing God, written in 1973,… pic.twitter.com/AXFXN4x828

— ☧ Today in Christian History (@HistoricalRook) July 17, 2025

The Heidelberg House
Bonclarken Conference Center
Flat Rock, North Carolina pic.twitter.com/O7r67oJ3ro

— Matt Richardson (@greenkayak73) June 6, 2023

Under the sponsorship of the YMCA, Wilder spent the following academic year touring college campuses. He told the story of the “Mount Hermon One Hundred” and urged students to pledge themselves to become missionaries. Some 2,000 did so. To avoid allowing the bright light of this new movement to flicker out, in 1888 YMCA leaders organized the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (known simply as the SVM). They placed the recent Cornell graduate, John R. Mott, at its head. The SVM formed organizations on college, university and seminary campuses across the nation. Students signed pledge cards stating their intention to become missionaries and joined weekly meetings to study missions. The watchword of the movement illustrates the boldness and optimism of the Christian youth of that era: “The Evangelization of the World in this Generation.”

The SVM became one of the most successful missionary-recruiting organizations of all time. Prior to its formation, American Protestants supported less than a thousand missionaries throughout the world. Between 1886 and 1920, the SVM recruited 8,742 missionaries in the U.S. Around twice that number were actually sent out as missionaries in this period, many of them influenced by the SVM though never members. SVM leaders also formed college groups around the world in countries where missionaries had established mission colleges during the previous century. Their goal was to create a missionary force large enough to evangelize every nation. They thought in military terms. Missionaries were soldiers in God’s army. The SVM sought to recruit, to support, and to place these soldiers strategically around the world. If done shrewdly, they thought they would surely conquer the world.

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I want to address the third and fourth “existential crises” Warren Cole Smith suggested we address in his public letter to the ACNA on “Why the Anglican Church faces existential challenges.”. Under the challenge of “Theological Education,” he writes:

“Because ACNA has so many refugees from other denominations, it is tempting to call it a ‘melting pot.’ But the current reality is less a melting pot than a salad bowl.

That is a glib way of saying that a lot of Anglicans are not … well … truly formed in the Anglican faith. They have retained the spiritual formation of the tradition from which they came — everything from Calvary Chapel and Vineyard to high church Episcopalians and Catholics. Again, that diversity can be a strength, but it is a diversity that must be more intentionally integrated into Anglican theology and polity.”

He goes on to note that many nationally recognized seminaries offer a course or two that allow them to claim they have an “Anglican Track” but that these courses are minimal at best. And so, he concludes that this lack of Anglican formation in the clergy presents a vulnerability to leaders at odds with the history and fundamental doctrines of the ACNA. He then goes on in his fourth crisis to cite the recent problem with the Luminous Church in the ACNA diocese of C4SO as Exhibit A, a congregation whose clergy and website affirmed LGBTQ Pride events and played “fast and loose” with fundamental Anglican doctrines of baptism—among other things.

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A wonderful end to a great week of @The_ACNA Provincial Council and Assembly! Praying for God's continued guidance for Abp Wood and the province moving forward. pic.twitter.com/LNQQF5u5ot

— American Anglican (@AnglicanCouncil) June 28, 2024

When the next academic year begins in theological colleges this autumn, some of the new students will be bringing a lifetime of experience inside and outside the Church to their theological studies.

As such, mature students — particularly the over-65s — are a much valued cohort, theological institutions say.

Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, currently has eight students in that category; their oldest is 73. Most opt for part-time study, and are generally interested in more introductory qualifications, a spokesperson said.

At Sarum College, in Salisbury, student ages range from their twenties to their seventies. The college has a commitment to lifelong learning and to a broad offer of theological learning, the director of marketing and communications, Ms Christine Nielsen-Craig, said.

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“The college was very accommodating, and the pathways were flexible. I can’t see anything negative, age-wise. Naturally, you have to be aware of pacing yourself, and your own levels of fatigue, but I am a young 66-year-old."https://t.co/xrhPgOoBJk

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 25, 2024

THE appointment of two new Oxford Regius Professors and Canons of Christ Church was announced from Downing Street on Thursday.

The Starbridge Professor of Theology and Natural Sciences in the University of Cambridge, the Revd Dr Andrew Davison, has been appointed Oxford’s Regius Professor of Divinity: one of the oldest chairs in the university, established by King Henry VIII….

The Robert E. Cushman Distinguished Professor of Moral and Political Theology at Duke University, in the US, Dr Luke Bretherton, is to be the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology. He is also currently Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke.

His predecessor at Christ Church, the Revd Professor Nigel Biggar, retired in 2022.

His Majesty The King has approved the appointment of two new Regius Professorships at Christ Church. We look forward to welcoming Professor Luke Bretherton and The Revd Professor Andrew Davison in the coming months! #MuChChLove
Find out more 👇https://t.co/kzPUZIGZSA pic.twitter.com/s8idYVu3d8

— Christ Church (@ChCh_Oxford) June 13, 2024

The African church has one reputation of being a mile wide but an inch deep. Bishop Alfred Olwa, in his workshop on Theological Education, said that while that reputation may not be entirely true, it reflects a grim reality that must be combatted with good, in-depth, and scripturally sound theological education.

The fact that now, years after the development of GSFA, we are still talking about the need for good theological education shows there are issues have not yet been addressed. Bp. Olwa stated that, “As the seminary goes, so goes the Church. The life of the church members and their ministries will reflect what has been taught in theological schools.” Similar warnings went out decades ago, yet the Global South is still struggling against false teaching among its members and the Anglican Communion as a whole. It still needs to find firm footing on historic and scriptural Anglican theology in a way that anchors all the churches in the Communion. Theological education more rooted in psychology and sociology isn’t just affecting the West. Bishop Olwa made it clear that it’s affecting historically conservative churches in Africa as their seminaries receive money, teachers, and influence from progressive sources. He outlined a number of shortfalls in recent years that have limited the church’s maturity and its ability to meet the challenges of the day even among biblically faithful leaders. First, schools measure success by purely academic standards rather than a holistic approach to learning that encompasses the entire person and their ministry. They also minimize the requirements for what maturity looks like and focus on knowledge rather than character. Finally, more pastoral training that includes healing and deliverance is needed so that demonstrations of God’s power accompany the proclamation of scripture.

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The African church has one reputation of being a mile wide but an inch deep. Bishop Alfred Olwa, in his workshop on Theological Education, said that while that reputation may not be entirely true, it reflects a grim reality https://t.co/EHf56fWqOA

— American Anglican (@AnglicanCouncil) June 13, 2024

Increasing the number of stipendiary priests in the diocese of Truro is the “top operational priority”, the Acting Bishop of Truro, the Rt Revd Hugh Nelson, who is the Bishop of St Germans, said this week.

His comments followed claims by the campaign group Save the Parish Cornwall (STP) that the number of stipendiary priests in the diocese had fallen to 38, and that there were 19 vacancies to be filled. The group says that the diocese is “struggling to recruit new priests to undertake the unrealistic roles proposed by the restructuring plans — in particular ‘oversight ministers’ . . . in giant benefices”.

A diocesan spokeswoman said this week that there were 58 stipendiary clergy in post at the end of last month, including incumbent-status clergy, assistant curates, and archdeacons. In addition, eight new appointments had been made in the past three months. The plan was to increase the number of stipendiary clergy to about 85, “dependent on clergy being attracted to our posts”.

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Increasing the number of stipendiary priests in the diocese of Truro is the “top operational priority”, the Acting Bishop of Truro, the Rt Revd Hugh Nelson, who is the Bishop of St Germans, said this week https://t.co/Xg8Zz5KOH7

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 15, 2024

Countless pastoral leaders worldwide are eager to faithfully lead their churches, but they lack access to training. This is especially the case in majority world contexts in Latin America, Africa, and Asia where the gospel continues to rapidly grow—with hundreds of new congregations birthed daily.

Founded in 1846, the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) now represents churches in over 130 countries and estimates there are 50,000 new baptized believers each day. These believers need pastoral leaders who are trained to effectively lead their congregations.

The challenge is highlighted when we draw a contrast with the United States, where there is one trained pastor for every 230 people. By comparison, majority world churches have one trained pastor for every 450,000 people.

This colossal leadership imbalance will only expand as the majority world church continues to surge and spread. Already, theological education is struggling to keep up, and unless something changes, the gap will only increase in the future.

If we are to meet the training needs of thousands of pastors like Roy, the worldwide trajectory must be reset. Theological education, no matter the form, has a long history of being fragmented, with most programs operating in silos, lacking a sense of collegiality. Regrettably, this inward posture makes training even less accessible to local ministries, weakening the collective capacity to prepare leaders for the Lord’s church.

A new theological education posture is needed.

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Love it: "Standards to measure effective spiritual formation training are being developed in Nigeria and India. Oral pastoral leadership programs have started in South Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia—and will soon in Tanzania and Senegal." https://t.co/PvanxuRkCI

— W. David O. Taylor (@wdavidotaylor) June 5, 2023

The Archbishop’s Mission Enabler for the North is a new and exciting role which will focus on revitalising parishes and planting new churches across the Northern Province.

The role was made possible following a successful bid to the Strategic Development Fund and will focus on the northern dioceses’ goal to establish hundreds of new worshipping communities over the next decade. It will also have a particular emphasis on working with the most deprived communities and seeking to help the Church become younger and more diverse.

Commenting on the appointment, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell said, “This is an exciting time in the life of our church and this role has emerged after much prayer and collaboration with Diocesan Bishops and Theological Education Institutions across the Province. Mark brings with him a wealth of experience around empowering individuals and teams to flourish and is passionate about revitalisation of the church in the UK. I very much look forward to working with Mark as we seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this pioneering role.”

Mark will work with the 12 dioceses of the Northern Province to produce a bold and achievable strategy supporting step-change in church planting and parish revitalisation, alongside church mission agencies, established church networks and Theological Education Institutions.

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Delighted to announce the appointment of The Revd Canon Dr Mark Powley as Mission Enabler for the North. Mark will work with the 12 dioceses of the Northern Province to produce a bold & achievable strategy supporting parish revitalisation. https://t.co/Uw6hkL9oJH

— Stephen Cottrell (@CottrellStephen) December 1, 2022

From there:

We share news of the passing of our second Dean and President, The Rt. Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, and we join in praying for his family and friends. He was a tireless servant of our seminary and our country as a United States Marine veteran.

“Lord Jesus, be mindful of your promise. Think of us, your servants, especially The Rt. Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, and when we shall depart, speak to our spirits these loving words: “Today you shall be with me in joy.” O Lord Jesus Christ, remember us, your servants who trust in you, when our tongues cannot speak, when the sight of our eyes fails, and when our ears are stopped. Let our spirits always rejoice in you and be joyful about our salvation, which you, through your death, have purchased for us. Amen.” (110. For Joy at the End of Life, BCP 2019)

More memorial news and tributes will be forthcoming.

TSM reports the death of former dean John Rodgershttps://t.co/cTZ3yoD18Y pic.twitter.com/xY0gGzWVeU

— Anglican Ink (@anglicanink) November 24, 2022

As an educator, Dr. DeKoven has had no superior in this or any other land. The great qualities of a leader and guide to young men–dignity, tact, firmness, sympathy, genuineness of nature–these he possessed in a marked degree. He needed no artificial safeguards to maintain his claims to respect. His personal appearance was noble and commanding. His face, whether bright with humor, or stern with disapproval, or melting with sympathy, was always attractive to look on, with a peculiar refinement of spiritual power. Students who never hesitated to cover him with ribbons on the base-ball ground or to tease him with ridicule of his favorite players, would rather have faced a battery than appear before him for discipline. In his constant visits to their rooms at odd times, he was always one of them, giving and taking jests, happy over their games, sometimes even mildly tolerant of their mischief, but the slightest violation of propriety or morals would be rebuked by a change of countenance indescribable, but most effective. He knew all the students by name and their antecedents, and he tried to make each one feel that “the Doctor” and he had some confidences shared by no one else. As a rule, the students worshipped him. If there was any fault found by any of them it was that his horror of certain kinds of evil was so keen that he could not force himself to be lenient to offenders of that class. In one other respect, he was sometimes misunderstood. He was with some men more than with others. They were not always necessarily the best or most congenial. They were those who, in his opinion, needed most help, and if any man ever thought that he was neglected it was because he himself erected the barrier that kept that great heart away from him. Sincere, true, tender, genuine through and through, that the Doctor always was, and the contact with such a life was an everlasting blessing to those who discovered it in time. Some, perhaps, who read these lines will recall with various emotions the old days–the early chapel service, and the walks with the Doctor afterwards, the thrilling sermons, the Easter morning breakfasts, the Sunday …night receptions, the gathering on the lawn at commencement, the choir suppers, the recitations in Butler, the Seniors’ tea, the hundred other associations with the old place where he was the spirit and the head; but however the memory comes to them now, with whatever regrets or misgivings or grateful joy, it cannot but bring the picture of a grand, pure, unselfish personality which never once in all the storms that beat upon it faltered for an instant in its love or duty for the individual students committed to its care.

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22 –
&

Almighty God, you gave your servant Bl. James DeKoven special gifts of grace to understand & teach the truth revealed in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may… pic.twitter.com/9DwQevKLMe

— The Seabury Society (@SeaburySociety) March 22, 2021

Earlier I wrote of how dreams have changed my life and through it, even events that have shaped others. The early indigenous explorers that discovered New Zealand were responding to their ‘a dreaming’. Augustine and his mother Monica found themselves united through having had the same dream that they were both, together, in the presence of the Lord, a reality that Augustine explored more fully in his Confessions. The silence of Quakers often led to shared dreams that had some profound social impacts, such as the abandonment of slavery, as they recognized through dreams the universal equality of each person, each made uniquely in the image of God. In a time where we think that Zoom is our only way of being ‘together’, perhaps the Lord has other ways for us to enjoy a communion that our busyness has too long resisted. Martin Luther-King energized a generation and more, by declaring so memorably that “I have a dream”. In our hyper-cognitive times, in which the rational brain is amplified, and cognition celebrated, where is the place of our emotions, even the deep depression expressed by Kierkegaard? In our dreams, our emotional life can find greater freedom of expression.

As I have entered this more sleep-filled season of my life, I sense a greater urgency to attend to my dreaming, not only because there is more opportunity – I sleep a lot more – but because I am discovering a richness of life that I was too busy to engage as fully before. I was always blessed by being raised in Spain as the ‘siesta’ was a daily feature and one I have recovered more fully in later life. But dreams are not only for the old – young men will see visions, says the prophet, Joel. I see dreams as a double consciousness that can intensify our identity as Christians, to take our faith beyond the simple affirmation of catechism and entrust our entire unconsciousness into the loving arms of our Heavenly Father. It is hard to argue with God in a dream! Instead, we can know His gentle guidance and prodding of our stubborn wills.

As we prepared this letter, Chris has pressed me to express my deep desire for you with respect to our dreaming. In response to his well-intentioned pestering, I make this my prayer for you.

Read it all.

Reflections from one of my favourite people in the whole wide world https://t.co/pPqMPKsOIC #theology #canada #wisdom

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 18, 2022

Henry Akingbemisilu was ordained as a Deacon earlier this year. He serves as a Self-Supporting Minister in Thamesmead, London, in the Diocese of Southwark – alongside working in Data Science.
Henry is shown in his clerical robes smiling
Henry was born in Nigeria, coming to the UK to study mathematics and computer network engineering. His journey to ordination started in 2008, but it was only in 2015 that he finally started the official discernment process with Southwark Diocese.

In the years that preceded this, he was involved in his church – in the choir, in prayer ministry groups and as Church Warden for eight years but felt a ‘calling’ to do more.

“You know, when God is calling, you just won’t be at peace with yourself until you give in,” he explained.

“It took me so many years.

“I asked myself is this God or is it me making things up?

Read it all.

‘I was fighting it’ an AI scientist’s 12-year journey to ordination.https://t.co/ZS1soxh8yR

— Southwark Diocese (@SouthwarkCofE) November 22, 2021

Every few years, a scholar publishes some form of a Pauline theology. In your two-volume set you resist this endeavor. Why do you think it is problematic to try to map out a theology of Paul?

The ambition to construct a theology of Paul is inherently misguided—and therefore fatally flawed—for three basic reasons.

First, it assumes that Paul is a theologian whose letters represent expressions of his theology as an individual and distinctive set of ideas. And since the expression of these ideas is dispersed through widely disparate letters, never appearing except partially and in passing, it is thought necessary to erect a systematic framework that can be seen as governing such diverse expressions.

But Paul is not a theologian. He is an apostle, a proclaimer of Jesus as Lord, a founder and pastor of communities. Responding in letters to the needs of such communities, he certainly shows himself to be a religious thinker, but there is no reason to suppose that Paul had a theology in the sense that we use the term. Paul worked out arguments in response to concrete circumstances. He certainly had deep convictions upon which he called as he thought through the implications of a commitment to a crucified and raised Messiah, but these convictions did not constitute an individual, distinctive, personal theology that was Paul’s alone.

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"Although we may be opaque to each other, we are transparent to our creator." – Dr. Luke Timothy Johnson pic.twitter.com/AqTNACuAEe

— Candler Theology (@CandlerTheology) January 12, 2016

Echols comes with experience not only in teaching in theological settings but also with experience in recruiting teachers, building teams and developing educational programs. She taught Pastoral Theology for 3.5 years at Ridley Hall in Cambridge and ran the Perspectives course at Trinity School for Ministry in Pittsburgh. She taught public reading and worship at Union Biblical Seminary in India and also taught Cross Cultural Communication at Jeffery Seminary in Indonesia. While a full-time student at Trinity, Echols ran the Jan Term program and started the June Term program.

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Which is absolutely laudable: a church without a mission is just a monument in memory of the Messiah. And a parish-based innovation which is overseen by qualified parish clergy is welcome if it leads people to Christ. But church leaders who have not submitted to a “long, costly college-based training” will have little theology and poor (or no) formation. You end up with a Wesleyan model of church (conveniently forgetting that the Wesleys were steeped in theology and had a profound understanding of Anglican orthodoxy), with all the inherent dangers of error and heresy being lay-preached. Reading Against Heresies: On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis and writing tedious 5,000-word essays on the definition of ‘Applied Theology’ is what helps to qualify you to teach, preach and minister effectively. Some eager disciples yearn to get out into the community and ‘do stuff’, but that stuff is far better done when it is led by people whose skills have been honed, mettle tested, and vocation discerned.

And who are all these lay leaders waiting to be ‘released’? Are they all wealthy or self-employed with a lot of spare time on their hands and the ability to labour for nothing, like parliamentary candidates for the Conservative Party?

Or perhaps there are no lay leaders waiting and yearning to be ‘released’ – and certainly nothing like the army necessary to birth and nurture 10,000 church plants.

Isn’t it a curious vision for renewing and reinvigorating the Church of England that the strategy is apparently to inculcate a new generation with the theology of the Free Church: you don’t need knowledgeable priests, you don’t need beautiful buildings, and you don’t need rigorous qualifications in theology: these are key limiting factors to mission. All you need is a passion for Christ and the ability to lead a Bible study. The rest is otiose.

Now, when will someone write a paper on the key limiting factors in the House and College of Bishops?

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For what need the Church of Key Limiting Factors when the Church of Release and Liberation is just down the road? What need an expensively-formed priest in cassock and stole when there’s a free RE teacher in trackie bottoms and trainers just down the road?https://t.co/WR8w8nbP5Y

— Archbishop Cranmer: key limiting factor since 1520 (@His_Grace) July 3, 2021

Watch and listen to it all.

He warned against defining God purely through abstract definitions — the usual listing of His attributes, e.g. omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving, etc. He was concerned that if this was the primary way we understood God, we risk making God an exhibit in a museum, and the attributes His labels. But God is no static abstraction. He is alive and acts in history. I thank my Pentecostal and charismatic friends for reminding me of God’s presence and power, but the lesson was first drilled into my heart by a German theologian in a Canadian seminary.

A number of implications arise from this understanding of God as a God who acts. One is that we get to know what kind of God He is by His actions. Talking about Jesus, Dr Bockmuehl said Jesus is from above but we know Him from below. In other words, Christ is part of the Trinity, He is from above, but it is His activity in history, His teachings and His actions, that let us know who He is and, therefore, who God is. The supreme act of revelation is of course His death on the Cross and His resurrection. And Israel was always exhorted to remember the Passover and God’s deliverance through the Red Sea. To take God seriously is to take His actions in history seriously.

I am very worried about some of the modern worship music. They either don’t take history seriously, focusing only on the singer’s subjective feelings about God, or they focus only on the personal histories of the composers; what God did in their lives. They are essentially ahistorical and deprive us of the bigger and more accurate picture of God revealed in salvation history and church history. They end up reductionistic and with a much smaller God.

And if our picture of God is smaller and essentially ahistorical, we end up with a weakened faith, not fully confident in what He will do in the present. If Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, we know what kind of God He is and what He will do by meditating on what He has done in the past. So if we are praying for healing, for example, we know we are praying to a God who hears, who is concerned, who cares and who comes down to deliver. We know the verbs. Knowing He is that kind of God means we pray with confidence both in His deliverance and in how and when He delivers.

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Soo-Inn Tan–Klaus Bockmuehl and the God of Verbs https://t.co/mb2eUuTtBF #theology #canada #christology #scripture #churchhistory @regentcollege pic.twitter.com/JKlmIYI6fS

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 13, 2021

Alumni, faculty, and staff of Wycliffe College were saddened today to learn of the death of Professor Emeritus Dr Richard N. Longenecker. Dr. Longenecker—who made his home in Brantford, ON—died Monday, June 7, 2021. Predeceased by his wife Fran (2016), he was in his 91st year.

Richard Longenecker taught at Wycliffe College for 22 years (1972–1994) and was our Ramsay Armitage Professor of New Testament. He was instrumental in enhancing the academic credibility of the College so that it became a destination for evangelical students seeking to study at the doctoral level. Moreover, his status as an American Baptist layman opened the doors of the College to students beyond the Anglican Church. Professor Alan Hayes writes, “His appointment represents the turning-point for Wycliffe in enlarging its mission from the narrow focus of training people for the Anglican ministry to a more ecumenical and diverse vision for evangelical theological scholarship. He designed a new program (the Master of Religion degree) for students preparing for a diversity of lay and ordained ministries in the wider Church, including advanced research.” Dr Longenecker was also an Associate Alumnus of the College and received Wycliffe’s Doctor of Divinity degree in 1996. We thank God for his life and ministry, and, with many who called him friend and mentor, we pray for his family as they grieve his death.

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Saddened to hear of the passing of Prof Richard Longenecker (1930-2021), with whom I was blessed to study at @Wycliffe_UofT . An erudite and careful scholar, a kind and generous person, and a faithful interpreter of Scripture. He will be missed. https://t.co/aEow5bATT3 pic.twitter.com/msOFAGLztO

— Dan Smith (@htimsnad_01) June 8, 2021

One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the discovery in British Columbia is the realization that these children were not dignified by the preservation of their names. They were more than casualties of a malign social experiment, they were at one time members of families, each one a beloved child, and child of God. And they had names. As painful as it may be now to hear them, hear them we must. We must spare no effort in helping to discover these precious relics in the wreckage we have created. And when we pray, “those whom we have forgotten, do thou, O Lord, remember,” let us do so shamefully and in the hope that God has recorded for them a new name, shared only by the departed and God alone (Revelation 2.17).

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Principal Stephen Andrews shares his thoughts on the recent tragic discovery of the remains of the 215 children. https://t.co/4doKqrOMYr pic.twitter.com/0gGiN6QJg9

— Wycliffe College (@Wycliffe_UofT) June 1, 2021

From there:

The global crisis of forced displacement is growing every year. At the same time, Western Christians’ sympathy toward refugees is increasingly overshadowed by concerns about personal and national security, economics, and culture. We urgently need a perspective that understands both Scripture and current political realities and that can be applied at the levels of the church, the nation, and the globe.

In Refuge Reimagined, Mark R. Glanville and Luke Glanville offer a new approach to compassion for displaced people: a biblical ethic of kinship. God’s people, they argue, are consistently called to extend kinship—a mutual responsibility and solidarity—to those who are marginalized and without a home. Drawing on their respective expertise in Old Testament studies and international relations, the two brothers engage a range of disciplines to demonstrate how this ethic is consistently conveyed throughout the Bible and can be practically embodied today.

New Release: 'Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics' by @markrglanville and @luke_glanville.

Order now: https://t.co/47vZ3D2pSy #RefugeReimagined pic.twitter.com/c89XTY1acL

— IVP Academic (@ivpacademic) February 16, 2021

Who do you write for?

The book is primarily for the guides, the pastors and theologians. They are inclined by vocation to reflect on these things in detail, and my systematic theology tries to clarify things by showing the interrelation of different beliefs.

I’m working on a book tentatively entitled An Introduction to the Christian Faith. It’s a write-up of a course I teach to undergraduates here at Davidson College. It will be keyed to the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Lord’s Prayer. That was the introductory catechetical setup for much of Christianity in the West. It’s a starter set that is inherently more accessible than my systematic theology or any other.

But I’d also like to revisit the theme of teachers. I once called Father Nicholas Ayo to thank him for translating a book of Aquinas’s sermons. He accepted my thanks, but he added that we’re all indebted to St. Thomas. Well, that’s right. Theologians stand in relation to people who have gone before. When I teach Aquinas or Luther, they’re not in the room. I try to let students encounter them through their writings. That’s what my teachers did for me, and I try to thank them by encouraging my students to do the same.

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(CC) Stephen Healey interviews Douglas F. Ottati–Teaching theology in anxious times https://t.co/hxXC6K6l90https://t.co/uMNbJLBeXE

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 20, 2021

Two historic Episcopal Church seminaries announced this week that they “have begun the process of exploring partnership options.”

While the language of the announcement offers no detail, it appears that both New York’s General Theological Seminary (GTS) and Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) of Alexandria, Virginia are now on a trajectory to eventually consolidate.

“Purposefully walking together in as many ways as possible is our goal going forward” wrote the chairs of both boards, Dr. David Charlton (VTS) and Diocese of Atlanta Bishop Robert Wright (GTS).

Episcopal seminaries including Episcopal Divinity School, Bexley Hall Seminary, and Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, each announced similar language before “federating” or being subsumed into a larger institution. A fourth seminary, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, was acquired by the endowed parish of Trinity Wall Street in 2019. Each points to an ongoing trend of consolidation among institutions as the Episcopal Church contracts in membership and attendance numbers.

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Today, @iamepiscopalian's oldest and largest seminaries — @GeneralSeminary and @VTS_Seminary — have begun the process of exploring partnership options. Learn More: https://t.co/8mJmDnYk6K#seminary #episcopal #episcopalian @PB_Curry pic.twitter.com/lMw6cZPJ2a

— Virginia Theological Seminary (@VTS_Seminary) January 13, 2021

A reminder to join us this week for a special online tribute event honouring & remembering Dr. J. I. Packer. Speakers such as @profntwright @alisteremcgrath & James Houston will share testimony to Jim's widespread influence. Wed, Nov 18 at Noon PST: https://t.co/6j6Sf1c6pK pic.twitter.com/F0UVeR30gn

— Regent College (@regentcollege) November 17, 2020

Episcopal bishops in the 1980s were already used to urgent calls from journalists seeking comments on issues ranging from gay priests to gun control, from female bishops to immigration laws, from gender-free liturgies to abortion rights.

But the pace quickened for Bishop William Frey in 1985 when he was one of four candidates to become presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. A former radio professional, Frey was known for his bass voice and quick one-liners. His Lutheran counterpart in Colorado once told him: “You look like a movie star, sound like God and wear cowboy boots.”

Other Denver religious leaders sometimes asked, with some envy, why Episcopalians got so much ink.

“I can’t understand why some people want the kind of media attention we get,” he told me during one media storm. “That’s like coveting another man’s root canal.”

A Texas native, Frey died in San Antonio on Sunday after years out of the spotlight. In addition to his Colorado tenure, his ministry included missionary work in Central America during the “death squads” era and leading an alternate Episcopal seminary in a struggling Pennsylvania steel town.

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So that is, in some respects, a kind of pushback on conventional seminary.

A bit. It’s not radical. The old chestnut that theological education is about giving you a set of perfect answers to questions nobody’s asking—you’ve got to avoid that. That human locatedness, that contextualizing, is important. And that’s not to say that contextual considerations trump every other consideration. It just reminds you that you’re learning about the human as well as about God.

As for lay education, what I’ve seen of it working well is very often the kind of group where people feel they have permission to ask the real questions, where there’s a degree of real trust and mutuality, where people don’t feel obliged to come up with shortcuts but are able to take time.

And, again, you don’t stint on the intellectual questioning there. The priority is to get back again and again to that big picture. I go on obsessively about this sometimes. The big picture of the landscape, the new creation, is where we’re headed and where we’re from. The mistake is to think you can just break it down into manageable bits. A theologically-educated layperson is somebody whose capacity for praise and wonder is filled out, not just the capacity to answer pub questions.

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Absolutely loved reading this from Rowan Williams on theological education https://t.co/KoMs8jT9A9

— Casper ter Kuile (@caspertk) September 9, 2020