Abstract
The prolific Dr Avis has given us valuable books on many subjects including Anglicanism (from several perspectives), ecumenical theology and ecclesiology, and his work has helped many of us to articulate a range of theological issues much more carefully. He now turns his hand to the ministry of bishops, and once again we are in his debt. This study was commissioned by Bishop Kenneth Kearon when he was Secretary General of the Anglican Communion Office.
Twenty-five years ago the Church of England published what is still the primary text for Anglicans on the episcopate, Episcopal Ministry (The ‘Cameron Report’, 2000). Since that time there have been treatments of various aspects of the episcopate and episcopacy, but, given the inordinate attention that bishops have received in this intervening period, there has been surprisingly little writing of any substance on the theology and practice of episcopal ministry. What there is has often been good and illuminating, but we have for some time been in real want of theological and practical resources of weight and consequence.
Dr Avis’s study goes a long way to filling the gap. Eleven chapters take us through many areas of episcopal life and ministry, and for someone who confesses a certain limitation precisely because he is not a bishop, Dr Avis handles a great deal particularly well. I found his attention to Hooker enlightening, and he is not above saying what bishops ought to avoid. There is important discussion of issues to which many bishops do not give much time or thought these days, such as ecumenism, the place of scholarship in the bishop’s life and the great Anglican tradition of effective and broad collaborations and engagements in the public square.
Dr Avis begs off attention to the bishop’s inner life, saying that this book is rather a ‘theological’ treatment. But this is a pity: there is nothing more ‘theological’ than the bishop’s living and evident relationship with God in Christ, and to have omitted a chapter on ‘The Bishop and God’ or ‘The Bishop and Prayer and Devotion’ is a loss. A couple of the chapters have the sense, too, of condensing longer treatments, and this is particularly evident in his chapter on ‘The Bishop in the Public Sphere’. If ever there is a dangerous place for a bishop these days, this is it.
The least helpful chapter is ‘The Bishop and the Liturgy’, mostly because of the extremely unsatisfactory section on healing. This is precisely the kind of thin theological reflection, infused with personal preferences that are not grounded in any apparent argument, that leads so many bishops (and other clergy, too!) into trouble. And while there is a helpful list of ‘Resources’ in chapter 2, it is not complete, and the book’s usefulness would have been greatly enhanced by a proper and full bibliography.
This study came to me after I had been ordained to the episcopate for about four months, and it was a well of fresh water, precisely because it is clear to every new bishop very quickly that ‘becoming a bishop’ is not a moment, but one’s new, lifelong commitment. There is tremendous insight and wisdom throughout this book, and these few criticisms must not deter bishops, or others who share closely with bishops in oversight, from reading it. Even where one disagrees or wants more, one is forced to think – never a bad thing for a bishop.
Dr Avis’s book highlights the need that still exists for an extended systematic theological handbook of texts, studies and resources on the episcopate and the exercise of episcopacy, drawn from across the Anglican Communion and from other traditions that live an episcopally ordered polity, that will help further to shape and expand our Anglican understandings of the episcopate, and so contribute to the well-being not just of bishops, but also of our common life.