Abstract
The vocation of those seeking to combine a priestly and an academic role within the Church of England is a crucial one, as is demonstrated by the illustrious heritage of those who have sought to serve in this capacity. And yet, the safeguarding and nurture of this office has all but lapsed in the contemporary institution, notwithstanding the nebulous designation of ‘potential theological educator’ that is granted to some candidates within the discernment process and carried by them into training and beyond. This volume, comprising essays from 14 different contributors, takes the form of both a prognosis and a petition, showing where this situation is likely to lead and what needs to be done to halt the slide before it is too late.
After some useful introductory chapters describing the historical understanding of this combined ministry and detailing its under-treatment in the contemporary institution, the first section (chapters 4–7) offers biblical and theological reflections on the relationship of its two constituent parts, namely, priest and theologian. The second section (chapters 8–10) turns its attention to the educational contexts in which this dual vocation needs to be developed, whether this is a ministerial training seminary or secular academia in general. This leads into the third section (chapters 11–13), which offers a synthetic perspective on how the role might be faithfully carried out in a ministerial setting. The volume concludes with an interesting theological reflection by Samuel Wells, drawing from his own experience working as a priest in a major American secular academic environment (chapter 14).
One of the strengths of this volume is its commitment to give a voice not only to prominent names within the field (Mark Chapman, Alison Milbank, Martyn Percy, Samuel Wells), but also to younger or less well-known academic priests, even those who have not yet ‘made it’ onto the ladder as it were. This is refreshing: it results in a candid and somewhat etic approach. Nonetheless, it might have been useful to have added to this list a contributor representative of those receiving the ministry of academic priests in a local context. What the laity themselves are seeking in terms of greater theological understanding, and how they envisage this as supporting their own Christian discipleship and witness, may be quite different from what has been supposed by academic priests in the past and applied in a top-down manner.
Behind the various angles onto the topic that are on display here, a common theme emerges. The contributors all envisage the local church, not the academy itself, as the material context in which the work of Christian theology is primarily operative. From this observation flow some generative thoughts on the nature of doctrine as a subsistent process, that is, doctrine as arising within networks of social connectivity, community performance and embodied practice. This runs counter to much of the tradition of Western theology and its attendant metaphysics. A similar idea has recently been presented in the first volume of Graham Ward’s systematic theology, How the Light Gets In (2016). Perhaps the academic priest has an even more crucial role to play in this new context, acting as a mediator or even as a curator for the theologies that are constantly being constructed all around us in the midst of the plural world. If that is the case, then the process of contemplation initiated by this volume is even more timely and relevant than it might seem to be at first glance.
As one who himself was tagged as a ‘potential theological educator’ within the Church of England, and yet who has struggled to gain clarity as to what this means or how it might be recognized in my own appointments, I found this book to be cathartic in its recognition of the problem and stimulating in its encouragement to persist.