Abstract
Welcome to this very special issue of Theology. The very first issue appeared in July 1920. By an odd and tragic coincidence, a flu pandemic was prevalent then as now. The Spanish flu H1N1, which killed some 50 million people between 1918 and late 1920, was far more deadly than Covid-19, but both caused worldwide anxiety and social disruption. The next issue of Theology will return to the theological, liturgical and ethical issues raised by a virus pandemic (which were largely ignored by Theology in 1920). For the moment, however, this centenary issue might provide a brief respite for those of us who have been physically isolating.
It has been fascinating trawling through past issues of Theology, starting with the very first one. There have been three particularly influential and long-serving editors of Theology: Gordon Selwyn, the founding editor, who served from 1920 until 1933; Alec Vidler, with the longest editorship of all, who served from 1939 until 1964; and Gordon Dunstan, who succeeded him, serving from 1965 until 1975. Of recent sole editors, only Bill Jacob (1998–2008) can match their editorial longevity, and few, if any, of the rest of us can claim to have been so widely influential.
When Gordon Dunstan retired, Theology moved from having an issue every month to a somewhat longer issue every other month. More radically, three joint editors were appointed in 1976 – the veteran Anglican theologians John Drury and David Jenkins and the lay theologian John Mark – between them bringing considerable expertise in church history, biblical studies, doctrine and ethics. David Jenkins retired from this role in 1982 and was replaced by Peter Coleman, well known for his careful studies of Christianity and same-sex relationships. John Mark retired the following year and was replaced by the theologian Leslie Houlden. And, in 1986, John Drury retired and was replaced – with Theology at last properly recognizing the significance of women within academic theology – by the Quaker theologian Grace Jantzen. She, in turn, retired in September 1991 (the issue of Theology that also announced Alec Vidler’s death at the age of 91), bringing the editorial threesome to a close after a remarkable, but perhaps sometimes turbulent, 15 years.
With just Peter Coleman and Leslie Houlden left, they also retired and handed over to Ann Loades as sole editor in January 1992. An expert on feminist theology was now editor. In her first editorial she recognized that, without abandoning all of its (and her own) Anglican roots, the journal had now become decidedly more ecumenical and international. W. M. (Bill) Jacob, with scholarly and practical interests in church history, followed Ann Loades. He, in turn, was succeeded – as many readers will know – by the Cambridge theologian, and expert on Bonhoeffer, Stephen J. Plant in 2009, and then by me in 2014.
Theology was originally designed to champion Anglican ‘Liberal Catholic’ theology – in contrast, say, to The Expository Times, founded 31 years earlier to promote better Reformed preaching. Selwyn, Vidler and Dunstan were all liberal Anglo-Catholics. Indeed, two of them edited fairly radical collections during their time as editors of Theology, designed to stimulate and challenge churches: namely, Selwyn’s Essays Catholic and Critical (1926) and Vidler’s Soundings (1962). Dunstan was already influencing crucial Church of England reports on social issues in a liberal direction when appointed as editor, and he continued to do so long into retirement. Recognizing their unique contributions to Theology, this issue reprints edited versions of Selwyn’s final, retrospective editorial of December 1933, Vidler’s characteristically iconoclastic 1976 article ‘The limitations of William Temple’, and Dunstan’s 1963 contribution to a series on ‘Hard sayings’ (now termed ‘Difficult texts’).
From a wealth of possibilities, choosing other major articles to reproduce here is a risky business. Frankly, I have simply chosen four that I have found particularly fascinating. One, of course, was by the pellucid Archbishop William Temple, published in Vidler’s first year as editor and as war loomed again in Europe. Another was from 1920, when Britain was still recovering from the ‘Great’ War, by the impressive (but now largely forgotten) Dame Mary Scharlieb. Readers may be amused to discover that (guess what?) sexuality featured strongly in the 1920 Lambeth Conference of Bishops. A third, from 1980, is by the equally impressive Dame Mary Warnock. And the fourth in 1998, seven years before his death, was by Maurice Wiles, who held the Regius Chair of Divinity at Oxford for 21 years. I would have loved to have met Scharlieb and Temple, but I do treasure memories of the deeply humane, albeit formidable, Warnock and Wiles. These are, for me at least, four seriously intelligent and caring Anglicans.
For the last seven years Theology has had a poetry page (actually, more often two or three pages) on the premise that poetry and imaginative theology are deeply intertwined. Although this page is a recent innovation, poetry has featured occasionally in Theology from the outset. For example, in September 1924, S. P. T. Prideaux published verse translations of the Odes of Solomon. In addition, various articles on poetry have been published in Theology, including Marcus Bradbrook in March 1943 on T. S. Eliot’s Little Gidding (Eliot contributed to Theology in prose on more than one occasion); Ashley Sampson in December 1945 on Christina Rossetti’s poetry; and Donald Allchin’s article (republished here) in September 1978 on R. S. Thomas’s rugged poetry. The two poems republished in this issue are by the established poet A. P. Leary and a single, poignant verse by Emily Fitzhugh marking the death of the systematic theologian Paul Tillich.
Selecting suitable book reviews from the past is even more difficult. There have been many, many books reviewed that any historian would wish to mention. Those selected here were all written before the new millennium (on the assumption that twenty-first-century reviews will already be known to many readers). For any author, one of the more disconcerting discoveries of trawling through these is to learn just how many books, although impressive at the time, have now fallen off the map of most non-historians. Yet a few (not necessarily the best) have remained, perhaps because of their sheer originality or novelty. C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters (1942) is an obvious example, as are Evelyn Underhill’s Worship (1937) and John Robinson’s Honest to God (1963). Others – such as books by Kenneth Kirk, C. H. Dodd, Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth and Owen Chadwick – remain on the menu because of their intellectual power. And others, again, remain because they were written by such heroic figures as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Albert Schweitzer.
I do hope that you enjoy this deeply nostalgic centenary issue of Theology.