I have been invited to talk about something called "conciliarism" and its relevance for our life as Anglican Christians. There is an obvious reason for exposing this topic in a public forum within our church. And this is because, in the current struggle within Anglicanism, we have, both by default and by design, ended up acting out a debate over whether our Christian lives as churches together are to be governed by "common consent" within a council, or by some other, more local, individual, or informal means. And more generally, although conciliarism is not exactly a hot topic within the larger world, there has been increased academic interest in the subject of late. Last year, a fine book appeared on the matter by the Anglican Paul Avis. A couple of years ago, the great Medieval scholar and educationalist Francis Oakley came out with the first popular overview of the subject ever, published by Oxford University Press. And over the past 50 years, there has been a steady and lively scholarly stream of research on conciliarism emerging, especially in the journals. My own plan during this conference is to provide you with a brief overview of the concept of conciliarism, historically and theologically - that is what I will do in my first talk - and then, in my second talk, do some application of the concept and practice to our current situation within Anglicanism.
Download Adobe PDF file of both lectures here.
See Wycliffe College summary of lectures....
Download Adobe PDF file of both lectures here.
See Wycliffe College summary of lectures....
