Bryan Cones – författare

A scholarly volume that reflects the rich diversity of Anglican theology

With contributions from an international panel of writers, Twentieth-Century Anglican Theologians offers a wide-ranging view that presents a survey of over twenty diverse Anglican thinkers. The book explores well-known figures including William Temple, Austin Farrer, Donald MacKinnon, and John A.T. Robinson. These theologians are set in a wider context alongside others from India, China, Australia, Ghana, and elsewhere. Notably, the subjects include a number of women from Evelyn Underhill, the first woman to teach the clergy of the Church of England, to Esther Mombo, a major contemporary Anglican figure, from Kenya.

The book reflects the rich diversity of Anglicanism, suggesting the ongoing vitality of this religious tradition. This important book:

Written for students and teachers of Anglicanism, Anglican clergy, and ecumenical colleagues, Twentieth-Century Anglican Theologians is the first book to reflect the diversity of the Anglican tradition by considering its global theological representatives.

A scholarly volume that reflects the rich diversity of Anglican theology

With contributions from an international panel of writers, Twentieth-Century Anglican Theologians offers a wide-ranging view that presents a survey of over twenty diverse Anglican thinkers. The book explores well-known figures including William Temple, Austin Farrer, Donald MacKinnon, and John A.T. Robinson. These theologians are set in a wider context alongside others from India, China, Australia, Ghana, and elsewhere. Notably, the subjects include a number of women from Evelyn Underhill, the first woman to teach the clergy of the Church of England, to Esther Mombo, a major contemporary Anglican figure, from Kenya.

The book reflects the rich diversity of Anglicanism, suggesting the ongoing vitality of this religious tradition. This important book:

Written for students and teachers of Anglicanism, Anglican clergy, and ecumenical colleagues, Twentieth-Century Anglican Theologians is the first book to reflect the diversity of the Anglican tradition by considering its global theological representatives.

A groundbreaking collection of writings that place queer ritual at the center of the theological conversation.

In this collection of essays, leading scholars in queer theology and liturgical studies explore the ways in which the distinctive theological voices of LGBTQIA+ Christians challenge and expand thinking and practice around worship in new directions. This challenge has expanded in the past decades, as obstacles to the full participation of queer Christians—particularly in marriage and ordination—have fallen.

Organized into three main parts, the volume begins with an introduction to queer engagement with ritual practices, continues with a series of case studies that examine queer texts and contexts, and concludes with an examination of the horizons of queer liturgical theology and practice. Throughout the volume, Queering Christian Worship provides new imagination and tools to those who study and curate Christian worship across traditions.

Contributions to this volume continue this year’s reflections on the sixtieth anniversary of Sacrosanctum concilium. A recent trip home to Tennessee in the US highlighted for me the unusual moment we are occupy. When I grew up there in the 1970s and 1980s, many newly constructed churches reflected the signs of those times: contemporary architecture, fan-shaped seating, and a commitment to liturgy that reflected the culture we inhabited—for better and for worse! (I have always been a fan of a good guitar folk Mass though not of homemade felt banners.) Among those newish churches was Sacred Heart Cathedral in Knoxville, Tennessee, where I was baptised in 1973. It was admittedly not the finest example of mid-century attempts at churches, adorned by an unfortunate twenty-foot-tall painting (by a parishioner) of Jesus on the back wall, descending as if from the clouds. But in many respects, it reflected the community that built it, a small suburban Roman Catholic minority deep in the US Bible Belt.

Fast forward to this third decade of the twenty-first century and an entirely different church sits on the same site. Rather than echoing the tentative footsteps of 1960s US Catholic modern architecture, it suggests instead the massive footprint of a Neoclassical European cathedral. Coming in at a cool US$58 million to construct, it dominates its neighborhood, dwarfing the Catholic school on campus and nearly consuming its predecessor—now the parish hall it was probably meant to be in the first place. The parish administrator noted that its grandeur has become the site of weekly ‘destination weddings’. (Have a look: shcathedral.org.) It fairly screams ‘Roman Catholic’ in a place where Southern Baptist and other forms of Protestant evangelicalism remain the majority Christian expression. It does not, however, even whisper ‘East Tennessee’, whether in the famous marble and granite the state is known for or in reflections of our beloved Smoky Mountains. Nor is there reference to the Cherokee First Nation whose members still live in those mountains or space for the settler arts of Appalachia, whether music or textiles. The church is an import through and through, meant to signal a uniquely Catholic way of being, one quite different from the world around it.

The connection between liturgy and justice has long been assumed: Faithful celebration of Eucharist would lead to just sharing of ‘the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands’. Baptizing persons of every people and nation would yield societies in which each person treats another as a treasured image of God. Regular faithful engagement with scripture would shape followers of Jesus into living words within the Word. Yet centuries of Christian practice and decades of reflection on the connection between liturgy and justice continue to produce broken human relationships shaped by colonisation, disparities based on colour and culture, and nature broken by a climate crisis worked by human hands.

Nevertheless, essays in this collection seek to engage the unresolved tension between the world in which humanity lives and the one proposed in Christian common prayer. Gerard Moore asks if the ‘law of prayer’ that guides assemblies is tainted by an imperial shape that impairs its witness. Anita Monro laments a lack of honesty in so many Christian gatherings, where confession and lament are absent, not least when assemblies gather on stolen land. Stephen Burns responds to their prompts by proposing patterns that might steer common prayer toward more authentic ‘kingdom scenes’ that signal God’s dominion. Annie Brophy applies such wisdom to her own Uniting Church in Australia, asking whether its resources for prayer measure up to that church’s stated commitment to justice in the matter of gender and reconciliation with Australia’s First Peoples. Jason McFarland and Angela McCarthy report on ecumenical efforts underway to right the relationship between human bodies at prayer and the continuous praise of the rest of creation. Might an ecumenical Feast of Creation be a step in that direction? Like so many questions posed by contributors to this volume, the path to joining liturgy and justice walking hand in hand remains unclear.

The connection between liturgy and justice has long been assumed: Faithful celebration of Eucharist would lead to just sharing of ‘the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands’. Baptizing persons of every people and nation would yield societies in which each person treats another as a treasured image of God. Regular faithful engagement with scripture would shape followers of Jesus into living words within the Word. Yet centuries of Christian practice and decades of reflection on the connection between liturgy and justice continue to produce broken human relationships shaped by colonisation, disparities based on colour and culture, and nature broken by a climate crisis worked by human hands.

Nevertheless, essays in this collection seek to engage the unresolved tension between the world in which humanity lives and the one proposed in Christian common prayer. Gerard Moore asks if the ‘law of prayer’ that guides assemblies is tainted by an imperial shape that impairs its witness. Anita Monro laments a lack of honesty in so many Christian gatherings, where confession and lament are absent, not least when assemblies gather on stolen land. Stephen Burns responds to their prompts by proposing patterns that might steer common prayer toward more authentic ‘kingdom scenes’ that signal God’s dominion. Annie Brophy applies such wisdom to her own Uniting Church in Australia, asking whether its resources for prayer measure up to that church’s stated commitment to justice in the matter of gender and reconciliation with Australia’s First Peoples. Jason McFarland and Angela McCarthy report on ecumenical efforts underway to right the relationship between human bodies at prayer and the continuous praise of the rest of creation. Might an ecumenical Feast of Creation be a step in that direction? Like so many questions posed by contributors to this volume, the path to joining liturgy and justice walking hand in hand remains unclear.