Unity: Anglicanism’s Impossible Dream?
Unity: Anglicanism’s Impossible Dream? Book Launch: The Rev. Dr. Charlie Bell in Conversation with Dean Patrick Malloy
For years, there has been talk of the importance of ‘unity’ in the Anglican Communion without a clear, theological foundation. This has led to competing claims of what this unity is for or defined by, and questions asked about how possible and desirable such a unity might be. As divisions, frictions, frustrations, and arguments have continued, still there remains a woeful lack of definition of what this unity actually is – and on whose shoulders the responsibility might lie.
The Episcopal Church was made the Communion’s scapegoat in the wake of Gene Robinson’s election as bishop, and as more and more provinces look to the inclusion of LGBTQIA people, the same questions have not gone away. That unity is a call of Christ to His church is not in doubt – yet what might real, positive, hopeful unity look like in a Communion that is much in need of decolonisation and reimagining?
A reception will follow the discussion.
Charlie Bell is Official Fellow and College Lecturer in Medicine and Public Theology at Girton College, Cambridge, and a practicing forensic psychiatrist in South London. He is a priest of the Diocese of Southwark, UK, Visiting Scholar at Sarum College, Research Fellow and Associate Tutor at St Augustine’s College of Theology, and Scholar in Residence at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York City.
