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Stephen Neill's Anglicanism: An Anglican Classic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

W. L. Sachs
W. L. Sachs
Affiliation:
wls@aol.com
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Abstract

Stephen Neill's Anglicanism has been the classic book on Anglican history and tradition for a generation. Books which become classics endure because they exhibit timeless features. Neill's Anglicanism succeeds because he delineates core features of the church's tradition which originated in English circumstances and spread beyond them. The book's endurance also reflects its comprehensive narrative and objectivity. For Neill English precedent left an enduring mark without enshrining English authority. Anglicanism's genius has been its capacity to embrace local variations of expression. Yet Neill foresaw the tensions inherent in post-colonial Anglicanism. The irony of the church's adaptability and growth was the resulting strain on its consensual forms that began in his lifetime. Local variety would extend to a degree that would erode over-arching consensus and strain the structures which would enforce it, as Neill saw plainly.

Keywords

AnglicanismmissioncolonialismclassicChurch of EnglandNational Churchlocal variations
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , December 2007 , pp. 149 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) and The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2007

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References

1. Anglicanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).Google Scholar

2. Cf. Tracy, David, The Analogical Imagination (London: SCM Press, 1998).Google Scholar

3. Cf. Duffy, Eamon, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400—1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2nd edn, 2005).Google Scholar

4. Neill, , Anglicanism, pp. 252–57.Google Scholar

5. Neill, , Anglicanism, p. 357.Google Scholar

6. Neill, , Anglicanism, p. 388.Google Scholar

7. Among recent works seeking an all-encompassing view of Anglican history and identity are Kaye, Bruce, Reinventing Anglicanism (New York: Church Publishing, 2004)Google Scholar, Douglas, Ian and Kwok, Pui-lan, Beyond Colonial Anglicanism (New York: Church Publishing, 2004)Google Scholar, and my own The Transformation of Anglicanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)Google Scholar, and Homosexuality and the Crisis of Anglicanism (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2008).Google Scholar