In face of uncertainty about the Anglican Communion’s future, this article attempts to rearticulate a vision of Anglicanism’s vocation in terms of its incompleteness and provisionality. Drawing from the thought of Michael Ramsey, Ephraim Radner and Paul Avis, I suggest that Anglicanism’s vocation, like that of any church, is to disappear. At the same time, it is a vocation tempered by the knowledge that, even in its incompleteness and provisionality, Anglicanism has a pastoral responsibility to provide care for the Christians within the Communion. Finally, this is a penitent vocation, and one which is held out as an invitation to all Christian churches.

This article explores what Anglicanism may have to say to a world struggling with a ‘migration crisis’. It begins with the story of the nineteenth-century African martyr, Bernard Mizeki, who was both a migrant and, as a missionary, a place-maker. Using three pairs of words – place and displacement, guest and host, and journey and destination – the article connects Anglicanism’s historic emphasis on parishes and the Incarnation to contemporary thinking on migration. It argues that eschatological thinking is necessary so Christians can consider what sort of destination they offer in their communal life. It concludes by urging more study of the relationship between migration, Anglican identity, and Christian being in the world.

This essay examines the concept of the Anglican via media and its historical development into its present form. It argues that the Anglican via media is properly understood not as a fixed program of reform, but as moderation in reform, following the classical notion of moderation as a mean between two extremes. The essay traces the theological theme of moderation in reform through the figures of Jewel, Parker, Hooker, Hall, Montagu, Cosin, Forbes, Bramhall, Puller, Knox, to Jebb’s idea of Anglican exceptionalism, and, ultimately, to Newman’s attempt to create the doctrine of the Anglican via media.

Recent discussion and research has pointed to the changing functions of archdeacons within the Church of England as the role has become expanded to combine both the traditional statutory functions with flexible and visionary leadership skills within a changing church. This study draws on data collected in 2009 from 186 active and retired male archdeacons in order to assess the psychological profile established by that time. Compared with the psychological profile of 626 clergymen, male archdeacons were much more likely to prefer the SJ temperament (60 per cent compared with 31 per cent), a temperament ideally suited for effective administration of the statutory functions. As a consequence, preference for intuition was lower among male archdeacons (38 per cent compared with 62 per cent), as was preference for perceiving (9 per cent compared with 32 per cent), qualities core for flexibility and visionary leadership.