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.

Austin Farrer is highly praised but curiously under-read. Despite being recognized as ‘possibly the greatest Anglican mind of the 20th century,’ his influence in discussions of Anglican identity and theology is almost non-existent. As an attempt to remedy this deficit, this paper provides a sketch of Farrer's life and work, and then presents him as a specifically Anglican theologian through considering a sermon, a meditation on the Apostles' Creed, and a set of lectures to Oxford undergraduates. But presenting Farrer as ‘a specifically Anglican theologian’ is problematic if we cannot agree on the nature of Anglican theology. Therefore, the paper concludes by referencing a debate between Stephen Sykes and Paul Avis on this question, and asks if Farrer can function as a paradigm for contemporary Anglican theologians.