Conference Purpose
The Church of England finds itself at a decisive moment. Just as the tensions which tear at the fabric of the Anglican Communion are being replicated close at hand, it faces pressing questions of its own: not least, the place of the Church in public life, and the willingness of the public to find a place in the life of the Church. The mood of the Church is low and yet, within theology, there has been an unprecedented acknowledgement over the last century of the significance of the Church. Theologians of all traditions have come to stress the communal dimension of salvation and the centrality of incorporation into the body of Christ.
After the Lambeth Conference the question is asked ‘where is the Church going?’ Returning to the Church will address this question by first asking a deeper one: ‘what is the Church?’ It seeks to revive ecclesiology; to bring the renewed confidence in the Church found within theology into the life and practices of the Church of England, for the renewal of parish life, education, spirituality and ecumenism.
Returning to the Church seeks to reconnect with the traditions of the past as the basis for an openness to future renewal. It will value orthodoxy and open-mindedness. Through papers, panels and discussions it will address:
- Lay vocation and education
- Social Justice, Politics and the Church in Public Life
- The Organisation of the Church
- The Anglican Communion and Ecumenism
- Doctrine and Liturgy in the Church of England
- Religious Life and Movements
The conference is chiefly focused upon the Church of England, but with the conviction that its mission and identity are only truly to be understood as part of the universal Church. Here too, attention to theology is helpful: at the end of a century that saw ecumenism born and then wane, one of its most striking successes is in academic theology, which is now a thoroughly ecumenical endeavour. In the face of divisions among catholic-minded Anglicans, the conference is for all who identify the roots and future of the Church in its catholicity.
"The Church is the work of the Incarnation of Christ, it is the Incarnation itself." - Sergius Bulgakov