Abstract
In the early twentieth century, there was probably no more ubiquitous character in the movement for Christian unity than Archbishop William Temple (1881–1944). His indefatigable efforts have led to a seemingly indelible association between his name and the ecumenical movement. Surprisingly, considering the stature of Temple, there is relatively little scholarly analysis on his effort to apply his theology in the practice of church unity. This monograph focuses on that lacuna. It demonstrates that the portrayal of Temple in this area has been largely caricature, either positive or negative, that fails to account appropriately for the complexity of Temple’s context and the multifaceted approaches he took in the various situations which he faced. This study shows that Temple was motivated by deep convictions but that, paradoxically, in some aspects, those convictions were detrimental to his ultimate goal. It explores the politics and practice of Temple’s ecumenical theology both nationally and internationally and evaluates the contribution Temple made to the ecumenical cause.
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Notes
- 1.
M. Grimley, Citizenship, Community, and the Church of England: Liberal Anglican Theories of the State Between the Wars (Oxford: Clarendon, 2004). p. 5.
- 2.
K. Hylson-Smith, The Churches in England from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II:1833–1998 (London: SCM, 1996). p. 179.
- 3.
S.B. Frost, Old Testament Apocalyptic: Its Origins and Growth (London: Epworth, 1952). p. 112.
- 4.
“Review of W. Temple, Church Looks Forward,” in Church Times 4 Aug 1944, p. 413.
- 5.
Cited in J.F. Fletcher, William Temple, Twentieth-Century Christian (New York: Seabury, 1963). p. 273.
- 6.
A.R. Vidler, The Church in an Age of Revolution: 1789 to the Present Day (Baltimore: Penguin, 1962). p. 260; R. Lloyd, The Church of England 1900–1965 (London: SCM, 1966). p. 250.
- 7.
S.C. Spencer, William Temple: A Calling to Prophecy (London: SPCK, 2001). p. 119; D Carter, “The Ecumenical Movement in its Early Years,” JEH 49 (1998). p. 465.
- 8.
R. Beaken, Cosmo Lang: Archbishop in War and Crisis (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012). pp. xi, 2; A. Chandler and D. Hein, Archbishop Fisher, 1945–1961: Church, State and World (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012). p. 5. The contrast may also result from apparent shortcomings in their chosen Archbishops. For example, MacKinnon suggested that the real misfortune to befall the leadership of the Church of England at the end of the war was less the premature death of Temple and more who was chosen to succeed him. (D.M.K. MacKinnon, “Justice,” Theology LXVI, no. 513 (1963). p. 102.)
- 9.
E.R. Norman, Church and Society in England 1770–1970: A Historical Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976). pp. 281, 283.
- 10.
J. Kent, William Temple: Church, State, and Society in Britain, 1880–1950 (Cambridge: CUP, 1992). pp. ix, 30.
- 11.
W.A. Poe, “Review of J. Kent, William Temple,” CH 65, no. 2 (1996). p. 309.
- 12.
C.S. Rodd, “Half Crown Article in a Penny Bazaar,” Expository Times 104, no. 12 (1993).
- 13.
“The Winter of Ecumenism,” Tablet 13 Jan 1990, p. 35.
- 14.
G.R. Evans, Method in Ecumenical Theology: The Lessons So Far (Cambridge: CUP, 1996). p. 5.
- 15.
P.D.L. Avis, Reshaping Ecumenical Theology: The Church Made Whole? (London: T&T Clark, 2010). p. vii.
- 16.
Ibid. p. vii.
- 17.
Ibid. p. 21.
- 18.
W. Temple, Thoughts on Some Problems of the Day: A Charge Delivered at his Primary Visitation (London: Macmillan, 1931). p. 83, W.M. Horton, Contemporary English Theology: An American Interpretation (London: SCM, 1940). p. 141.
- 19.
P.D.L. Avis, The Identity of Anglicanism: Essentials of Anglican Ecclesiology (London: T&T Clark, 2007). p. 152.
- 20.
K.A. Locke, The Church in Anglican Theology: An Historical, Theological and Ecumenical Exploration (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009). p. 89.
- 21.
For example, it was described as a “counter-conference” to Lambeth, by B. Farran. Cited in P. Ashworth, “Bishop lashes ‘imperious and embarrassing’ GAFCON,” Church Times 18 Jan 2008, p. 10. A second GAFCON was held in Nairobi in October 2013.
- 22.
“Synodical Position of the Provincial Episcopal Visitors,” General Synod Proceedings (11 Nov 1993). pp. 999–1018.
- 23.
Avis, Reshaping. p. 168.
- 24.
B.R. Wilson, Religion in Secular Society: A Sociological Comment (London: C.A. Watts, 1966). pp. 125–129.
- 25.
Hylson-Smith, Churches. p. 8.
- 26.
C.G. Brown, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation, 1800–2000 (London: Routledge, 2000).
- 27.
D.M. Thompson, “Theological and Sociological Approaches to the Motivation of the Ecumenical Movement,” in Religious Motivation: Biographical and Sociological Problems for the Church Historian, ed. D. Baker (Oxford: 1978). p. 475.
- 28.
W. Temple, Readings in St. John’s Gospel (London: Macmillan, 1945). p. 267n.
- 29.
D. Hudson, The Ecumenical Movement in World Affairs (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969). p. 4.
- 30.
L. Newbigin, “Organic Unity,” in DEM, ed. N. Lossky, et al. (Geneva: WCC, 1991). pp. 1028–30.
- 31.
Locke, Church. p. 132.
- 32.
See Chap. 5.
- 33.
A.E. McGrath, ed. The SPCK Handbook of Anglican Theologians (London: SPCK, 1998). p. 26. In dedicating a book to Gore, Temple said that he had learnt more from him than any other living person. (W. Temple, Studies in the Spirit and Truth of Christianity: Being University and School Sermons (London: Macmillan, 1914).; cf. J. Carpenter, Gore: A Study in Liberal Catholic Thought (London: Faith, 1960). p. 9). A link absent in scholarship when stating this influence is that Gore and Temple were related by marriage. Temple’s aunt was Gore’s sister, and thus their affinity and affection for one another were based, in part, on kinship.
- 34.
For example, the evangelical newspaper English Churchman stated, “Temple has drawn closer to the Anglo-Catholics in recent years, but we were not aware he had advanced as far as this.” 5 Mar 1931, p. 118. On the other side, staunch Anglo-Catholics such as Williamson and Dix made similar claims. (H.R. Williamson, The Walled Garden: An Autobiography (London: Michael Joseph, 1956). pp. 123–124; J.G. Leachman, “An Interesting Letter in 1940: Individual or Corporate Reunion?,” STR 53, no. 1 Christmas (2009). p. 27).
- 35.
Temple to Full Convocation of Canterbury, 1917, cited in F.A. Iremonger, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury: His Life and Letters (London: OUP, 1949). p. 217.
- 36.
Horton, English Theology. p. 148.
- 37.
Ibid. p. 150.
- 38.
H.L. Goudge, The Church of England and Reunion (London: SPCK, 1938). p. 18.
- 39.
A. Hastings, A History of English Christianity, 1920–2000, 3rd ed. (London: SCM, 2001). p. 178.
- 40.
Grimley, Citizenship. p. 23. Garth Turner has remarked that there is a common and significant defect in Anglican leaders’ biographies especially, but not exclusively, since the Second World War, complaining that they are below conventional standards. G. Turner, “Anglican Biography since the Second World War: A Modern Tradition and Its Limitations,” in Sainthood Revisioned, ed. C. Binfield (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). p. 124.
- 41.
A. Hastings, “William Temple,” in The English Religious Tradition and the Genius of Anglicanism, ed. G. Rowell (Oxford: IKON, 1992). pp. 215–216.
- 42.
Norman, Church and Society. p. 281.
- 43.
For example, R.H. Preston, “William Temple as Social Theologian,” Theology 84:701, no. September (1981).; R. Craig, Social Concern in the Thought of William Temple (London: Gollancz, 1963).; A.M. Suggate, William Temple and Christian Social Ethics Today (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1987).
- 44.
D. Kirby, “William Temple, Pius XII, Ecumenism, Natural Law, and the Post-War Peace,” JES 36, no. 3–4 (1999).
- 45.
S.W. Sykes, The Integrity of Anglicanism (London: Mowbrays, 1978). pp. 32–33.
- 46.
M.D. Chapman, Anglican Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2012). p. 174.
- 47.
S.W. Sykes, Unashamed Anglicanism (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1995). p. 218.
- 48.
Integrity. pp. 7, 37.
- 49.
P.D.L. Avis, Ecumenical Theology: And the Elusiveness of Doctrine (London: SPCK, 1986). p. 112.
- 50.
P.H.E. Thomas, “Doctrine of the Church,” in The Study of Anglicanism, ed. S. Sykes, J. Booty, and J. Knight (London: SPCK, 1998). p. 260.
- 51.
A.A. Vogel, “Preface,” in Theology in Anglicanism, ed. A.A. Vogel (Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse Barlow, 1984). p. 7.
- 52.
Sykes, Unashamed. p. 103.
- 53.
W.J. Wolf, J.E. Booty, and O.C. Thomas, The Spirit of Anglicanism: Hooker, Maurice, Temple (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1979). pp. vii–viii.
- 54.
A.R. Vidler, Essays in Liberality (London: SCM, 1957).
- 55.
F.D. Maurice, The Kingdom of Christ, 2nd ed., vol. II (London: Bloomsbury, 1842). pp. 322–27.
- 56.
Sykes, Integrity. pp. 16–24.
- 57.
Fletcher, Temple. p. vii.
- 58.
Ibid. p. 131.
- 59.
Temple to Samuel, 26 Nov 1942, in F.S. Temple, ed. Some Lambeth Letters (London: OUP, 1963). p. 41.
- 60.
H. Davies, “Review of J. Fletcher, William Temple: Twentieth-Century Christian,” CHSCS 33, no. 2 (1964).
- 61.
M. Ramsey, From Gore to Temple: The Development of Anglican Theology between Lux Mundi and the Second World War, 1889–1939 (London: Longmans, 1960).
- 62.
Ibid. pp. 124–28.
- 63.
W. Dackson, The Ecclesiology of Archbishop William Temple, 1881–1944 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2004).
- 64.
Ibid. p. 64.
- 65.
Ibid. pp. 64–66.
- 66.
Temple was a prolific author. Baker claimed, “Never before has an Archbishop of Canterbury published so much”, and Fletcher lists 221 separate and different items of Temple’s published work (A.E. Baker, William Temple and his Message (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1946). p. 49; cf. Fletcher, Temple. p. 349).
- 67.
There are 111 folios of Temple Papers at Lambeth Palace Library (LPL) as well as numerous important documents and correspondence in other Lambeth collections. Moreover, there are relevant papers in Queen Mary Archives in Mile End, The Church of England Record Centre in Bermondsey, the Borthwick Institute in York and the World Council of Churches Archive in Geneva (see Bibliography for further details).
- 68.
Avis, Identity. p. 23.
- 69.
J.M. Turner, “William Temple,” in DEM, ed. N. Lossky, et al. (Geneva: WCC, 1991). p. 977.
- 70.
B.M.G. Reardon, Religious Thought in the Victorian Age: A Survey from Coleridge to Gore, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1995). p. 15.
- 71.
G.R. Balleine, A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England (London: Longmans, 1908). See also, T.M. Gouldstone, The Rise and Decline of Anglican Idealism in the Nineteenth Century (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). p. 11.
- 72.
For example, English Churchman 23 Mar 1903, p. 197, 22 Jun 1911, p. 400.
- 73.
J.S. Peart-Binns, Herbert Hensley Henson: A Biography (Cambridge: Lutterworth, 2013). p. 54.
- 74.
J. Wolffe, God and Greater Britain: Religion and National Life in Britain and Ireland, 1843–1945 (London: Routledge, 1994). pp. 23–25.
- 75.
A.P. Stanley, The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold: Late Head Master of Rugby School, and Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford, 10th ed., 2 vols., vol. I (London: John Murray, 1877). p. 293.
- 76.
Arnold to Empson, 11 Jun 1834, in ibid. p. 333.
- 77.
For example, W. Temple, Christian Unity and Church Reunion (London: SPCK, 1943). p. 6.
- 78.
T. Arnold, Principles of Church Reform: With an Introductory Essay by M.J. Jackson and J. Rogan (London: SPCK, 1963). pp. 109–134.
- 79.
J.C. Livingston, Religious Thought in the Victorian Age: Challenges and Reconceptions (London: T&T Clark, 2006). p. 14.
- 80.
S Zemka, “Spiritual Authority in the Life of Thomas Arnold,” Victorian Studies 38, no. 3 (1995). p. 432.
- 81.
Grimley, Citizenship. pp. 4, 20.
- 82.
For example, J. Marsden, “William Temple: Christianity and the Life of Fellowship,” Political Theology 8, no. 2 (2007). p. 215; A.S. McGrade, “Reason,” in The Study of Anglicanism, ed. S. Sykes and J. Booty (London: SPCK, 1988). p. 114.
- 83.
J.N. Morris, “A ‘fluffy-minded Prayer Book fundamentalist’? F.D. Maurice and the Anglican Liturgy,” in Continuity and Change in Christian Worship: Papers Read at the 1997 Summer Meeting and the 1998 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. R.N. Swanson (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999). p. 356.
- 84.
Maurice, Kingdom, II. p. 322.
- 85.
For example, W. Temple, “The Genius of the Church of England (1928),” in Religious Experience and Other Essays and Addresses, ed. A.E. Baker (London: James Clarke, 1958). p. 96; The Church Looks Forward (London: MacMillan, 1944). p. 26.
- 86.
Hylson-Smith, Churches. p. 28.
- 87.
Wolffe, God. p. 165.
- 88.
Gouldstone, Rise and Decline. p. 106.
- 89.
P.D.L. Avis, Anglicanism and the Christian Church: Theological Resources in Historical Perspective (London: T&T Clark, 2002). p. 302.
- 90.
Livingston, Religious Thought. p. 269.
- 91.
English Churchman 4 Jun 1908, p. 373.
- 92.
Kent, Temple. p. 62.
- 93.
O.J. Brose, Church and Parliament: The Reshaping of the Church of England, 1828–1860 (London: OUP, 1959). p. 14.
- 94.
E.K.H. Jordan, Free Church Unity: History of the Free Church Council Movement, 1896–1941 (London: Lutterworth, 1956). pp. 31–52.
- 95.
H.J.T. Johnson, Anglicanism in Transition (London: Longmans, 1938). p. 128.
- 96.
V.H.H. Green, Religion at Oxford and Cambridge (London: SCM, 1964). p. 297.
- 97.
M.J. Hofstetter, The Romantic Idea of a University: England and Germany, 1770–1850 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001). p. 3.
- 98.
P. Searby, A History of Cambridge University, Volume 3, 1750–1870 (Cambridge: CUP, 1997). p. 265.
- 99.
A.J. Engel, From Clergyman to Don: The Rise of the Academic Profession in Nineteenth-Century Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983). pp. 280–282.
- 100.
Gouldstone, Rise and Decline. p. xiii.
- 101.
J.C. Pollock, A Cambridge Movement (London: John Murray, 1953). pp. 48–53, R. Rouse, The World’s Student Christian Federation (London: SCM, 1948). pp. 53–64.
- 102.
Cited in W.R. Hogg, Ecumenical Foundations: A History of the International Missionary Council and Its Nineteenth-Century Background (Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002 (1952)). pp. 81–82.
- 103.
R.H. Preston, “William Temple: After Twenty-Five Years,” Church Quarterly 2, no. 2 (1969). p. 104; R. Rouse, “Voluntary Movements and the Changing Ecumenical Climate,” in A History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1517–1948, ed. R. Rouse and S.C. Neill (London: SPCK, 1954). p. 341.
- 104.
Cited in Hogg, Ecumenical Foundations. p. 115.
- 105.
For example, W. Temple, Repton School Sermons (London: Macmillan, 1913). pp. 67–68; W. Temple, Report on 1927 Faith and Order Conference, LPL, A.C. Headlam Papers, MS 2631 f. 192.
- 106.
K.S. Latourette, “Ecumenical Bearings of the Missionary Movement and the International Missionary Council,” in A History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1517–1948, ed. R. Rouse and S.C. Neill (London: SPCK, 1954). p. 355.
- 107.
B. Stanley, The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910 (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2009). p. 320.
- 108.
Cited in Hogg, Ecumenical Foundations. p. 9.
- 109.
Carter, “Ecumenical Movement.” p. 469.
- 110.
E. Stock, “Kikuyu,” Constructive Quarterly CV, no. Feb (1914). p. 170.
- 111.
Gore to Times, 29 Dec 1913, p. 3.
- 112.
For example, M.C. Bickersteth, Unity and Holiness: Sermons and Addresses on the Church, the Ministry and the Sacraments (London: Mowbray, 1914). pp. iii–iv.
- 113.
R.T. Davidson, Kikuyu (London: Macmillan, 1915).
- 114.
P.D.L. Avis, The Anglican Understanding of the Church: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK, 2013). p. 18.
- 115.
W.L. Sachs, The Transformation of Anglicanism: From State Church to Global Communion (Cambridge: CUP, 1993). p. 290.
- 116.
R.T. Davidson, The Six Lambeth Conferences, 1867–1920 (London: SPCK, 1929). p. 159.
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Loane, E. (2016). William Temple and Church Unity: Framing the Debate and Providing the Context. In: William Temple and Church Unity. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40376-2_1
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