Overview

Questioning Authority analyzes current conflicts concerning authority in the Anglican church and offers a new framework for addressing them. It argues that authority in the church is fundamentally relational rather than juridical. All members of the church have authority to engage in discerning the church’s identity, direction, and mission. Most of this authority is exercised in personal interactions and group practices of consultation and direction. Formal authority in the church confers power so responsibilities can be fulfilled. Church relations always include conflict, which may be creative and helpful rather than divisive. Conflict arises because persons and groups follow Christ in ways related to their own cultural context while also being in communion with others. Communion in the church requires embracing diversity, recognizing and respecting others’ perspectives, and working together to discover and create common ground. Today’s church needs more participatory forms of governance and decision-making that are conciliar and synodal.

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9781433132162

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This important book on authority fulfills two major tasks brilliantly: first, the author clarifies the splendid complexity of the institutional forms of the worldwide Anglican communion. Second, the author develops an original and persuasive theological analysis of authority as relation explicitly in church, but also implicitly in state, university, business and family. A major work on an issue that affects us all-the true nature of authority. David Tracy, Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Catholic Studies and Professor of Theology and the Philosophy of Religions, the University of Chicago Ellen K. Wondra has done us an enormous service by taking on the vexing issue of Authority in the Anglican Communion. The theology, history, and contemporary story of Anglicanism's love-hate relationship with authority are carefully woven together in this substantial volume. Dr. Wondra argues for an understanding of authority which is relational and dispersed rather than juridical and focused. In such a system communion is experienced in diversity not in spite of it. This is a catholicity ordered in a `conciliar economy' in which authority enhances communion while involving the whole body of the church in taking responsibility for its mission. Rt. Rev. C. Christopher Epting, Presiding Bishop's Deputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations (Ret.) In this wide-ranging work, Ellen K. Wondra doesn't so much question authority as reclaim what true authority consists of in the Anglican tradition. Authority derives its power to initiate and confirm action from the common life of individuals bound together by history, obligation, affection and shared hope. Hence, authority is essentially relational. Wondra demonstrates how this moral philosophical claim is reflected in the ancient ecclesial principle of conciliarity: bishops, personally embodying the unity of the church, only exercise leadership in concert with the people of God as a whole. Its Anglican focus notwithstanding, this study is deeply ecumenical, particularly in its steady insistence that when disagreement and difference coexist in community, there true authority is to be found, however messy and fluid it may be. Rt. Rev. Thomas E. Breidenthal, IX Bishop of Southern Ohio

In this wide-ranging work, Ellen K. Wondra doesn't so much question authority as reclaim what true authority consists of in the Anglican tradition. Authority derives its power to initiate and confirm action from the common life of individuals bound together by history, obligation, affection and shared hope. Hence, authority is essentially relational. Wondra demonstrates how this moral philosophical claim is reflected in the ancient ecclesial principle of conciliarity: bishops, personally embodying the unity of the church, and so only exercising leadership in concert with the people of God as a whole. Its Anglican focus notwithstanding, this study is deeply ecumenical, particularly in its steady insistence that when disagreement and difference coexist in community, there true authority is to be found, however messy and fluid it may be. (The Rt. Rev. Thomas E. Breidenthal, IX Bishop of Southern Ohio) Ellen Wondra has done us an enormous service by taking on the vexing issue of Authority in the Anglican Communion. The theology, history, and contemporary story of Anglicanism's love-hate relationship with authority are carefully woven together in this substantial volume. Dr. Wondra argues for an understanding of authority which is relational and dispersed rather than juridical and focused. In such a system communion is experienced in diversity not in spite of it. This is a catholicity ordered in a conciliar economy in which authority enhances communion while involving the whole body of the church in taking responsibility for its mission. (The Rt. Rev. C. Christopher Epting, Presiding Bishop's Deputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations (Ret.)) This important book on authority fulfills two major tasks brilliantly: first, the author clarifies the splendid complexity of the institutional forms of the worldwide Anglican communion. Second, the author develops an original and persuasive theological analysis of authority as relation explicitly in church, but also implicitly in state, university, business and family. A major work on an issue that affects us all-the true nature of authority. (David Tracy, Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Catholic Studies and Professor of Theology and the Philosophy of Religions, University of Chicago)

In this wide-ranging work, Ellen K. Wondra doesn't so much question authority as reclaim what true authority consists of in the Anglican tradition. Authority derives its power to initiate and confirm action from the common life of individuals bound together by history, obligation, affection and shared hope. Hence, authority is essentially relational. Wondra demonstrates how this moral philosophical claim is reflected in the ancient ecclesial principle of conciliarity: bishops, personally embodying the unity of the church, only exercise leadership in concert with the people of God as a whole. Its Anglican focus notwithstanding, this study is deeply ecumenical, particularly in its steady insistence that when disagreement and difference coexist in community, there true authority is to be found, however messy and fluid it may be. Rt. Rev. Thomas E. Breidenthal, IX Bishop of Southern Ohio Ellen K. Wondra has done us an enormous service by taking on the vexing issue of Authority in the Anglican Communion. The theology, history, and contemporary story of Anglicanism's love-hate relationship with authority are carefully woven together in this substantial volume. Dr. Wondra argues for an understanding of authority which is relational and dispersed rather than juridical and focused. In such a system communion is experienced in diversity not in spite of it. This is a catholicity ordered in a 'conciliar economy' in which authority enhances communion while involving the whole body of the church in taking responsibility for its mission. Rt. Rev. C. Christopher Epting, Presiding Bishop's Deputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations (Ret.) This important book on authority fulfills two major tasks brilliantly: first, the author clarifies the splendid complexity of the institutional forms of the worldwide Anglican communion. Second, the author develops an original and persuasive theological analysis of authority as relation explicitly in church, but also implicitly in state, university, business and family. A major work on an issue that affects us all-the true nature of authority. David Tracy, Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Catholic Studies and Professor of Theology and the Philosophy of Religions, the University of Chicago

Author Information

Ellen K. Wondra, an Episcopal priest, is a member of the World Council of Churches’ Commission on Faith and Order and Research Professor Emerita in Theology and Ethics at the Bexley-Seabury Seminary Federation in Chicago, Illinois. She is Editor Emerita of the Anglican Theological Review.

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