Unifying the Ministry: The History of an Idea
Church union schemes have for some years past tended to hinge upon a special service of ‘commissioning’ by which the ministries of various existing denominations should be unified. This pattern of unification, commonly associated with North India, has been attacked on the grounds that it gives ‘an i...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1967
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| In: |
Scottish journal of theology
Year: 1967, Volume: 20, Issue: 1, Pages: 50-56 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Church union schemes have for some years past tended to hinge upon a special service of ‘commissioning’ by which the ministries of various existing denominations should be unified. This pattern of unification, commonly associated with North India, has been attacked on the grounds that it gives ‘an impression of evasion and dishonesty’.1 It is held by many that it encourages some to believe that the commissioning is an ordination, and others to believe that it is not. And while this may be true of some present-day advocates of such schemes, it is not true of their origin. There was a quite clear theological interpretation to services for ‘unifying the ministry’, though in the opinion of this writer a false one. As we shall see, it was held that in a divided church there was no longer one ministry, but a number of parallel ministries, all defective until such time as they should be added together. It is the purpose of this survey to record the rise and fall of that idea amongst Anglicans, who have been particularly prone to it, over the past fifty years. |
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| ISSN: | 1475-3065 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Scottish journal of theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0036930600023413 |