Events at the Abbey

27th Eric Symes Abbott memorial lecture: Mis-establishment

10 May 2012 at 6:15 pm

Mis-establishment
Locating, and Re-locating, the Church of England

The well-rehearsed arguments about the establishment of the Church of England require revisiting at a time when the nature of sovereignty and location of power have substantially shifted. Unless the issues arising from those shifts are examined the established church may find itself, while imagining it occupies a place close to the levers of power, is actually remote from them, while at the same time alienated from those who lack power. This lecture discussed these issues, taking seriously, as key examples, the remoteness of the Church of England from places of financial power and the growing numbers who as migrants lack any part in the institutions of democratic authority.

Speaker:
The Right Reverend Dr Peter Selby
President of the National Council for Independent Monitoring Boards, Visiting Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College, London; formerly Bishop of Worcester and Bishop to HM Prisons