Anglican Studies Seminar

Following our discussion of a provocative set of papers in Year 1 that focused on the historical legacies shaping Anglican ecclesiologies in various contexts and, in Year 2, a set that investigated their theological factors, we invite for Year 3 of this five-year initiative papers that surface missiological currents within Anglicanism, past and present, that contribute to the development of processes of Anglican identity formation and the ecclesiologies that arise alongside those identities. The complicated and fraught history of missionizing goes far beyond the typical account of how the non-European “peripheries” have been the recipient of colonializing mission work from the imperial “center” in England. This is only a part of a much larger story that extends through Anglican history to the present in a more complicated manner, one that finds, for example, various African churches with active, ongoing mission to churches in the industrialized world, which are perceived to have strayed from the truths that the earlier missionaries from those regions brought to them through the work of several Anglican missionary societies based in the United Kingdom, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This complex tangle of forces demands nuanced scholarly treatment with special attention paid to how it impacts Anglican self-understanding and practice in different ways throughout the Communion. Papers that emphasize de- and postcolonial dynamics at work in forming and maintaining “operative ecclesiologies,” particularly in understudied regions of the Communion, are especially welcome.

Please note that those whose proposals are accepted must commit to submitting their paper for pre-circulation by Monday, October 14, 2024. Seminar members and others wishing to attend will have access to these papers, which will be briefly summarized at the meeting but will not be presented by their authors. Instead, they will be discussed among the panelists, seminar members, and session attendees. Please note that, due to AAR/SBL policies pertaining to participation, those whose proposals are accepted must commit to attending the 2024 Annual Meeting in San Diego.