Monday, January 24, 2011

Harvest of Grace

Just out in the last week is Harvest of Grace a book of articles, essays, and reflections, united in engagement with the history of the Diocese of Nelson, which celebrated its 150 years of existence in 2008-2009. Anglican Taonga/Nelson Mail reports on its publication here. An advertisement with contents of the book and order form is here. Finally, thanks to modern Googlian technology, you can read excerpts of the book here. Yours truly contributed an essay on 'The Evangelical Character of the Diocese of Nelson.'

It is interesting to ask the question, 'How many dioceses in the Western Anglican world are commonly, frequently described as 'evangelical'?

My answer is 'not many.' There are a few in Australia (most notably, Sydney), perhaps one or two in Ireland. Anywhere else? Without getting into debate over the definition of which dioceses remain Anglican dioceses etc in North America, my understanding of a number of conservative dioceses within TEC is that they would be described as 'anglo-catholic' rather than 'evangelical' if such descriptors were used.

4 comments:

Andrew Reid said...

In Australia, the clearly evangelical ones apart from Sydney are Armidale and North-West Australia (the biggest single-country diocese in the world, I think). Tasmania has an evangelical bishop (my former priest!) but I'm not close enough to know if you could describe the whole diocese as evangelical.

Andrew Reid said...

Great to see an article from Tony Andrews on the link with the Diocese of Egypt and North Africa. We're enjoying the ministry of a couple of Kiwis in the diocese at the moment, but always room for more! We also enjoyed the ministry of Mike and Ann Potter from NZ at the diocese guest house until Mike's awful car accident. I think they were from Auckland rather than Nelson?

Kurt said...

Hey, Peter, can you post your full article; Google cuts it up!

Kurt Hill
Brooklyn, NY

Peter Carrell said...

Hi Andrew and Kurt,

Andrew: thanks for info re evangelical dioceses; and, yes, the Potters are not from Nelson.

Kurt: It might not be in the best interests of sales of the book if I start publishing chapters via the internet (or even just one chapter). I would be glad to send you personally an e-copy of my final draft of the chapter concerned if you contacted via email at my work. Google 'Theology House Christchurch' and the home page will show you our administrator's email address; substitute 'director' for 'admin' and you will have my address. (Plea for patience: am about to engage in a several day course with me having limited access to email, so may be a day or three before I get the chapter to you).