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Vitality & Concern. A new generation of questioning clergy is now trying to build on this residual national memory. The church may have only 3,000,000 attentive faithful, but, as one observer points out, "they are active in church because they want to be." Many of these laymen want a more decisive role in the government of the church, and take a keen interest in stewardship; private donations to the church have risen 50% in the past decade. Seminary enrollment is currently running ahead of clerical retirements and deaths, and many Anglicans believe that the caliber of new priests is higher too. In part this may be due to the incentive provided by the church commissioners, who through shrewd investments in the stock market* have since 1948 doubled the amount of income available for ministerial salaries, which in some cases have risen from $1,400 to $2,800 yearly.
In parish after parish across England, many of these young clergymen are experimenting liturgically with "kitchen Communions" in homes and midmorning family Communions on Sunday followed by parish breakfasts. "I could take you to 30 parishes in this diocese," says one Birmingham priest, "where church is a going concern and people are aware that something is going on."
The search for meaningful forms of worship has gone in company with a search for meaningful faith. A current debate among Anglicans concerns the merits of the radical interpretations of Christian doctrine proposed by theologians known as "the Cambridge group" —principally Alec Vidler, Harry Williams and Hugh Montefiore. One of England's bestsellers of the year (280,000 copies) is Bishop John Robinson's Honest to God, which attacks the "religiousness" of Christianity and rejects the idea of God as a transcendent Being somewhere "out there" in space. Rectors who promise a sermon on Honest to God can be almost certain that they will have a standing-room-only congregation. "I've been a priest for over 50 years," says Dr. J.W.C. Wand, former Bishop of London, "and never has it been easier to talk theology from the pulpit."
Around the World. Ramsey is not concerned only with the sickness within the Church of England. He heads some scattered missionary outposts overseas, and as chief primate of the communion, keeps close watch on the pulse of all its daughter provinces. Much of the liaison between Canterbury and other churches is handled by the Rt. Rev. Stephen Bayne, 55, executive officer of the Anglican Communion. A former bishop of Olympia, Wash., Bayne travels more than 150,000 miles a year coordinating everything from missionary work to seminary needs for the churches, says, "There isn't a church that doesn't have a nickel's worth of me." Both Bayne and Ramsey agree that the communion at large seems in good health. Some specifics: