"Britain's first orker-priests ... were theologically well-educated and conventionally-trained clergy 'priests turned workers' who had resolved as a priestly vocation to live alongside their fellow men and women in manual labour."[Quote: pp 2-3]
"In France the worker-priest community ... was a deliberate venture into another territory the working world offering a radical and demonstrable alternative to clericalism and parochialism" [Quote: pp 3-4]
Mantle writes constantly against a background of the English class system. Quotes (p 82 Ted Wickham's book Church and People in an Industrial City (1957) and Wickham's proposition that"The Church [of England] had never lost the working class -- it never had them."
He also sees a coflict of interest between the parochial (territorial) system and the worker-priests. He quotes J.W.C.Wand: 'What the Church of England Stands For' (1951):"One part of that universal Church is the Church of England which is the divinely authorised organisation of Christ in this land. Inasmuch as the country is divided into different areas in each of which an official representative of the church is placed it should never be necessary for any enquirer to feel himself far from the guidance he needs." [Quote Mowbray p29f]
Concerning Southwark Ordination Course and virtually all English part-time courses:"none of these ministries came as a relief column to the worker-priests ... despite the initial hopes thatthey would train some worker-priests they ended up preparing men (and later women) who would either opt for traditional stipendiary ministry or remain firmly in middle-class jobs and professions." [Quote p 5]
A check of the 55 ordinands graduating from SOC 52 of them worked in education (16) banking/finance/insurance/legal (8) medicine (5) administration/management (8) public sevice (8) and other professions (7). Only three were workers in the classic sense.An appendix (Appx 7 pp294ff) contains a questionnaire for a survey of worker priests.
Review for Ministers-at-Work by Keith Holt January 2001
This is the story of the courageous few who chose to become “worker-priests”, as defined by the author, usually following the way of “presence”, after the French model. It is an excellent historical account, but there is much more to it than that. The chosen focus could suggest that Mantle has doubts about the arrival of non-stipendiary ordained ministry, but that tension is part of the account of the continued struggle for a radical ministry, the main theme of the book.
The 284 pages deal with the context and focus for radical ministry in industry, the origins and collisions of the first worker-priests, the evolution of an organisation, and the relationship between worker-priests and non-stipendiary clergy. They include also: a useful index, extensive notes to pages, and valuable appendices. Appendix 3 (1959) should in particular resonate for CHRISM folk with its emphasis on incarnation.
The second chapter provides a tour de force of developments in both France and Britain. There are several pages on the Sheffield Industrial Mission, and something on the theology which underpinned it. To highlight one point (p.94): “John Robinson and Ted Wickham, both as early as 1957, had talked about the Kingdom standing in question, even judgement, over the institutional church.” Chapter three is a fascinating account of the experience, and difficulties, faced by those who chose to become worker-priests, while chapter four has a section on the part played by one of the speakers at the 2000 CHRISM Conference, Tony Williamson.
For those who trained on the Southwark Ordination Course, chapter five offers a tactful yet revealing account of the tension between that Course and the worker-priests during the 1970s. There are other gems, such as the reference to the unpublished Anglican report on MSE (what was that about a Freedom of Information Act?). We also learn of the MSE Conference of 1968, inspired by the William Temple College, well before the first National Conference of Ministers at Work, at Nottingham, in 1984.
Mantle certainly covers the ground he outlines in the Introduction, but what conclusion does he reach? As the Archbishop’s Advisor for Bishop’s Ministry the message could have an unusually influential audience. In fact, one of the most simple, but powerful, points is made in the Preface (p.xxi): “I also knew, in a funny sort of way, that the story of Jesus Christ somehow lived on – and lives on still, often unknown – in the humanity of ordinary men and women, employed and unemployed …”. Pointedly, the Introduction ends with significant words, referring to the Faith in the City report of 1985: “The story of Britain’s worker priests and their families and supporters – which began in the 1940s – has been one of the judgements on and challenges to such ubiquitous institutional rhetoric”. The hope expressed early (p.52) “… that there would emerge, as in France, a quite different view that would utterly shatter the received notion that the territorial parish was the only base for ministry and mission” is recognised as unfulfilled.
The epilogue contains personal reflections, but also challenges the ecclesiology of the church view of God. Rather, says Mantle, “in mission and in Christ he goes ahead of us into Galilee ….. The fundamental questions are about the future of Christian faith in Britain and in Europe”. Mantle seems close to the stream of recent theological thinking that sees ‘salvation’ through the whole of life, not just the church. For CHRISM readers, and for all prophets, there is ample recognition that the road to radical ministry is hard.
This truthful and realistic book offers a challenge to the church and to those who try to follow in the steps of the worker-priests. I recommend it to you with great confidence.