Editorial: the feminisation of the Church

A summer of ordinations left a question hanging. In several cathedrals the candidates for ordained ministry were mostly women, and among stipendiary candidates the imbalance was sometimes striking. The phrase on everyone's lips was the feminisation of the Church.

Numbers and appearances

The phrase covers more than attendance figures. It can describe a church whose worship, buildings and priorities have taken on a domestic character, and a culture in which some men no longer recognise themselves. Whether that is a problem, and for whom, is not obvious.

Masculinity in Christian history

It may be that the real anxiety is not about women at all, but about what it means to be a man. Christian history is full of attempts to define true masculinity, from the Roman world that executed a man by stripping him of control, to the coffee houses and drawing rooms of the eighteenth century, to the muscular Christianity of a later age.

Reading the present

If our own moment is another such debate, then the church needs to think about leadership, mission and the images of God it puts before people, rather than simply lamenting a shift it cannot name.

In this issue

The articles gathered here consider Christianity in the North East, the appeal of Celtic spirituality, the myths that have grown around it, and the evangelical heart of Thomas Cranmer.