Church and Social Order

      What is the Anglican view of when and how the Church should interfere in the social order? This is a classic excerpt by William Temple, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1942-44: "If we belong to the Church...we are obligated to ask concerning every field of human activity what is the purpose of God for it. The method of the Church's impact upon society at large should be twofold. The Church must announce Christian principles and point out where the existing social order at any time is in conflict with them. It must then pass on to Christian citizens, acting in their civic capacity, the task of reshaping the existing order in closer conformity to the principles. ... [For example] the Church may tell the politician what ends the social order should promote; but it must leave to the politician the devising of the precise means to those ends... It can all be summed up in a phrase: the aim of a Christian social order is the fullest possible development of individual personality in the widest and deepest fellowship. ...the first necessity for progress is more and better Christians taking full responsibility as citizens for the political, social and economic system under which they and their fellows live."

[excerpted in the quarterly newsletter Millennium3 created by some Episcopal bishops (Spring/Summer 1998]