Southcott on Parish Life

Southcott, E.W. “The Parish Comes Alive.”

London: A.R. Mowbray & Co. Limited, 1956.

Reviewed by Adrian Peetoom

Judging by the blank library card in the back of this book, and its old book smell, no current member of HTAC has ever opened it. Well, I highly recommend that some of us do. It was written by a Canadian-born British clergyman who, much earlier than many of his British peers, addresses the collapse of Anglican membership and Anglican consciousness after World War II. In this he anticipated by about three decades similar concerns being raised in Canada. 

I read this book not so much for particular liturgical and parish-organizations suggestions Southcott makes,  as his writing is set in British parish conditions. It’s his rationales that make this manageable book interesting, his discussions about the nature of church and parish life. In “Let the Liturgy be Splendid” he lays out the power of Eucharist, observing on p. 36 for instance, that “I believe that we are meant to be trained in the liturgy in order that we may take corporation action outside the communion service.”  Such an observation echoes what a friend of mine once observed, namely that we go to church so as to be fed for weekly journeys.

What sets Southcott apart from many of his peers is his insistence that each parish should develop a regular program of weekday communion in parish homes (parish meaning the geography within which a particular church operates). Recognizing that many people can’t come to church on Sunday, church should accommodate others with a liturgy in their own place, however sparse that liturgy may be. He sees how church has become a compartmentalized human activity, something for Sunday while during the rest of the week we think and act with categories not likely to be those of Scripture. Here is how he puts it on pp. 73-4:

                Where [Eucharist] celebrations take place – in the church or in the home – is largely irrelevant: it              is the community that celebrates them that is important. But to such an extent we have lost our          roots in the soil that the only way to recover the integral connection of the Eucharistic offering   with daily work ,may be to take the whole thing back into the midst of the sweat and muck it is meant to be offering and transforming.

It was an idea not without its critics, as some newspaper clippings testify.

He also advocates regular and frequent parish meetings that concentrate on the church’s teaching and training.

And here is how he sums up his concerns, citing a report. “The Church is a community with a common life whose source is God…They share it because they are made members in Baptism, and their membership means that they have one heart and soul. In the early church the evidence was marked and led to early demonstrations that they had all things in common.” (142) And on p. 143: “The Parish Communion and the parish meeting are means by which the Church might be helped to fulfill its mission of teaching people how to live and work together. “

This book may be a quick and simple read, but it has a profound message, also for us at HTAC.