URBAN PROBLEMS AND POLICY - AN ANGLICAN CASE-STUDY

This article examines the response of a state church, the Church of En gland, to contemporary urban problems-at the level of institutional ad aptation, its own theological critique and its identity-and the secula r consequences of this response. The Archbishop's Commission on Urban Priority Areas is an exemplary case. The article examines its origins and developments and finally its report Faith in the City and its secu lar and religious consequences. As a religious response to urban probl ems, the report was adversely received in the political field, though it become incorporated into public and secular discourse. The study re veals three forms of institutional self-legitimation: authenticity, co ntinuity and exclusivity, as well as an antithesis between two forms o f social ethics, the one modern and the other traditional. The author suggests that the close relationship between the church and the state does not necessarily deny a national church a prophetic role in contem porary urban society.