Elders in Every City: The Origin and Role of the Ordained Ministry

In retirement, Beckwith published one of his most important and enduring books - Elders in Every City: The Origin and Role of the Ordained Ministry (2003) - dedicated to J. I. Packer, his 'mentor and friend'. This slim and highly accessible study, based on a series of addresses to the clergy of Blackburn diocese, shows how the ministry of presbyters and bishops evolved in the early church with roots in the teaching office of elders in the Jewish synagogue. In a letter of appreciation, Packer wrote from Regent College, Vancouver: 'From every standpoint it's a little gem: heartiest congratulations!' In his introduction to the volume, Beckwith exclaims: 'if the writer seems to be devoted to the Book of Common Prayer and its Ordinal, to the Thirty-Nine Articles and the writings of Cranmer and Hooker, that is because he is. He sees them as the finest expressions of Anglicanism - of historic Christianity as reformed by the word of God.' This brief mission statement encapsulated his priorities for the theological renewal of Anglicanism in the twenty-first century.