Of all Michael Ramsey's many books, "The Christian Priest Today" is perhaps the best loved and most enduring. The main part of the volume is composed of charges to ordination candidates, with an emphasis on the intellectual and devotional life of the minister in an increasingly self-sufficient world. Later chapters reflect on the ministry of the laity, the theology of priesthood and the roles of bishop and presbyter in the context of the practical meaning of divine vocation.
Foreword by John Pritchard, Bishop of
Oxford vii
1 Introduction 1
2 Why the Priests? 5
3 Man of Prayer 12
4 Preaching God Today 19
5 Preaching Jesus Today 27
6 The Priest and Politics 34
7 The Priest as Absolver 43
8 Christ's Doctrine and Discipline 54
9 The Ordination Gospel 61
10 St Peter's Charge 68
11 Divine Humility 76
12 Fret Not Thyself Because of the Ungodly 82
13 Sorrow and Joy 88
14 The Bishop 94
15 The God Who Calls 100
16 Priesthood: Jesus and the People of
God 106
Michael Ramsey was the one hundredth Archbishop of Canterbury, and held office from 1961 to 1974. He died in 1988.
Michael Ramsay's profound simplicity leaps off the page . . . The Christian Priest Today can be read with great and lasting benefit by anyone interested in this strange and magnificent vocation. -- John Pritchard, author of The Life and Work of a Priest [Michael Ramsay] was a man of his age; but it is astonishing how fresh and vigorous his writing remains. * Anglican Theological Review *