Religious orders and communities of the Anglican Communion
| Abbreviation | SOSc |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1986[1] |
| Type | Anglican religious order |
Founder | Arthur Peacocke |
| Website | ordainedscientists |
The Society of Ordained Scientists (SOSc) is an international religious order of priest-scientists within the Anglican Communion.[2][3] The organisation was founded at the University of Oxford by biologist-theologian Arthur Peacocke following the establishment of several other similar societies in the 1970s,[4][5] in order to advance the field of religion and science.[6] Membership in the Society of Ordained Scientists is open at the invitation of the Warden to ordained ministers of any Christian denomination upholding belief in the Holy Trinity.[7] As a result, the ecumenical religious order includes individuals from the Anglican Church, Catholic Church, Methodist Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Reformed Church, and Lutheran Church, among other Christian denominations.[8]
Made a member of the Order of the British Empire by 1993 by Queen Elizabeth II, Arthur Peacocke served as Waden Emeritus of the Society of Ordained Scientists, an ecumenical religious order that he founded in 1985; Honorary Canon of Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford; an international lecturer and scholar.
So it was that in 1987 there was founded, initially within the Church of England, a new dispersed Order. The Society of Ordained Scientists (S.O.Sc.), is held together by a Rule of prayer and sacrament, to which we are committed through appropriate vows made at an annual Eucharist presided over in the first nine years by the then Archbishop of York, Dr. John Habgood, who was formerly a research physiologist.
As to specifically Christian theists, an example of continue presence would be the American Scientific Affiliation. It currently has about two thousand members, all of whom affirm the Apostles' Creed as part of joining the association, and most of whom hold Ph.D.s in the natural sciences. Their active journal is Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith. Across the Atlantic, the Society of Ordained Scientists and Christians in Science are similar affiliation in Great Britain.
By the early 1970s centers and societies for the study of science and religion were budding around the world. At Oxford University, biologist-theologian Arthur Peacocke organized the Society of Ordained Scientists and cultivated the Ian Ramsey Centre for research in this field.
Oxford scholar Arthur Peacocke is a biochemist as well as a theologian and heads a recently founded order for hybrids called the Society of Ordained Scientists.
He founded the Society of Ordained Scientists in 1986 to further advance the development of the field of science and religion.
The Society originated as a community of scientists within the ordained ministry (men and women) of the Anglican Communion. Membership is open, at the invitation of the Warden, to ordained members of this and any other church following a Trinitarian confession.
Tentative proposals emerged for the formation of a dispersed religious order, open to ordained ministers of the Church of England and to the other main Christian Churches who shared a common background and were prepared to commit themselves to certain Aims, a Rule and Constitution. Within four years, that is by the summer of 1990, the Society of Ordained Scientists had attracted 55 full members, including men and women: Methodists, United Reformed Church, Presbyterian as well as Anglicans; Scottish, Welsh, Canadian and American as well as English.
