Doctors of Divinity
SIR,—Janus's long and admirable fight against bogus degrees has ma your columns the inevitable forum for any discussion of acade distinctions. I trust, therefore, it will not be out of place to call yo attention to a little matter of degree-giving which may, in the lo run, have serious consequences. I refer to' the " Lambeth D.D."- honour which was once sparingly distributed and was intended indeed, it was kept) for such clergymen as the late Russell Wakefield Birmingham, who went into the Church from the Foreign Office a therefore had no university degree. At the moment there are o twenty-five "Lambeth D.D.s "; the awarding of them is not, I think, a longer published; and most, if not all, are given to Bishops who colt quite well, if they want doctorates, earn them in the usual way fr their own universities. In 1947, for example (which forms a use index for a growing practice), of the two Archbishops and forty-o diocesan Bishops of England, only six obtained their D.D.s in t ordinary way. Fifteen had D.D.s either " hon." or lure dig. or " decree " or " by diploma "; fourteen had " Lambeth D.D.s," and eig had no doctorates.
What in practice this means is that only six out of thirty-five bisho with the title (and robes) of " Doctor " had in fact done any scholas work beyond the ordinary B.A. degree. There is no reason, of cou why .they should have done, for the essential thing about a Bish is that he should be a father-in-God, not an academic professor; but the lay mind the plethora of doctorates and the serried ranks of scarlt suggest a theological scholarship which is in fact totally lacking. Worse, in the days ahead, the Church of England has to face certai vital theological discussions, and it. is essential that the laity shoal' realise—what the clergy know only too well—that the episcopate as'. body is quite incapable of. dealing with them. As a first step remedying the abuse, would it be possible for strong lay and acaderni representation to be made for the ending of the traffic in the " Lambeti D.D." (for it is only a matter of payment) or at least the confining of to the cases for which it was intended ?—I am, &c., 193 Sussex Gardens, W.2. HUGH Ross WILLIAMSON.
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