Abstract
This chapter explains that the Church is part of the Anglican Communion, a worldwide family of churches in more than 160 different countries. It maps the spread of crunch issues or ‘moral imperatives’ across the Communion, to establish which are singular to the Church. It notes, for example, that the ordination of women has been deeply divisive. The chapter examines the changes to the rules on divorce and family leading to a first wave of about 600 Anglicans officially leaving the Church of England in early 2011 in protest at the move towards the ordination of women as bishops.
It focuses also on the difficulties arising in relation to homosexuality. The Church has had a policy of allowing for the ordination of gay priests as long as they are celibate but the election of an openly gay bishop in America, prompted a national and international examination on the rights of homosexual clergy.
Alongside issues of homosexual clergy, the chapter considers the difficulties facing the wider Anglican Communion as they address the issue of whether to sanction same-sex blessings. These issues, and their potential to cause serious divisions within the Anglican Communion, are assessed.
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Notes
- 1.
It has been estimated that least 430 priests left the Church of England due to the ordination of women and the cost of compensation was £26 million (see, further, the Telegraph, 6th February 2004).
- 2.
See, further, at: http://www.whychurch.org.uk/shrinking_cofe.php.
- 3.
See, further, at: www.churchofengland.org.
- 4.
See, for example, the Holy Trinity, Brompton, Kensington and the broader impact of ‘the Alpha course’, at: www.htb.org.uk/alpha.
- 5.
The number of female clergy in the Church of England has passed 3,500 according to the latest figures released by the Church of England. Women accounted for 49 % or 245 of 2011s 504 ordinations.
- 6.
See, Issues in Human Sexuality, a Statement by the House of Bishops, Church House Publishing, December 1994.
- 7.
See, Lambeth Conference 1998, Resolution 1.10 Human Sexuality, at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/windsor2004/appendix/p3.6.cfm.
- 8.
R v. Dibdin [1910] P 57, CA (see, further, Chap. 3).
- 9.
See, for example, Humphreys, J. 2006. The civil partnership act 2004, same-sex marriage and the Church of England. Ecclesiastical Law Journal 8(38): 289 et seq.
- 10.
Ibid. Note that the effect of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 together with the Gender Recognition Act 2004 is to require a married couple wishing to maintain their relationship after one of the couple undergoes gender reassignment to have their marriage annulled or dissolved and enter a civil partnership. Similarly, civil partners wishing to maintain their relationship after one party undergoes gender reassignment will have to dissolve their partnership and enter into a marriage.
- 11.
Indeed, Issues in Human Sexuality 1991, provides that the Church must not reject lay people who sincerely believe that ‘living in a loving and faithful homophile partnership, where mutual self-giving includes the physical expression of their attachment’ (para 5.6).
- 12.
See, Eames, R. 2004. Archbishop of Armagh, Lambeth Commission on Communion. The Windsor Report 2004. London: The Anglican Communion Office, at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/windsor2004/appendix/p3.6.cfm.
- 13.
In 2002, the Anglican Church of Canada, the diocese of New Westminster, had voted to allow the blessing of same-sex unions by those parishes choosing to do so.
- 14.
See, the House of Bishops’ Pastoral Statement on civil partnerships (25 July 2005), para 17, at: www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2005/07/pr5605.aspx.
- 15.
See, further, at: http://www.ordinariate.org.uk.
- 16.
See, further, Church of England, Resourcing Christian Community Action, at: http://how2help.churchofengland.org/home.
- 17.
- 18.
See, further, at: http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1418393/the%20church%20school%20of%20the%20future%20review%20-%20march%202012[1].pdf.
- 19.
Three-quarters of its schools are judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted (the government regulatory body for education) as opposed to 57 % of all State schools.
- 20.
See, Secretary for the Communities and Local Government Department, in response to a question in the House of Commons following the introduction of the government White Paper Communities in control: real people, real power, when he explained: “I am concerned to ensure that if faith groups become involved, they do so on a proper footing – not by evangelising or proselytising, but by providing services in a non-discriminatory way to the whole community” (July 2008). Also, note, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, Advisory Council, ‘Toledo Guiding Principles on Teaching about Religion and Beliefs in Public Schools’, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Warsaw, 2007.
- 21.
See, further, British Humanist Association, at: http://humanism.org.uk/2013/02/04/concerns-over-new-archbishops-desire-for-church-role-in-welfare-services/.
- 22.
Andrew Copson, the chief executive of the British Humanist Association, commented: “80 % of Britons are not members of the Archbishop’s church and research shows that even those who consider themselves Christian do not wish a role for the Church in areas of public policy and service delivery. Transferring previously secular public services to the Church of England and other religious bodies, which have an agenda to convert people and the legal powers to discriminate in employment and service delivery, is sectarian and short-sighted”.
- 23.
Note that the Church of Ireland and the Church in Wales separated from the Church of England in 1869 and 1920 respectively and are autonomous churches in the Anglican Communion.
- 24.
See, further, Anglican Communion website at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/tour/index.cfm.
- 25.
See, The Lambeth Commission on Communion. 2004. The Windsor Report 2004. London: The Anglican Communion Office, at para 157.
- 26.
Hailsham, L.D. 1975. Halsbury’s laws of England, vol. 14, 4th ed, 313. London: Butterworths.
- 27.
See, Tong, R. 2012. Judicial intervention in the affairs of unincorporated religious associations in New South Wales. Unpublished thesis submitted for degree of Doctor of Juridical Science, Faculty of Law, QUT, Brisbane. The author acknowledges with thanks the historical outline material drawn from this thesis.
- 28.
The Anglican Communion can trace much of its growth to the older mission organisations of the Church of England such as the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (founded 1698), the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign (founded 1701) and the Church Missionary Society (founded 1799).
- 29.
See, Episcopal Ministry: The Report of the Archbishops’ Group on the Episcopate, 1990, Church House Publishing, 1990, at p. 123. Followed by the creation of the Church of England in Canada in those North American colonies that remained under British control.
- 30.
The Consecration of Bishops Abroad Act 1786 allowed bishops to be consecrated for an American church, without the necessity for any allegiance to the British Crown.
- 31.
See, Todd, A. 1880. Parliamentary government in the British colonies, 415. London: Longmans & Co.
- 32.
(1867) LR 1 Sc & Div 568.
- 33.
25 Grant Ch. Cas. 199.
- 34.
See, Lambeth Commission on Communion. 2004. The Windsor Report 2004. London: The Anglican Communion Office, at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/windsor2004/appendix/p3.6.cfm.
- 35.
Three-quarters of its schools are judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted (the government regulatory body for education) as opposed to 57 % of all State schools.
- 36.
See, further, at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/acc/about.cfm.
- 37.
See, further, at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/acc/scac/.
- 38.
See, further, at: www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/.
- 39.
See, The Windsor Report, op cit, Appendix One, at para.5.
- 40.
In the 1970s, the Continuing Anglican Movement was established outside the Communion, in repudiation of concessions to change and to represent the more traditional aspects of Anglicanism.
- 41.
See, Eames, R. 2004. Archbishop of Armagh, Lambeth Commission on Communion. The Windsor Report 2004. London: The Anglican Communion Office, at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/windsor2004/appendix/p3.6.cfm.
- 42.
See, further, at: http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2005/07/pr5605.aspx.
- 43.
Church of England News, ‘House of Bishops issues pastoral statement on Civil Partnerships’, 25 July 2005.
- 44.
For example, both the Church of Ireland and the Scottish Episcopal Church have permitted the ordination of women as bishops since 1990 and 2003 respectively, but as yet none have been ordained.
- 45.
See, Pannenberg, W. Should we support gay marriage? No. Good News Magazine, at: http://holytrinitynewrochelle.org/yourti92881.html.
- 46.
[2003] O.J. No. 2268, at para.108. Note, however, the 2012 court ruling that non-Canadian same sex couples cannot marry in Canada unless such a marriage would be lawful in their jurisdiction of origin. This would invalidate approx one-third of the 15,000 non-Canadian same sex couples who have married in Canada since the introduction of the Civil Marriage Act. The case has since been remanded to the Ontario Superior Court.
- 47.
In March 2013, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 63 % of Americans supported gay marriage or civil unions. See, further, at: http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2013/03_-_March/Analysis__Silent_or_supportive,_conservatives_give_gay_marriage_momentum/.
- 48.
See, Eames, R. 2004. Archbishop of Armagh, chair of the Lambeth Commission on Communion. The Windsor Report 2004. London: The Anglican Communion Office, at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/windsor2004/appendix/p3.6.cfm.
- 49.
[1997] 14 FRNZ 430 at pp. 575–6 (admittedly obiter).
- 50.
Ibid, at para 118.
- 51.
Ibid, at para 119.
- 52.
See, further, at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/commission/covenant/consultation/index.cfm.
- 53.
See, full text, at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/commission/covenant/final/text.cfm/.
- 54.
See, further, at: http://noanglicancovenant.org/resources.html#120720aac.
- 55.
It is not without irony to note that this is the same Episcopal Church that was the first branch of the Anglican Communion to declare its independence from the Church of England, in 1789.
- 56.
The resulting litigation regarding property ownership can cause great difficulties. Not that this is unusual in the Church’s history which has seem many schisms followed by bitter court disputes over Church property. Lord Eldon is reputed to have identified this as one of the most difficult issues that faced him during his term in office as Lord Chancellor: see, Foley v. Wontner (1820) 2 Jac & W 245, 37 ER 621.
- 57.
These challenges are not, of course, confined to Anglicanism.
- 58.
The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) was an initiative led by several Global South Primates that ratified the ‘Jerusalem Declaration’ outlining principals of orthodox Anglicanism and also called for a Primatial Council to be formed of those Primates that agreed with the Jerusalem Declaration. The document also called for a new province in North America to be formed from the Common Cause Partnership.
- 59.
See, further, at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/commission/covenant/final/text.cfm/.
- 60.
Doe, N. 2008. An Anglican Covenant: Theological and legal considerations for a global debate. Norwich: Canterbury Press, hopes the Covenant will help tidy up Canon Law.
- 61.
See, Fulcrum, ‘Churchgoer’s Guide to the Anglican Communion Covenant’, at: http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=681.
- 62.
At the same time, the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church voted similarly, followed in July by the Anglican Church in New Zealand and Polynesia.
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O’Halloran, K. (2014). Anglicanism at Home and Abroad. In: The Church of England - Charity Law and Human Rights. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04319-7_5
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