Re Bognor Regis Town Cemetery

Twelve months have now passed since the publication of the Report of the Archbishops’ Commission on Christian Doctrine. The varied comments with which it has been received, both within the Church of England and outside it, have revealed much divergence of opinion as to the significance of its content and in consequence as to its value as an indication of the direction in which the Church of England is moving. Among Catholics, the tendency has been to judge it in the light of its obvious divergences from Catholic standards, particularly in regard to its apparent surrender, as necessary dogmas, of the doctrines of the Virgin Birth and the bodily Resurrection of our Lord, and to write it down as proof positive of the final victory of modernism over orthodoxy in the Church of England. The Memorandum, published this month with the authority of the Council of the Church Union, is an illuminating commentary both upon the Report itself and also upon many of the judgements which have been made upon it. Indeed, it would not be untrue to say that for the outsider a real understanding of the Report is very difficult without its help. A judgement which assesses the Report merely in the light of its divergences from Catholic standards is shown to be superficial; a fruitful judgement must penetrate to the root of the problem and undertake two closely connected tasks The Report must be seen in its setting as the product of the Church of England as it is to-day, and the Church of England as it is to-day must be understood in relation to its past history if an estimate is to be made of the direction whither in the future it may move. The first of these tasks is admirably performed by the Memorandum; to the second, we shall return later.

Although the Church of England was formally re-established by the Act of Uniformity (1662), the narrow terms of the religious ‘settlement’ dismayed many and prompted a very significant schism in English Protestantism. The Revolution of 1688/9 prompted a further parting of the ways, with many refusing to recognize William and Mary as sovereigns and thus becoming ‘non-jurors’. Nevertheless, if the later Stuart Church was often buffeted by external threats, and locked in internecine polemical warfare, it was also boosted by phases of renewal that found expression in both physical fabric and devotional activity. In this chapter two approaches to the later Stuart Church are adopted in successive sections: a descriptive account of events and issues, and a definitional analysis of what, ultimately, ‘the Church of England’—its character and compass—meant in this period.

From 2020 in England, civil marriage and civil partnership are legal for all couples. The Church of England is protected in civil law from change to its traditional theology of marriage between one man and one woman, so that only mixed-sex couples may marry in Church of England churches. A service is permitted for mixed-sex couples after a civil marriage, but no services are provided for same-sex couples or after civil partnerships. In this paper, qualitative research with practising members of the Church of England interrogates a widening gap in pastoral practice, between participants’ desire to welcome couples seeking a service with blessing and the lack of provision of liturgies by the Church. Interpretation of participants’ narratives of their own marriage or civil partnership as embodying mutuality and fidelity lead to consideration of liturgies of blessing for two people from the premodern era. I propose that contemporary marriage and civil partnership may be interpreted as unions of Christian harmony and peace which can be celebrated with blessing in church. I interpret emerging theologies of marriage and vowed friendship (expressed in civil partnership) within the Church of England as renewing the Church’s traditional three benefits of marriage: mutuality, fidelity, and choices for parenting and nurture, in ‘pro/creative’ relationships.

Many writers have argued that the Church of England, in common with other Christian denomination, is undergoing a profound crisis of identity. One crucial aspect of this is the clergy's rapid abandonment of the traditional services of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in favour of the radically different, modern language services of the Alternative Service Book, published in 1980. Liturgical change on this scale is said to be both cause and effect of a gradual transformation of the Church of England into a sect. In this article, evidence from a survey of the parochial clergy of one English diocese is presented, showing that the great majority of respondents approve of the Alternative Service Book and use it frequently for the conduct of worship. However, then outlook on the role of the Church of England in national life does not display any of the essential characteristics of sectarianism, the fact that the Church of England is the established Church is an important obstacle to sectarian tendencies, and the argument that the Church is being transformed into a sect is not warranted.

Church reports, Faith in the City (1985), Seeds of Hope (1991), Staying in the City (1995), and The Passing Winter (1996) are examined and assessed as being not so much about challenging racism as about exoneration for senior office holders who abdicate any individual responsibility. It is argued that the term ‘institutionalized racism’ is used by those who embrace a self-conscious Englishness to avoid the very issues upon which such a concept should be constructed. Fullblown racism involves structures and institutions with real power to discriminate in jobs, housing, policing, educational provision and includes the treatment of Black people in the Church of England. It is argued that Church of England reports associate race-related issues with urban deprivation and this reinforces the cycle of Black exclusion. However, academic credibility is maintained in this article by allowing Faith in the City, Seeds of Hope and Staying in the City to speak for themselves before conclusions are drawn, thus focusing upon both the positive and negative aspects of these reports. In conclusion the article find grounds for criticism and serious comment, but also finds the germ of a way forward, taking into account the implications of African Diasporan identity. The article looks forward to discovering how a new understanding of English ethnicity can revolutionize the Church of England into a biblical, prophetic and inclusive community. If salvation is valid at the personal and at the institutional level, then the Church of England has nothing to fear from discovering its identity afresh.

Women's ordination raised issues of conscience across church traditions. The Church of England's statutory legal framework prevented these issues being confined to the Church; they were also played out in parliamentary debate. The interface between law and conscience has, however, considerable historical and contemporary resonance, as well as sound theological pedigree. This article therefore considers the place of conscience in legal and philosophical thought before the Enlightenment. It looks at norms of conscience in Roman Catholic and Church of England liturgical use. On a broader canvas, it looks at the interplay between thought, conscience and religion in human rights case law. The article suggests that a consensus of thought which sees the dictates of conscience as founded in, and inseparable from, the teachings of religion begins to break down in the early seventeenth century. Yet human rights courts find themselves deciding cases of conscience or religion where conscience and religion are often intertwined and where the external manifestation of one is governed by the inner promptings of the other. Such difficulties are not limited to the human rights courts but also play out in debates pertaining to ordination. While the North American churches sought to deal with issues of conscience head on, the Church of England very carefully avoided the language of conscience in its early discussions of women's ordination, conscious, it seems, of a lack of consensus around its meaning and source. As the women's ordination debates developed, arguments of conscience were often deployed more by those opposed to the move than those who supported it. Conscience became as much the locus of pain caused by another's action as it was an inner faculty for self-guidance. Its valence shifted from an intellectual to an emotional category.

In the history of the Anglican Church the top-ranked issue of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century was disputes on women’s priesthood. As a result of these debates, the Anglican Church began to ordain women as deacons, then as priests, and finally as bishops. In Orthodox view, it was the radical change of the doctrine and the deviation from the apostolic tradition, though at the beginning of the 20th century the Anglican Church was considered as one of the closest churches to Orthodoxy. The first critical step in the direction of women’s priesthood was the opening the diaconate to women. Both in Russian and Western theological science little attention has been devoted to the analysis of this first step, since historically the hottest theological discussion was on the issue of women’s priesthood and women’s episcopate. However, the decision on women’s diaconate was very important since it actually opened the way for all subsequent decisions on women’s priesthood in the Anglican Church. This article offers an analysis of the historical processes and theological discussions that brought the Church of England to the appearance of deaconesses and then women deacons. The article considers the revival of sisterhoods and monastic communities in the Church of England in the middle of the 19th century, the initiative to revive the rank of deaconesses in 1862 and subsequent official decision of the 1920 Lambeth Conference, as well as the relevant reports of the Commissions of 1897, 1908, 1919 and 1935. Then we analyze the discussions about the functions of the deaconess, as well as additional factors that influenced the decision to allow women to be ordained as deacons. One of these factors was the general crisis of the diaconal ministry and the desire to strengthen the role of the laity in the life of the Anglican Church. As a result, the 1968 Lambeth Conference opened diaconate to all laymen remaining in secular occupations (both men and women). The Church of England turned out to be one of the most conservative churches in the Anglican Communion – it introduced women's diaconate almost 20 years later, in 1987. Conservative groups were concerned that this decision would put the Church of England on a "slippery slope" towards women's priesthood and women's episcopate. Subsequent history proved that these fears were completely justified.

The French Church at Threadneedle Street was first established after Edward VI granted a charter to persecuted strangers in 1550, making it the oldest of the French Huguenot Churches in England.1 The community of the French Church was comprised of French-speaking refugees from northern France and the Low Countries following the Genevan Calvinist example. During this early period, the Polish Protestant Jan Laski, then superintendent of the Strangers’ Church in England, had produced the organizational work, Forma ac ratio, printed in French at Emden in 1556 and Dutch in 1557, which provided a blueprint for congregational discipline in the Church for at least one hundred years.2 The death of Edward caused the communities to disband, with many returning to the continent, but after the accession of Elizabeth, the French Church was re-established in 1559. Edward Grindal, Bishop of London, a supporter of the stranger Churches, became, as bishop of the diocese, their official superintendent.3 By 1560, the Church began to order itself, electing elders and deacons in July of that year.4 However, Elizabeth I never formally confirmed Edward’s original charter, leaving the stranger Churches in an ambiguous and nervous position as to their status and permanence in England during this period.

Bob Morris' comment on the Succession to the Crown Bill invites the Church of England to ‘fresh, bound-breaking’ thinking about Church of England establishment in light of the role of the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the statutory obligation for the Sovereign to maintain communion with the Church of England. Along with other writers he argues that, in effect, this leaves us with religious freedom in the UK but not religious equality. I hope that Morris' challenge will stimulate such fresh thought – my response is not yet this but concerns another matter that he raises in relation to Roman Catholic marriages. He repeats concern in both Houses of Parliament that children of ‘mixed marriages’ are obliged to be brought up as Roman Catholics, and he correctly questions the extent of such an absolute obligation contra an article in the Catholic Herald.

This chapter examines the relationship between the ministry expectations experienced by newly ordained clergy in the Church of England and both their personal psychological type profile and the psychological type profile of the training incumbent alongside whom they were apprenticed to learn the practice of ministry. The aim of the chapter is to test the power of psychological type theory to illuminate a crucial aspect of the way in which Anglican clergy are generally trained for parish ministry. It develops an index of training expectations based on psychological type theory and then examines the relationship between the curates' perceptions of their expectations and both their own psychological type profile and the psychological type profile of their training incumbent. The chapter advances the empirical assessment and psychological understanding of the experience of those engaged in the apprenticeship model of ministry in the early years after ordination in two ways. Keywords: Anglican clergy; apprenticeship model; Church of England; psychological type profile; training incumbent

Ever since Henry VIII, the law of marriage has occupied a special place in the relationship between the Church of England and the state. Changes made to the law since 1857 have raised far-reaching and difficult questions about the nature of this relationship, involving the status of canon law. Marriage in church has remained, perhaps even more than the other rites of passage, an essential point at which the Church of England still touches the lives of great numbers of the otherwise unchurched, and these questions have thus impinged on the practical reality of the Church's work.

Twenty-two participants who identified as heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered clergy of the Church of England were recruited and interviewed using a semi-structured interview. The methodology employed incorporated Transpersonal Awareness with an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. After several levels of analysis the following superordinate themes emerged: (a) twenty of these participants organised their sexuality and spirituality in a dialectical or unified relationship; (b) twelve of these reported a direct mystical union with God through the veil of sexual ecstasy; (c) all twelve reported that these experiences have been transformative leading to an expanded and inclusive sense of self and other, which has also enhanced their ministry; (d) rituals and symbols that reflect the distinctive relationship between sex and spirit are needed to reflect and confirm heterosexual and LGBT participants’ lived experiences; and, (e) the House of Bishops of the Church of England continues to place spirituality and sexuality in a dualistic relationship, relegating the latter into the shadows of human experience, causing a deep sense of rejection and oppression for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered clergy who faithfully serve as priests within the Church of England.

The current study explores the psychological type profile of vergers within the Church of England. A sample of 42 male vergers completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Form G). The study shows that vergers tend to prefer introversion over extraversion, sensing over intuition, thinking over feeling, and judging over perceiving. The type preferences of vergers are compared and contrasted with the type preferences of clergy and laity. These findings are explored within the context of the role of the verger within the Church of England.

Since the 1950s, historians of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Church of England have generally maintained that the Sacramental Test Act (1828), the Roman Catholic Relief Act (1829) and the Reform Act (1832) amounted to a ‘constitutional revolution’, in which Anglican political hegemony was decisively displaced. This theory remains the dominant framework for understanding the effect of legislation on the relationship between church and state in pre-Victorian England. This article probes the validity of the theory. It is argued that the legislative reforms of 1828–32 did not drastically alter the religious composition of parliament, which was already multi-denominational, and that they incorporated clauses which preserved the political dominance of the Church of England. Additionally, it is suggested that Anglican apprehensions concerning the reforming measures of those years were derived from an unfounded belief that these reforms would ultimately result in changes to the Church of England's formularies or in disestablishment, rather than from the actual laws enacted. Accordingly, the post-1832 British parliamentary system did not in the short term militate against Anglican interests. In light of this reappraisal, these legislative reforms may be better understood as an exercise in ‘constitutional adjustment’ as opposed to a ‘constitutional revolution’.

THAT the Church of England represents the major religious affiliation of the people of England today appears at first sight undeniable. But how major is this majority? What degree and kind of majority does the Church of England possess in relation to all other religious bodies or communities now present in this country? These are important questions which receive too little attention in contemporary discussions on such matters as religion and the state, religious education in state schools and so on. A little thought, plus a little historical research, soon reveals the fact that to be established as ‘top religion’ requires more than numerical superiority. It is essential also to be the major body in terms of power, political, social and economic — as well as in terms of numbers of adherents — and on this count the Church of England certainly has a clear lead over all other recognised kinds of religious affiliation in England. Its lead in terms of numbers is not nearly so overwhelming, however, in spite of the common assumption that the Church of England is the form of religion of the English people, and that therefore on that score it has a right to some sort of presidential position in religious affairs. Its lead, and its presiding role, is in terms of its power. The reasons for this lie in the political history of modern England, and need to be clearly understood if any attempt is to be made to look objectively at the situation of religious pluralism which obtains in this country today.