This article argues that context is an important fourth factor, alongside the more familiar three, in understanding Anglicanism in (Southern) Africa. As imperialism was an important part of the early context of the Bible’s presence within Southern African Anglicanism, the bulk of the present article charts the contours of imperial Southern African Anglicanism. Having mapped this territory, the article then probes what a postcolonial analysis of Southern African Anglican biblical interpretation might look like, outlining two related components: a descriptive component and an interventionist component. The descriptive task asks how Southern African Anglicans have read the Scriptures, and the interventionist task asks how Southern African Anglicans should read the Scriptures. The former requires a careful Foucault-like ‘archaeological’ analysis and the latter a recognition of the contextually-related resources of African biblical scholarship.

Even though the church law of the Anglican Church in New Zealand is based upon the consensus of the members of the Church, the laws of the State also have an important part to play. In particular, not only is the Church, as a juridical body, subject to the law of the land, it has also relied upon the State for the enactment of certain laws. This has been necessitated by the evolution of the Church in New Zealand, and is also a legacy of the pre-colonial Church of England. This is also affected by the lack of an indigenous method or style of approach in the exposition of ecclesiastical law.

The first silent preached retreat in the Anglican Communion was held in 1858. The exercise quickly aroused suspicions because it appeared to be dangerously close to Roman Catholic practice. Based upon original printed sources, this paper reviews arguments put forward during the next ten years by three advocates of the led retreat, to counter such fears. Far from being part of a Roman plot, they claimed that the retreats were an expression of a fundamental spiritual principle, which was not limited to any particular denomination and party.

This article argues that a breakthrough is possible in the development of Anglican eucharistic liturgies. A dialogue approach holds out the promise of distancing the process of liturgical development from party spirit and particular interest, and focusing it instead on the self-reflection and intersubjectivity of communicative action, while also recognizing the multiformity of philosophical assumptions underlying the Anglican eucharistic tradition. Such a process has potential to emancipate the Anglican eucharistic tradition from conflict and centre attention on a more critical self-reflection on the discourse of the tradition. Eucharistic liturgies in use in Australia are considered in terms of their underlying philosophical assumptions, and recommendations are made for the use of a dialogue approach based on Habermas’s theory of communicative action.

The article takes the form of a report on the current state of the international Anglican–Orthodox theological dialogue. It offers a critical reading of the Church of the Triune God: The Cyprus Agreed Statement of the International Commission for Anglican–Orthodox Theological Dialogue, 2006, outlining the major issues considered, together with points of convergence and continuing disagreement. Starting from acknowledged areas of previous agreement on questions of the Triune God and the nature of the Church, the statement gives special consideration to the issues arising from the ordination of women in provinces of the Anglican Communion. It considers the historical practice of ministry in both churches and the possibility of reception of new expressions of ministry. The theological question at the heart of these considerations is whether the ordination of women constitutes a church dividing matter. For this reason the statement gives some consideration to the terminology of heresy, schism and reception.

Conservatism in theological belief, moral values and attitude toward ecclesiastical practices was measured in a sample of 5967 ordained and lay Anglicans in the Church of England. Average scores were compared between those who classed themselves as Anglo-catholic, broad church or evangelical, and by six different age cohorts. Overall, most measures of conservatism showed decline among more recent cohorts, but there were marked differences between traditions. Younger evangelicals showed little or no decline in theological or moral conservatism, and, in the case of Bible beliefs, were more conservative than their older counterparts. In ecclesiastical variables, however, Anglo-catholics were often more conservative and younger evangelicals showed less conservatism than other traditions or older evangelicals. The findings suggest that the divide between traditions is increasing among younger generations mainly because those in Anglo-catholic and broad-church traditions are becoming more liberal on theological or moral matters, whereas evangelicals are maintaining traditional conservative views of theology and morality but becoming less traditional in matters ecclesiastical.

This essay is an attempt to write Matthew Arnold into the narrative of Anglican thought in the nineteenth century. Overviews of general religious thought in the Victorian era give an appropriate nod to Arnold, but the institutional histories of the Anglican Church have not acknowledged his contributions to defining Anglican identity. In many ways, this is quite understandable: Arnold broke with much of traditional Christian doctrine. But, and just as significant, he never left the Church of England, and in fact he was an apologist for the Church at a time when even part of the clergy seemed alienated. He sought to expand the parameters of permitted religious opinion to include the largest number of English Christians in the warm embrace of the national Church. The essay concludes that the religious reflections of Arnold must be anchored in an Anglican context.

Today’s changing context invites a rethinking of mission in the Episcopal Church. Based on a large-scale, grassroots intervention process in an American Episcopal diocese, this article identifies several operative missiological and ecclesiological categories in the Episcopal Church that warrant critical examination. The themes of democracy, inclusion, and benevolence are explored in light of their historical and theological background and against the sociological realities of the contemporary church. The article proposes a reframing of Episcopal mission in a more theological and Trinitarian direction using the themes of communion, companionship, creativity, and cultivation.

This paper discusses the development of the Anglican Communion’s ‘crisis’ regarding the place of gay and lesbian persons within the tradition. It presents a social and theological contextualization of this crisis within the Episcopal Church, USA, in the second half of the twentieth century. It argues that the origins of the Anglican Communion’s crisis regarding gay and lesbian persons within the Communion are best understood in continuity with the broader North American evangelical movement of the second half of the twentieth century. The implications of this contextualized study serve to critique an understanding of the current crisis, which juxtaposes a decrepit, liberal ‘North’ with a vibrant, ‘orthodox’ ‘Global South’.

The controversy over the ordination of women as priests in the Church of the Province of Uganda has been going on for a long time. Today, there are a few women priests in a good number of dioceses in the Church of the Province of Uganda. But this revolution against the conservative order of male domination has not come without a price. Women who feel called by God to the ministry in the Church of the Province of Uganda are usually discriminated against even when they eventually become ordained. One wonders whether women are called by God but ordained by men. This article looks at the work and ministry of one of those women who opened the door to the ordination of women in the Church of the Province of Uganda. In her response to the challenges of the time, Njangali not only refused the old definitions of women’s involvement in church ministry but also guided the whole church to rethink and renew its leadership policy.