The Law of the Church in the Twenty-First Century

This is a collection of essays on aspects of contemporary ecclesiastical law. The focus is upon the law of the Anglican Communion, especially the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. Throughout these essays, all previously published in refereed academic journals - and in one case as a book chapter - aspects of ecclesiastical law are explored. These include questions of church-state relations, the internal governance of the church, and the legal framework of doctrine and ecclesiology. Each of the eleven essays contributes to the understanding of the nature of the law of the church in the twentieth century. This era has been described as post-Christian, but even if this is so, the need to understand the basis of the law of the church is as important today as much as a hundred years ago. One of the greatest challenges for the universal church is how to engage with the wider world, whilst remain true both to scripture, teaching and tradition. This continual search for a place in the world is at the heart of the Christian church; it is in the world yet not of the world. The attempts at navigating this difficult course have been marked by a varying degree of success; the Anglican Communion, of which the author is a priest, as well as a canon lawyer and an academic, is particularly troubled by the conflicting concerns of liberalism and orthodoxy. The ordination of women, practising homosexuals, and the blessing of same-sex relationships, which has exercised the Anglican Communion, has created divisions within the church, and caused tensions with the other parts of the church, especially the Roman Catholic Church and eastern orthodoxy.