"We are a group of theologians who work mostly in a university context, and in theological education. .... Out of a basic belief that the Church of England should be able to move to a position of greater toleration of faithful, stable gay relationships, we want to lay out for those outside the academy, as well as within it, reasons why we believe this is a debate worth having in the church. It is the conviction of the authors of this volume that, for all that this is an issue on which there are serious matters of principle on both sides, and for all that the symbolic nature of the confrontation of Christian faith and modernity is very acute, this is not actually a decisive question for the survival of Christian faith itself, nor for the survival of the Church of England and of Anglicanism more widely". -- Intro., pp. 2-3.
Contents divided into four main parts: The Use of Scripture -- History and Tradition -- Reason and Personhood -- The Wider Horizon.
Contents: List of Contributors -- Foreword / Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus -- Introduction / Duncan Dormor and Jeremy Morris -- Whose text is it anyway ? Limit and freedom in interpretation / Maggi Dawn -- Threat and promise: the Old Testament on sexuality / Andrew Mein -- The call of Christ: reading the New Testament / Arnold Browne -- The Church and change: tradition and development / Jeremy Morris -- Godly conversation: marriage, the companionate life and the Church of England / Jessica Martin -- Friends, companions and bedfellows: sexuality and social change / Duncan Dormor -- Thinking about Christ's body; thinking about his face / Jessica Martin -- 'Neither male nor female': the case of intersexuality / John Hare -- Psychology and orientation: being human within culture and history / Arnold Browne -- Sex and the city: economics, morality and counter-cultural living / Malcolm Brown -- HIV/AIDS: the real challenge for the Anglican Communion ? / Michael Beasley -- Selling body and soul in the 'fantasy economy' / Duncan Dormor -- Afterword: listening in the pews / Duncan Dormor and Jeremy Morris -- Further reading -- Index of biblical references -- Index of subjects.
"The Church of England, at its General Synod Meeting in York in July [1997], decided that further discussion about human sexuality should be encouraged in the Church on the basis of the 1991 House of Bishops Statement `Issues in Human Sexuality', agreeing that the Church's present policy on homosexuality `was not the last word on the subject'." Archbishop George Carey "spoke out against `sexual activity outside marriage'. He announced that next year's Lambeth Conference would be asked to set up an international commission into human sexuality'. ... He declared: `I do not find any justification, from the Bible or the entire Christian tradition, for sexual activity outside marriage. Thus, same-sex relationships in my view cannot be on a par with marriage'."
"Since then [mid nineteenth century] there has been an uninterrupted internal crisis of identity. And that is the normal condition of modern Anglicanism: a body without definition, since it sidelined its teaching authority, the Book of Common Prayer, in the second half of the twentieth century; a body uneasily held together by equivocation and paper compromise; a body, furthermore, with little idea where it is going, in the increasingly alien cultural circumstances of modern society. .... Issues like divorce or abortion or adultery are all clearly defined within Anglican teaching but both clergy and laity today prefer to leave them as open matters -- rather than face the disruptive consequences, and the demonstration of an absence of unity, which public re-statements would provoke. The Anglican way -- almost the hallmark of Anglicanism -- is to compose vacuous forms of words within which hugely divergent viewpoints can be accommodated. It is the promotion of expediency over principle, and is the manner in which Anglicanism is held together". -- Intro., pp. xii-xiii.
Contents: Introduction -- Failure of leadership -- Worship -- Ambiguous social teaching : 1. Social and political morality -- Ambiguous social teaching : 2. Human sexuality -- Establishment -- Indifferentism -- The crisis of authority in the Church : 1. Causes -- The crisis of authority in the Church : 2. Effects -- Does the Church of England have a future ?
Author "has left the Church of England and has converted to the Roman Catholic Church" -- Wikipedia vide "Edward Norman".
"Foreword by: Most Rev. Dr. Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Archbishop of Kaduna, Nigeria, and member of the Eames Commission [and] Rt. Rev. Michael Ingham, Bishop of New Westminster, Canada".
"This book is written both as a submission to the Eames Commission [Lambeth Commission], and as a contribution to the subsequent discussion. At the time of writing it contains, to my knowledge, the only detailed plan for resolving the crisis (pp. 19-20)." The thrust of this book "is that the Anglican Church can and should remain intact, but should have in some provinces a parallel episcopal structure similar to that instituted in England when the decision was made to ordain women to the priesthood; and I have used the image of a `quilt' to
describe this. Having completed this second draft, I have convinced myself that a quilt is far preferable to schism, and that becoming a quilt is the only realistic way of avoiding schism. I hope I can convince you (p. 21)". -- Intro.
"This book offers a detailed plan for resolving the present crisis over homosexuality in the Anglican Church, prompted by the appointment of openly gay bishops in the USA and England, and the blessing of a gay partnership in Canada. Tracing the roots of the crisis back to the foundation of Anglicanism over four centuries ago, Robert Van de Weyer shows why ancient divisions have grown wider in recent decades. He argues that the two side [which he calls Evangelicals (or Orthodox) and Incarnationals] now need separate episcopal arrangements -- yet both sides have much to gain by remaining together in a single body". -- back cover.
Contents: Endorsements -- Forewords / Josiah Idowu-Fearon [dated 28 January 2004] and Michael Ingham [dated 4 February 2004] -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction --Proposals for the Whole Anglican Communion -- Theology -- Morality -- Ecclesiology -- Proposals for the Church of England -- Afterword.
Author is a priest of the Church of England.
Colophon: Printed by Tien Wah Press (Pte) Ltd, Singapore.
"The Archbishop of Canterbury is fighting to hold the Church of England together. At the General Synod in York, he won a battle, but the row goes on". The author considers the facts of the appointment of Canon Jeffrey John, and his subsequent resignation, as Suffragan Bishop of Reading. He refers to the larger question of homosexuality within the Communion, mentioning the blessing of same sex unions in the diocese of New Westminster and the election of Canon Gene Robinson in New Hampshire. "In all this, the question of why is is homosexuality that should rack the Church is intriguing. It is the issue on which the evangelicals have rallied to their standard in a way they did not on any of the previously abandoned heights of orthodoxy, from slavery to borrowing money at interest to divorce. The answer seems to be that the issue is an easily explicable one to their followers, who are convinced of the scriptural and theological objections to homosexuality, and one which can therefore by guaranteed to secure a majority on one side of the argument. It is, in other words, an atavistic political tool". "The tactics in the row are interesting too. They are ones of threat: alternative oversight, withholding funding, schism. Some the Church of England has brought upon itself: alternative episcopal oversight was introduced a decade back to help reconcile churches which could not accept women's ordination without, perhaps, recognising that the principal of episcopal authority had thereby been comprehensively breached". "This is a Church where unity is currently prized more than integrity. Can it hold together a worldwide Communion -- more a confederation -- of 70 million people, some of whom believe that polygamy is acceptable but homosexuality is beyond the pale, and some of whom believe the reverse ? Should it even try to do so ?" "This is not a happy Church. And Catholic observers should not feel smug. It is a debate that is coming to the Catholic Church too".
See also "Anglican Tug-O--War" on p. 3.
See also "Dr. Williams seeks to hold his fractured Church together", pp. 28-29.
"Unlike other human groups which define themselves by a model of kinship, members of the Church belong by virtue of adoption by a God who is free and unconstrained. The authors finds tribalism at work in the Church, a kind of 'old boy's network' which forms its tight-knit boundaries, not by flamboyant and obvious bigotry, but by a coolly argued defence of things as they are. In fact, this is disguised nepotism, a refusal to accept the Church as the adopted people of a generous God, and regarding it instead as a privileged tribe. This book shows in quite practical ways how these hidden assumptions can operate and is a prophetic call to a riskier version of broken boundaries and open acceptance". -- back cover.
Contents: Preface dated Southfields, London, Pentecost 1990 / Peter Selby -- Longing and Belonging -- An Ethnic Church ? -- A New People -- Children of Promise -- The Male Tribe -- Love Unmentioned -- The Elders of the Tribe -- The Power of Longing -- Belonging in God.
Author is the bishop of Kingston, a suffragan of the diocese of Durham.
"Foreword by the Right Reverend Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford".
Includes bibliographical references and index.
"Writing for lay people and clergy, six leading writers and pastors combine a passion for the gospel with a search for new ways of practising the life of faith. Drawing in original and often surprising ways from history and human rights theory, from theology and philosophy, they argue that a change in the Church's approach to homosexuality would be consistent with the Church's understanding of Scripture and with its traditional way of working with doctrine". -- back cover.
Contents: Notes on Contributors -- Foreword / Richard Harries -- Introduction / Nicholas Coulton -- Does it matter enough, and to whom ? / Nicholas Coulton -- 'The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life' : Christian biblical interpretation / Christopher Rowland -- Sexuality without taboos / Marilyn McCord Adams -- Marriage, sexuality and the Christian tradition / Jane Shaw -- The Church and human sexuality : bringing a human rights perspective / Margaret Bedggood -- Human nature, Christian vocation and the sexes / Robert Merrihew Adams -- Conversion : apparent and real / John Drury -- Appendix : The Church of England : Decades of debate / Nicholas Coulton -- Index.
Colophon: Phototypeset by IntypeLibra Ltd, London. Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Bath.