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.

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.

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.

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’.