Welsh jurist and Anglican theologian Norman Doe has pioneered the modern study of comparative ‘Christian law’, analysing the wide variety of internal religious legal systems governing Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches worldwide. For Doe, religious law is the backbone of Christian ecclesiology and ecumenism. Despite the deep theological differences that have long divided Christian churches and denominations, he argues, every church – whether an individual congregation or a global denomination – uses law to balance its spiritual and structural dimensions and to keep it straight and strong, especially in times of crisis. This makes church law a fundamental but under-utilised instrument of Christian identity and denominationalism, but also unity and collaboration on many matters of public and private spiritual life, both clerical and lay. Doe has developed this thesis in a series of impressive scholarly projects and books – first on Anglican law, then comparative Anglican-Catholic canon law, then all Christian laws and other Abrahamic laws, and their interaction with secular legal systems. This article offers an appreciative analysis of the development of Professor Doe's scholarship, and situates his work within the broader global field of law and religion studies.

An ecumenical group of experts in church law produced a Statement of Principles of Christian Law based on a comparative examination of the internal regulations of their respective churches. This article examines the detail of the Statement from the point of view of the regulations and practice of Quakers in Britain and concludes that, based as it is on a Trinitarian, sacramental view of ‘the Church’, while there is much in it with which Friends – and members of other non-sacramental, non-hierarchical denominations – would agree, there is also much which has little resonance for them.

Theology, the study of God, consists of a network of subdisciplines: biblical theology, moral theology, ecumenical theology, and so on. Each branch of theology has its own distinctive object of study, methods, and purposes. For example, pneumatology studies the Holy Spirit, practical theology uses the pastoral cycle, and liberation theology seeks to transform unjust societal structures that oppress the marginalized. Each branch of theology has its own distinctive community of scholars. It is a common view (though perhaps a contested one, as between the different church traditions) that the main purpose of Christian theology is to proclaim the Gospel of Christ. The branches of theology, in turn, are vehicles for each of this core purpose. Legal theology could become a branch of theology with its own distinctive objects of study, methods, and purposes. What follows explores these themes, how the subdiscipline of legal theology might be defined and developed in the context of the study of the systems of law, order, and polity, of churches across the Christian traditions that deal with, for example, forms of regulation, ministry (lay or ordained), governance (institutions and functions), discipline, doctrine, worship, rites, property, and external relations. It does so as to the following. (1) The object of study: legal theology should at its core be about the relationship between theology and church law—more particularly, the relationship between church law and each of the other branches of theology. (2) The method of study: legal theology may involve the theological study of church law and/or the legal study of theology using standard juristic methods (such as text and context, critical, historical, analytical) as well as methods used in the other branches of theology (3) The purpose of study: the development of a community of scholars collaborating with a view to its impact on ecclesial practice. Theology is indispensable to a full understanding of the place of law in the life of the church; and law provides evidence to test the propositions of theology in the practical life of the church as this is translated through norms to action.

Ecclesiology is the study of the church which explores the origins, nature, and purposes of the church universal. Its method includes developing categories to indicate the attributes of the church, as e.g. one, holy, catholic, and apostolic; the people of God; and the fellowship of the spirit. One aim of ecclesiology is to teach and help us understand what may be authentic, required, permissible, or appropriate church structures, such as in ministry, government, discipleship, evangelism, worship, and teaching. Legal theology might be considered to be a branch of ecclesiology. Many scholars refer to church law as applied ecclesiology, and in so doing they speak of a “theology of church law” and a “theology in church law.” The former is a doctrinal and perhaps more speculative exercise; the latter is more descriptive and scientific.

Religion law – the law of the state on religion – has been taught for generations in the law schools of continental Europe, though its introduction in those of the United Kingdom is relatively recent. By way of contrast, within the Anglican Communion there is very little teaching about Anglican canon law. The Church of England does not itself formally train clergy or legal officers in the canon and ecclesiastical laws that they administer. There is no requirement that these be studied for clerical formation in theological colleges or in continuing ministerial education. The same applies to Anglicanism globally – though there are some notable exceptions in a small number of provinces. This is in stark contrast to other ecclesiastical traditions: the Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist and United churches all provide training for ministry candidates in their own systems of church law, polity or order. However, no study to date has compared the approaches of these traditions to the teaching of church law today. This article seeks to stimulate an ecumenical debate as to the provision, purposes, practices and principles of the teaching of church law across the ecclesiastical traditions of global Christianity. It does so by presenting examples of courses offered (institutions, purposes, subjects, methods and levels), the educative role of church law itself, requirements under church law for church officers to study the subject, and parallels from the secular world in terms of debate in the academy and practice on the nature of legal education, particularly the role played in it by the Critical Legal Studies movement.1