The Anglican conflict over homosexuality has drawn worldwide interest and divided the church. However, conflict within Christianity is not new. This book traces the steps by which the crisis emerged, and reveals the deeper debates within the church which underlie both the current controversy and much earlier splits. William L. Sachs contends that the present debate did not begin with opposition to homosexuality or in advocacy of it. He argues that, like past tensions, it originates in the diverging local contexts in which the faith is practised, and their differing interpretations of authority and communion. In the aftermath of colonialism, activists and reformers have taken on prominent roles for and against the status quo. The crisis reveals a Church in search of a new, global consensus about the appropriate forms of belief and mission.

This book examines the various contexts - historical, social, cultural, and ideological - which have shaped the modern efforts of the Anglican tradition at self-understanding. The author's thesis is that modernity and world mission have changed Anglicanism in ways that are deep and pervasive, just as other Christian traditions have also been profoundly affected by worldwide extension. In the case of the Anglican tradition, however, a distinctive way of relating Christianity to local culture and a distinctive kind of indigenous leader produced a church identity different from other forms of Christendom. Dr Sachs' aim is to contrast Anglicanism both with the style of Roman Catholicism and with the characteristically Protestant emphasis upon individual conversion apart from concern for the Church and its tradition.

Over the course of the twentieth century, Anglicanism became a religious tradition defined as much by its life in new cultural settings as by its English institutional heritage. The Church not only grew in numbers of adherents; its expanse and varieties outshone its origins. The Anglican challenge included decolonization and shifts to contextual direction, but far more was entailed. The chapters of this book describe the ways in which Anglicans adapted the Church’s historical patterns to contextual circumstances. Using varied approaches, the authors of these chapters depict Anglicanism’s ‘enculturation’. That is, in circumstances new to their experience, Anglicans sought to ground Christian belief and practice faithfully and effectively.

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