Following Frank Cranmer’s article Church and State – an idiot’s guide at Law & Religion UK the site now has this follow-up about primary and secondary Church legislation.
Church and State II – a further guide
Here’s a brief extract:
It [the recent debate in the House of Commons] also exposed a number of common misconceptions and gaps in understanding of the relationship between Parliament and the Church of England, which are unlikely to be restricted to the Lower House. Indeed, Stephen Slack, the Registrar and Chief Legal Adviser to the General Synod, notes, [(2012) 14 Ecc LJ 54-55]:
“in the case of the draft legislation relating to women in the episcopate, members of Synod can wrongly assume that preliminary debates of this kind have conclusively settled the Synod’s position in relation to issues that have been debated, when in fact they remain open for subsequent further debate and decision in the course of the legislative process itself.”
But do read it all.
“A more controversial corollary of which is: • Should the Church be more active in encouraging supportive MPs to engage in these debates? “ Does the author of this article mean – to encourage supportive MPs for a particular issue or to encourage all MPs to take more interest in matters ecclesial? I favour the latter and would assume that TA readers are of a similar antidisestablishmentarianistic persuasion. Much of the pleasure in observing the House of Commons debate on the General Synod vote from the Strangers gallery lay in the counterpoint between the arguments of substance by the women… Read more »
Thanks For this. It’s a great companion piece to “Church and State–an Idiot’s Guide”.
The State is anarchic. Why should the Church of England reflect such values? In the postmodern England; the Church cannot afford to associate with such an entity–on the premise that governing is important.