In June 2018, the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil’s (IEAB) General Synod voted, by an overwhelming majority, to amend its canons by redefining marriage as a ‘lifelong union between two people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity’.2 In this essay, I intend to describe the process that led to such decision both as the result of major changes that happened in Brazilian society and as a response to IEAB’s inner process of discernment and theology-making in parallel with other Anglican provinces. Rather than merely copying theological developments and discussions produced in the English-speaking world, IEAB creatively engaged foreign and local sources (Anglican and non-Anglican), thus producing a contextually based theology that led to its embracing of same-gender couples as full members, worthy of all sacraments and rites.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the project of recovering aspects of Christian thought which are significant for a contemporary eco-theological sensibility. The work of William Temple, in particular his concept of the sacramental universe, is discussed in relation to three eco-theological principles. Temple’s affirmation that matter has significance coheres with the principle that the Earth has value; his notion that the Incarnation is the pre-eminent expression of divine meaning connects with the principle that creation is expressive of divine mind and purpose; and the inter-disciplinary scope of Temple’s thought coheres with the principle of inter-connectedness. Temple’s concept of the sacramental universe might assist the engagement between theology and the present ecological context.

There is an emerging debate about the growth of Anglicanism in sub-Saharan Africa. With this debate in mind, this paper uses four statistically representative surveys of sub-Saharan Africa to estimate the relative and absolute number who identify as Anglican in five countries: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. The results for Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania are broadly consistent with previous scholarly assessments. The findings on Nigeria and Uganda, the two largest provinces, are likely to be more controversial. The evidence from statistically representative surveys finds that the claims often made of the Church of Nigeria consisting of ‘over 18 million’ exceedingly unlikely; the best statistical estimate is that under 8 million Nigerians identify as Anglican. The evidence presented here shows that Uganda (rather than Nigeria) has the strongest claim to being the largest province in Africa in terms of those who identify as Anglican, and is larger than is usually assumed. Evidence from the Ugandan Census of Populations and Households, however, also suggests the proportion of Ugandans that identify as Anglican is in decline, even if absolute numbers have been growing, driven by population growth.

Drawing on data from a survey conducted among 7,059 students aged 13–15 in England and Wales, this study examines parental and peer influence on church attendance among 645 students who identified themselves as Anglicans (Church of England or Church in Wales). The data demonstrated that young Anglicans who practised their Anglican identity by attending church did so primarily because their parents were Anglican churchgoers. Moreover, young Anglican churchgoers were most likely to keep going to church if their churchgoing parents also talked with them about their faith. Among this age group of Anglicans, peer support seemed insignificant in comparison with parental support. The implication from these findings for an Anglican Church strategy for ministry among children and young people is that it may be wise to invest in the education and formation of churchgoing Anglican parents.

This article explores the ways in which Little Gidding and its inhabitants – including the leader of that pious seventeenth-century household, Nicholas Ferrar – were remembered in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The memory of Little Gidding was shaped, in part, by a passage in Richard Gough’s British Topography, in which Gough dismissed Nicholas Ferrar as a ‘useless enthusiast’. Gough’s attack was answered by the liberal churchman Peter Peckard, who defended the reputation of his wife’s ancestor in his Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar. And yet Peckard’s response to the Ferrars of Little Gidding was not entirely approving: while Peckard celebrated their piety and benevolence, he also worried over their ‘ceremonials’ and their ‘austerities’. This article presents a reading of the Memoirs, as well as a study of the relationship between Peckard’s text and other contemporary sources, in order to shed light on the complex nature of Peckard’s liberal Anglicanism.

Theological colleges and seminaries across the Anglican Communion are at a crossroads and this essay proposes a reorientation of their life towards serving the intentional discipleship of the whole people of God. This kind of change would affect the culture as well as the content of what they do. For example, their pedagogy could become that of ‘the flipped classroom’, where ordinands engage in an apprenticeship style of learning, with their time in college falling within placement learning and providing constructive theological reflection upon that prior learning. This will bring great benefits to these institutions through their becoming re-connected and re-embedded in the life of the church at grass roots level, giving them a valued and indispensable role in the mission of the church in diverse contexts.