This article examines the possible use of ‘virtual’ Eucharists in the Anglican Church of Australia in a time of a global pandemic such as exists in the world in 2020 with the spread of coronavirus or COVID-19. The changing nature of modern communication is considered in the context of the possibility of the use of a ‘virtual’ Eucharist, where a priest in one place with a set of bread and wine, consecrates the bread and wine, while at the same time a person in their own home consumes another set of bread and wine with the assumption that second set of bread and wine is also consecrated. Suggestions for and discussion of the use of a ‘virtual’ Eucharist in two dioceses of the Anglican Church of Australia are discussed with a consideration of published material by episcopal leaders. Biblical, theological and constitutional perspectives are then considered in relation to a ‘virtual’ Eucharist before the recommendation is made that ‘virtual’ Eucharists are not considered as appropriate at any time, including during a global COVID-19 pandemic, in the Anglican Church of Australia. Several alternatives to a ‘virtual’ Eucharist are considered which would allow people to obtain spiritual nourishment by other means.

This article questions whether traditional Christian liturgical vesture has any intrinsic gendered identity. Vestments are worn by the clergy of various denominations, including in traditions where women are ordained into all orders. For some early female clergy, there was a discomfort about wearing garments traditionally associated solely with male figures, and even today certain vestment manufacturers distinguish between the type of products available for female clergy and for male clergy, or target select gendered clientele. This brief cross-disciplinary examination, of some scriptural, historic and socio-cultural understandings of vesture, concludes that, despite some seeming modern misconceptions to the contrary, vestments are inherently non-gendered, and that they appear predominantly to have been regarded as such at various stages of history. This is consistent with the liturgical understanding that vesture is not meant to be a statement of personal identity, but a symbol of ritual function and office within the gathered assembly.

This article examines South Africa’s contribution to the spread of Anglican ritualism in the mid-nineteenth century and seeks to add a South African voice to the growing contemporary scholarship in this area. It begins by examining the role of South Africa’s first Anglican bishop in fostering a climate conducive to ritualism. This is followed by an examination of some of the early developments which were considered ‘popish’ by colonist congregations. The second part of the study focuses on two examples of advanced ritualist parishes paying attention to ‘signs’ of medievalist revivals and the confident manner in which ritualism was discussed. The author finds that after an initial period of fairly robust antagonism towards ritualism by colonists, a general movement towards ritualist practices began to emerge. The sources consulted for this article include letters, newspaper and periodical articles, archival material and a couple of unpublished theses.

Evelyn Underhill is mainly known for her work in mysticism and spirituality. This article explores the political dimension of her work and argues her early work in mysticism and later work in spiritual direction and retreat work underpinned her engagement with leading figures in the interwar Anglican church and their social agenda. During this period Underhill worked closely with William Temple, Charles Raven, Walter Frere and Lucy Gardner among others. In the interwar years she contributed in important ways to the Church of England Congresses, and the Conference on Christian Politics, Employment and Citizenship (COPEC) initiative. She challenged what she called the anthropocentric tendency in the Christian Social movement and insisted on the centrality of the spiritual life for any effective social reform. Underhill worked to engage the general public, as well as Christian communities, in a spiritual life that she saw as essential to the efforts of individuals and organizations seeking to alleviate contemporary social harms.

The article examines some key writings in the works of Bishop John Rawlinson with relation to the development of Anglican Liberal Catholicism in the early twentieth century. The article aims to show how he contributed to the development of Anglican Liberal Catholic thought and practice in the period, especially with regard to views on authority and ecumenical relations.

Drawing on the theological method of one of Anglicanism’s foremost theologians, this article defends key proposals of the recent Church of England-Methodist report, Mission and Ministry in Covenant. Some Anglicans have argued that it would be inconsistent with Anglican order to accept the proposed temporary period where Methodist ministers who had not been ordained by a bishop could serve in presbyteral Church of England roles. It finds clear theological rationale for the move in Hooker’s understanding of the episcopate which is matched in Anglicanism’s official formularies and its recent ecumenical dialogues. Highlighting clear historic and recent precedents for such a move, it demonstrates that bishops have never been considered so essential for Anglican order that they could never be dispensed with. Proposals like those in MMC can therefore be conscientiously accepted as consistent with Anglican self-understanding by the Church of England and other provinces considering such steps.

Informed by theories of biopolitics and necropolitics, I argue that Christian orthodoxy is a colonial power formation that manufactures the subjectivities of those within the Church and those without. The operation of biopolitics and necropolitics coalesces around two Christian bodies – the local body and the corporate body catholic – and is thus explicable according to the synthetic framework of ‘body politics.’ Within the body-political calculus, orthodox Christians qualify as genuine lives and, consequently, benefit from biopolitical interventions to promote their flourishing; heretics, by contrast, represent (non-)subjects whose bodies orthodoxy/colonialism consigns to destruction. As a case study to illustrate the import of my theoretical analysis for ecclesiological reflection, I examine the rhetoric of the leaders of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), who, despite presenting their movement as a decolonial project, espouse a body-political theology and, therefore, remain firmly within the matrix of Christian colonial orthodoxy.

There are four Anglican jurisdictions in continental Europe. Two are national churches, Spain and Portugal; two are non-geographical jurisdictions serving persons not geographical regions. These four have overlaps among themselves; they also overlap with full-communion partners. The Episcopal Church’s Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe is not officially a diocese, though it acts like one. Like the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe, its mission is not limited geographically. The competition unwittingly engendered creates conflict that detracts from the part of God’s mission accorded to each Church. This essay argues that creating an official Episcopal diocese in Europe is not the way forward, if common care for that mission is and should be the primary concern of all.