Contesting Values and Searching for "Rules" in the Anglican Crisis

Over the last decade the 80-million strong Anglican Communion has been increasingly divided, seemingly over the issue of sexuality. This article explores this conflict by focusing on the particular problems of resolving conflict when the divisions are a product of a growing ethical pluralism within the Church and the wider society. In particular, we locate the discussion within an emerging debate about the utility of “rules” in resolving conflict in an international community where cultural particularity challenges claims made for universal values. In the Anglican case, hope has been vested in a Covenant that is discussed in the second part of this article. The hope of Church leaders was that this particular set of rules would acquire not just formal consent but normative legitimacy, although by early 2010 it was far from clear that this had resolved the crisis.