The Church of England and the Methodist Church

Feb 9, 2018 by Jill

by Frank Cranmer, Law and Religion UK:

The Church of England General Synod has voted in favour of a motion welcoming the joint report, Mission and Ministry in Covenant, co-written by the two Churches’ faith and order bodies and published last year, setting out proposals on how clergy from each Church could become eligible to serve in the other.

The motion acknowledges that there is further work to do to clarify a number of areas, including how the proposals would be worked out in practice and calls on the Church of England’s Faith and Order Commission to update Synod on this work at its next group of sessions in July. An amendment to the motion speaks of “confident hope” that outstanding issues can be resolved quickly.

Opening the debate, the Bishop of Coventry, The Rt Revd Christopher Cocksworth, Chair of the Church of England’s Faith and Order Commission, said that the proposals would be a step towards “healing a tragic division in the Church of England” when the two Churches separated almost 200 years ago.

Overall, the voting was as follows:

Read here

Read also: The Church of England should welcome Methodists into the fold of the historic episcopacy by the Revd Marcus Walker, from Archbishop Cranmer