These are difficult times for the Anglican Communion. The crisis in global Anglicanism is not so much over human sexuality but rather over questions of identity and authority. Some church leaders are advocating structural and canonical solutions to maintain the integrity of the Anglican Communion. A missiological perspective, however, sees communion as a gift from God fostered through relationships in mission across difference. The Decade of Evangelism and pan-Anglican efforts to address international debt and the HIV/AIDS pandemic are examples of communion in mission relationships. A missiological ecclesiology for the Anglican Communion will lift up, celebrate, and encourage more meaningful relationships in God's mission. The Anglican Congresses of 1908, 1954 and 1963 are expressions of such a missiological ecclesiology. The proposed 2008 Anglican Congress or Gathering will unite and foster a deeper sense of communion across Anglicanism through enlivened mission relationships.

The uniformity of worship which we accept as part of the Anglican tradition was an entirely new idea when it was introduced in the sixteenth century. Few had asked for a single book of worship, but it was enforced by top-down, often draconian measures. This article traces the changing circumstances which have led to the loss of such uniformity not only in England, but in the worldwide Anglican Communion. In this process the equation of Anglican identity with a particular liturgical ethos may have disappeared. That process can be illustrated from the experience of the last Lambeth Conference.

Since the Anglican Church has neither a teaching Magisterium of the Roman model, nor a binding Confession of Faith as in some Lutheran and Reformed traditions, it has become commonplace to invoke the dictum Lex orandi, Lex credendi and claim that Anglican doctrine is enshrined in its liturgy. This of course may have made some sense when all Anglican Prayer Books had not wandered far from the 1662, or even 1637/1764 texts, but it becomes much more problematic today, when, even with ‘guidelines’ issued by the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation (which have only the authority a Province wishes to give them), Provincial liturgies grow further and further away from any common prayer texts. This is particularly pertinent in an ecumenical context with regard to the Anglican understanding of its threefold ministry. The Preface to the Ordinal (1550, 1552 and 1662) stated: ‘It is evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy Scriptures and ancient authors that from the Apostles' time there have been these orders of Ministers in Christ's Church, Bishops, Priests and Deacons’.

The centre of theological ethics is not the decision made in a crisis, but character formed over time. Christian character is shaped primarily through worship. Worship saves theology from Gnosticism and praxis from despair. Anglican Evensong offers four key practices—singing the psalms, listening to Scripture, singing the canticles and saying the Creed—that constitute the practice of friendship with God. The argument is illuminated by examples of how worship transforms character.

William Stringfellow (1929–85) was an Episcopal layman, attorney and social activist. Although much has been written about him since his death, most of it is in the form of personal testimony. Examinations of various doctrinal areas of his theological writings are unusual. Therefore, this article examines Stringfellow's idea of sacramental reality and grounds it in the worship of the Church and Christian engagement with the world. The concluding comments offer a justification for seeing this vision as one of enduring importance for faith and action in a post-Christian society.

The Anglican Church is now a worldwide communion and international Anglicanism is marked by a high degree of variety and significant tensions both at local and international levels. Dealing with diversity and conflict across the communion may be the most pressing issue facing Anglicanism in the twenty-first century. Certainly the needs of mission require a strong focus on local and regional concerns and the history of Anglicanism bears testimony to a strong emphasis on a contextual and incarnational approach to discipleship, worship and social engagement. For this reason the Anglican Church has always wrestled with the tension between its inherited identity and the demand for relevance in an expanding communion. Many of the tensions and unresolved conflicts that beset modern Anglicanism arise because of the astonishing capacity of the Church to develop new responses in new situations that result in practices that do not fit easily with the received tradition. These point to a fundamental fact of Christianity; its inherent creativity and capacity for innovation. But not all innovations are wise for the Church; many innovations generate further conflict and the people of God are often confused or puzzled about what innovations to adopt or reject, and how to facilitate either of these scenarios. Some examples in the history of Christianity include controversies over the date of Easter, the development of church order (for example, episcopacy), doctrinal developments (for example, homoousion of the Nicene Creed), and issues to do with slavery, marriage, divorce and, more recently, ordination of women. None of these ‘innovations’ were greeted with immediate consensus at the point of local adoption nor as the innovation became more widely known and assimilated into the life of the Church.

From an ecclesial point of view the fact of innovation represents both a challenge to, and opportunity for an enhanced koinonia in the gospel. Minimally this involves commitment to ongoing patient dialogue and face-to-face encounter as innovations are wrestled with, differences explored and conflicts faced. This article considers further the concepts of innovation and undecidability as critical issues underlying much of our current difficulties. The article then inquires as to their relevance and importance for the koinonia of the Anglican Communion.

In the light of recent theological controversies, the Anglican Communion urgently needs what Archbishop Rowan Williams has described as an ‘agreement over a common accountability’. Such an agreement must differentiate the things that define the essence of the Anglican Church from those that merely imparta distinctive cultural flavour. It will be built on a nuanced theological debate involving questions of self-definition that recognize the social, economic, political and cultural contexts enveloping the Communion's various national churches. In the same way that social structures and economic conditions bear directly upon the shape of religious organizations, it will become apparent that political pressures and cultural mores influence doctrinal commitments. The church-sect-mystic group typology developed by Ernst Troeltsch has the potential to help the Anglican Communion understand the origins of its theological diversity as part of a larger project that seeks to maintain corporate identity and to preserve organizational unity. His attempts to define the ‘essence of Christianity’ in the context of what might otherwise seem random, chaotic and possibly irreconcilable responses to Christ's teaching offers some interpretative insights that will assist Anglicans achieve a consensus on which ‘agreement over a common accountability’ might be based.