From the Anglican Communion Institute
Six Points to be Made Leading up to the Release of the Lambeth Commission Report
The purpose of church constitutions and canon law is to enable Christians to be faithful to the Great Commission given to the Church by Christ (Mt 28:18–20).
In order to carry out this commission the Church must be faithful and obedient to God in all areas of life including the area of sexual ethics, both in terms of its practice and of its teaching. It therefore follows that questions of sexual ethics are the legitimate subject of church constitutions and canon law.
Issues concerning sexual ethics are not matters on which there can be legitimate diversity since they are matters on which the whole people of God are called to exercise collective obedience by walking together in the way of the Lord. Only in this way can the Church live up to its calling to be holy as God is holy (Lev 19:2, 1 Pet 1:16).
In consequence, it is not acceptable for different parts of the Anglican Communion to allow different standards of sexual ethics and there need to be constitutional structures and structures of canon law across the Communion to prevent this happening.
These structures need to be rooted in a commitment to the teaching of Holy Scripture since this teaching is the primary means given to the Church by God to enable it to achieve the holiness and obedience which He requires (2 Tim 3:16). Article XX of the Thirty Nine Articles sums up the proper relationship between the Church and Scripture:
The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith: And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of holy writ, yet, as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.
- Constitutional structures and structures of canon law have to include the necessary exercise of ecclesiastical discipline and this needs to be applied to churches as much as to groups and individuals within churches. It follows that if churches are judged by the Communion as a whole to be walking in disobedience to God then sanctions up to and including excommunication may need to be imposed. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in The Cost of Discipleship: “If a member of the Church falls into sin, he must be admonished and punished, lest he forfeit his own salvation and the gospel be discredited.” The same is also true in regard to Anglican provinces as members of the Anglican Communion.