Guest Editorial

This edition of the Journal of Anglican Studies focuses on the development of safe ministry protocols and practices at a number of different levels in the Anglican Communion. The background to this is the emerging stories of long-standing sexual abuse of children, young people and vulnerable adults in public institutions. The Church, generally including the Churches of the Anglican Communion, has not been exempt from this painful and tragic history. In one sense this ought to come as no surprise, for churches are made up of fallen and fallible human beings in solidarity with the rest of humankind and therefore capable of both the best and the worst of human behaviour. In another sense this makes the churches even more culpable given that the values and moral vision espoused by the Body of Christ are the very antithesis of the horrific stories of abuse of children that have come to light in recent decades. In a manner unlike any other public institution, the Church’s purpose is directed to the valuing of human and all life, to care, justice and the peaceable kingdom of God. This is so well captured in the words of the Lord’s Prayer,‘Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven’.