'Foreword,' to Norman Doe, ed., Church Laws and Ecumenism: A New Path for Christian Unity

Abstract

Welsh Anglican jurist Norman Doe has long used law as a fundamental tool to build Christian ecumenism. All Christian churches, he argues, from the sole congregation to the global denomination, have law at their backbone, and these internal church laws are often comparable across the Christian world. This brief foreword introduces a volume that analyzes the internal legal regimes of a a dozen global Christian churches and shows their collective convergence around 230 common legal principles of church polity, property, worship, organization, leadership, and ministry.

Keywords: Law, Religion, Law and Religion, Norman Doe, church law, ecumenism, Christianity, Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodox Christianity, ministers, clergy, worship