FORMAL talks with the aim of reuniting the Church of England and the Methodist Church are recommended in a new report on informal talks between official delegations of both Churches.
The report will be discussed by both Churches before being put to the Church of England's General Synod in November, 1997, and the Methodist Conference in June, 1998. Other British churches are being asked to comment on the scheme.
The new proposals follow the failure of two earlier schemes for Anglican-Methodist reunion to gain sufficiently strong support within the Church of England in 1972 and 1982.
The new proposals envisage a gradual process of the two Churches growing together into unity. Formal talks would, it is hoped, lead to mutual recognition of each other's standing as Christian Churches with valid sacraments and ministry and to a solemn commitment to take a number of steps towards achieving visible unity.
These steps include the gradual integration of the two Churches' ministries through joint ordinations, with the possibility of existing ministers of one Church offering themselves for the laying on of hands by the Anglican bishop or appropriate Methodist minister.
The report lists 10 outstanding issues remaining to be resolved by formal conversations, including the role of bishops, the authorisation of lay people to preside at the Eucharist, which occurs in the Methodist Church in some cases and the present exclusion by the Church of England of women from the episcopate. Although the Methodist Church has no bishops, there is no bar to a woman holding high office, and in 1992-1993 the Rev Kathleen Richardson was President of the Methodist Conference.
Presenting the report press yesterday, the Rev Brian Beck, secretary of the Methodist Conference and Methodist co-chairman of the informal talks, emphasised strongly that this third attempt to reunite the Methodist Church with the Church of England had absolutely nothing to do with fears about falling membership.
"I want to say very firmly that this is not a matter of lashing two sinking ships together to make them float." he said. "Both ships are more buoyant than some of the more gloomy prognoses suggest."