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es the divorcee could remarry in church. The individual case and final decision would be with the minister. These changed did not and do not incur on the individual couple the automatic and absolute right to remarry in church, but they do allow for the possibility of such an occurrence.

This is another issue, like the position of women and the attitude of the church towards homosexuals, where the church took some considerable length of time to react. There was little or no movement from the church on this issue as an immediate result of the sexual revolution of the 1960’s

One of the most marked features of the way Protestantism evolved in England since the 60’s is the birth of various evangelical movements,some American influence , particularly since the late 60’s and early70’s. The Church of England has been no less subject to this kind of change. In recent years the Church of England has had its own evangelical branch, developed by Nicky Umbel. The Alpha group is development on the original Christian idea of small groups meeting to discuss theological issues. The groups are evangelical in nature and tend to focus on charismata; such as acts of healing. Umbel’s book has been a major best seller.

The alpha course is essentially set up as a kind of ‘back to basics’course, moving people back towards the structure of the early church;i.e. small groups of people meeting informally, often over dinner to discuss issues as well as a focus upon spiritual gifts, a very immediate and exciting way to access faith. The kind of questions the alpha course seeks to answer would include such things as ‘why is Christianity relevant to me?’.

This kind of movement is the major growth area of the Church of England, and indeed of Christianity as a whole. Many practicing Christians, and indeed those whom had ceased to practice are turning towards such groups out of a general dissatisfaction with the traditional organised Church of England. Many of the people who returning towards such evangelical groups are unhappy with the current liberal direction of the church, under the leadership of Roman Williams. Members of such groups would typically tend to be conservative and opposed to sexual freedoms and homosexuality; it inseparable haw many would still oppose the ordination of women, but no doubt a minority do too. The views of such evangelical groups, like the Alpha Group, are clear, structured and with definite direction. They tend to be quite hard line and unyielding on matters of sexual morality, a position popular with some existing members of the church.

The popularity of such groups has come at a cost to the Church of England. Conservative, traditional Christians tend to like issues to be clear: a given issue has been established policy for a given number of years, and thus should not be changed; at least not easily or with good reason. If such people have been turning away from the organised church and moving towards more evangelical groups, then the unavoidable corollary is that membership of the Church of England, and attendance at churches, is in serious decline. In order to become, and appear to become more relevant to modern society, the church has had to evolve its views on subjects like those discussed abo本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。