The Encyclopedia of World Religions

18 S animals and religion

situation is significant for several reasons, above all because the Anglican Communion, more than most denominations, now includes as equal part ners sizable national churches in diverse parts of the world. It can serve as a sort of laboratory illustrating the tensions and prospects in what has been called the “New Christendom.” More and more in the 21st century, the demographics of the Christian religion are changing, so that its real center of vitality and numerical strength is not in Europe and North America but instead in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Clashes are bound to occur because of the different values and cultural background of the older versus the younger but maturing wings of the religion. The test for Angli canism, as it experiences these conflicts, will be to show whether common bonds can be found that are stronger than the differences. Further reading: Paul D. L. Avis, Anglican Understanding of the Church: An Introduction (London: SPCK, 2000); Susan Dowell and Jane Williams, Bread, Wine, and Women: The Ordination Debate in the Church of England (London: Virago, 1994); Hugh G. G. Herklots, Frontiers of the Church: The Making of the Anglican Communion (London: Benn, 1961). animals and religion The symbolism and role of animals in religion. Animals have had a profound significance for religion as far back as religion can be traced. The famous Old Stone Age cave paintings of game animals undoubtedly had some kind of spiritual meaning. But mean ing and attitude have varied greatly from one religious culture to another. In hunting cultures, where animals are a major source of food and their killing a mark of human prowess, hunting is a religious activity, involving spiritual prepara tion by such means as fasting, performing sacred dances before setting out, and observing taboos in the field. P RAYERS may also be addressed to the animal to be killed, and petitions made to a “Master of Animals” deity believed able to give or withhold game.

preserved the apostolic succession of bishops. That is, their line of bishops is claimed to extend without a break back to the APOSTLES . Besides bish ops the Anglican churches have both priests and deacons. Since the 19th century they have also had their own MONKS AND NUNS . One question sparked much controversy in the late 20th century: Could women be priests and bishops? The majority of Anglicans decided that they could. In the United States the first woman priest was ordained in the 1970s and the first woman bishop in 1989. In England the first woman priest was not ordained until 1994. More recently, the questions of ordaining homosexuals and of blessing same-sex unions or performing marriages for such couples have divided the Anglican Communion and several churches within it. At the 1998 Lambeth Confer ence, difference of opinion on the role of women and homosexuality, and on liberal versus con servative doctrinal and moral questions gener ally, were evident between Anglican churches in Western and developing countries. Churches in Britain, North America, Australia, and New Zea land tended to be liberal on such matters, though there were significant conservative factions within them. Churches in Asia, Africa, and Latin America tended, like their societies, generally to be tradi tional in their values regarding gender and family. The latter churches were largely founded by mis sionary outreach from the older churches in the 19th century, but they are now growing far more rapidly than the parent churches under their own indigenous leaders. At the conference, exchanges on gender and sexuality were sometimes heated, and resolutions favoring the more liberal attitudes often failed. Since 1998, the division has become more pronounced. After the consecration of an openly homosexual priest, the Reverend V. Gene Robin son, as bishop of New Hampshire in the United States in 2003, talk began of a possible split in the Anglican Communion. However, the Anglican Communion has his torically found ways to embrace a variety of points of view and forms of practice. Its 21st-century