The Church and Employment Law A Comparative Analysis of The Legal Status of Clergy and Religious Workers

This book examines the current law on the employment status of ministers of religion together with religious workers and volunteers and suggests reforms in this area of the law to meet the need for ministers to be given a degree of employment protection. It also considers the constant theme in Christian history that the clergy should not be subject to the ordinary courts and asks whether this is justified with the growth of areas such as employment law. The work questions whether it is possible to arrive at a satisfactory definition of who is a minister of religion and, along with this, who would be the employer of the minister if there was a contract of employment. Taking a comparative perspective, it evaluates the case law on the employment status of Christian and non-Christian clergy and assesses whether this shows any coherent theme or line of development. The work also considers the issue of ministerial employment status against the background of the autonomy of churches and other religious bodies from the State, together with their ecclesiology. The book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of law and religion, employment law and religious studies, together with both legal practitioners and human resources practitioners in these areas.

Acknowledgements Preface PART 1 Who are the clergy and religious workers and who is their employer? 1 Volunteers 2 Religious workers 3 The clergy as ministers of religion PART 2 The status of ministers of religion in employment law 4 Employment status of the clergy: A comparative perspective 5 How can the employment relationship between a member of the clergy and their religious body be analysed? 6 The legal status of the clergy under employment law as employees and workers PART 3 The perspectives from church-state relations and from the churches themselves and a possible way forward 7 The autonomy of religious bodies 8 The perspectives of the churches on the legal status of the clergy 9 A solution?: Potential reforms to achieve a degree of employment protection for clergy and other religious workers General Index Table of Cases Table of Statutes

John Duddington is a member of the Centre for Law and Religion, Cardiff University, UK, and editor of Law and Justice, the Christian Law Review. He was formerly Head of the Law School at Worcester College of Technology and is now a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Worcester.