Dunedin academic has been appointed to a high-powered Anglican Church commission looking at the controversial issues of the ordination of gay priests and same-sex civil union blessings.
Prof Paul Trebilco, head of the department of theology and religious studies at the University of Otago, who is a Methodist, and the other members of the commission held their first meeting last month.
The commission is headed by former governor-general Sir Anand Satyanand, who is a Catholic.
The other members are Auckland lawyer Mele Taliai, High Court judge Justice Judith Potter, of Auckland, and Waitangi Tribunal member Emeritus Prof Sir Tamati Reedy, of Hamilton.
Their task is to summarise the biblical and theological work done by the church on the same-sex issue during the past 30 years and prepare a report for the 2014 Anglican general synod outlining options and their implications.
Any decisions would be made by the general synod, the church's governing body, which meets once every two years.
Anglican Archbishop the Very Rev David Moxon said in a statement the report would lay the groundwork for the general synod to hold its first formal debate on the issue.
"The church has taken a step which it hopes will lead it out of the impasse over questions about the ordination and blessing of folk who are in same-gender relationships."
The members of the commission were selected because of their distinguished records in their own fields and because they were not personally embroiled in the debate, he said.
"[They] are therefore, hopefully, able to bring a degree of detached objectivity to their work."
Mr Moxon was unavailable for comment yesterday.
He and other church leaders are in Fiji attending this year's general synod.
The church already has some openly gay priests, including the Rev Juan Kinnear, who was ordained at St Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin, in 2006.
But the church has instructed that no more gay priests be ordained while it investigates and debates the same-sex issue.
That has not stopped liberal factions in the church from raising it at this year's synod.
Former dean of Dunedin's St Paul's Cathedral Bishop David Rice, now Bishop of the Central North Island Waipu diocese, has put forward a motion asking the church to endorse the ordination of gay priests and bless same-sex unions.
A related motion was put forward by Auckland vicar Glynn Cardy.
Mr Rice told The New Zealand Herald part of the church might feel it better to delay a "difficult controversial conversation" and the current practice was for gay priests to "fly under the radar".
"I don't think there's any integrity in that," he said.
"How do we look upon that part of the church and that part of us?
"We have [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] people in our church.
"How are we taking care of them?"
The issue was one of faith but also of equal rights, he said.
Prof Trebilco said when contacted yesterday the commission "had a lot of work" ahead of it.
Commission members had been instructed not to talk to the media and to refer journalists to the church's media communications department, he said.
