"In this new study Edward Norman examines the state of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion, and argues that its patently ailing condition is not the consequence merely of a difference of view over major questions of belief and practice, but of problems intrinsic to its very nature. It is a book about authority: about how Christian truth is validated, and the means by which the institutional Church can resist the intrusion of error into its understanding of faith. What Anglicanism notably lacks, he believes, is a coherent basis of authority, a doctrine of the Church itself. It has, in consequence - and despite its seeming traditionalism - more of the qualities of a religious society than of a Church, and this is due to imperfectly addressing fundamental questions about its source of authority at the time of the Reformation."--BOOK JACKET.