“Blood in the Aisles” — Guardian Book Review

A book review in this past Saturday’s Guardian (UK) “assesses Stephen Bates’s [Guardian religious-affairs correspondent] straight-talking account of the profound divisions in the Church of England, A Church At War.”

Excerpt from the review:

… Focusing on the Evangelical side, he traces their ascendancy within the Church of England over the past 40 years as they become ever bigger fish in an ever shrinking pool – always careful to draw subtle but important distinctions between the different species. He penetrates deep inside the complexities of the Evangelical mind, shedding light on the agendas, passions and calculations that have led the different groups to act in the way they have. He even illuminates the bizarre confrontation at the 1998 Lambeth conference, when in front of the world’s television cameras, a Nigerian bishop tried to drive a demon of homosexuality out of Richard Kirker of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement.

Many Evangelicals, Bates suggests, are seeking a second Reformation – but this time with liberalism, not the Pope, as the enemy.