It is only stating the obvious to say that, since at least the 1990s, the Anglican Communion has been increasingly riven by a series of conflicts centring particularly on the ordination of women and on the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in the Church at all levels. It is also only a simple step from there to acknowledging in turn that the outworking of these conflicts has brought to the fore considerable anxiety about how authority is exercised in the Communion, and in its member churches. To state this in terms of a deliberately simplified polarity: is the Church a hierarchical institution, in which central offices and bodies can claim authority enforceable through the exercise of power in a way that can be imposed even on dissenting groups and that therefore requires simple obedience? Or is it essentially a society of equals, in which power is dispersed amongst many different groups, central bodies can exercise authority and wield responsibility only by consent, hierarchy is only representative and has delegated authority that does not finally remove responsibility from the delegating members of the Church, in which baptism is the fourth and fundamental ‘order of ministry’, and in which, in summary, all exercise of power and authority is irredeemably relational?

Ellen Wondra pins her colours firmly to the second option, in a powerful, finely written and stimulating survey of the nature and challenges of authority in Anglicanism. This book is deeply embedded not only in the Communion-wide and ecumenical statements in which Anglicanism has tried to address the very complex matters that lie behind church division, but also in the broader historical and systematic studies that can help to inform and steer reflection on them. There is a clear and fluid movement through the stages of the argument, beginning with specificity, opening out into broader reflection, finally rooting itself in questions of fundamental or systematic theology, before returning to the more specific. A broad statement of the current situation in Anglicanism in chapter 2 is followed in chapter 3 by a survey of the various documents in which evolving Anglican reflection on authority and conflict has been examined in the last half century. Chapter 4 is perhaps the crux of the book, laying out in outline Wondra’s vision of authority in the Church as intrinsically relational, and therefore complex, multi-dimensional, communal and conciliar. Chapters 5 and 6 sharpen the focus on the nature of ecclesial power (always subordinate in Wondra’s view to mutual responsibility and accountability) and authorized institutions (including ministry). Chapter 7 takes a further step to consider systematic roots, with a strongly relational vision of God as Trinity and a theological anthropology grounded in the creative excess of God and manifest in the relational and not individualistic nature of human being. From there we return in chapter 8 to ecclesiological implications, with a consideration of communion, the nature of catholicity, and the (as yet not fully realized) conciliarity of the Church. The conclusion, chapter 9, restates the overall argument and puts it right back into the context of the Anglican Communion – in fact some readers might find it helpful to read the Conclusion first, as it gives an excellent summary of the author’s approach.

It is difficult to imagine a more helpful and illuminating discussion of the relational view of authority in the Church. The unfolding of the argument is compelling and persuasive so far as it goes, to this author at least. It is not so clear, however, that the view of authority put forward rises to meet the challenges that those of a very different persuasion might advance. In such an open-textured and multi-dimensional argument, it is inevitable that there will be lacunae. Some will feel uncomfortable with the social trinitarianism on which Wondra’s account of relationality rests, especially as her language at times comes close to compromising divine aseity. More problematic for the basic argument, to my view, is a series of inherent tensions. One is between jurisdiction and relationality. At various points Wondra suggests that they are complementary, as is indeed surely the case, but much of her exposition of the problems with authority as exercised or conceived in the Anglican Communion implies a sharp contrast, to the detriment of juridical ways of thinking and acting (‘centralization’ appears to be an especially dirty word for her). Yet, isn’t law an essential component of human sociality, and itself an expression of God’s ways with the world? And doesn’t law at some point imply enforcement? There is a case to be made – Hooker surely implies as much – for law and the exercise of law to be conceived as themselves theologically grounded. Not all legal enforcement can be, in the nature of the case, relational and consensual. Another tension is between autonomy and relationship. Again Wondra concedes (p. 153) these are really complementary, and yet her earlier description of autonomy, with people ‘acting in concert for each to maximize her or his own self-interests’ (p. 123) hardly sustains that position, especially in the light of her endorsement of Levinas’s priority of the other.

Two more fundamental problems – or perhaps challenges is a better word, since it is possible that they could be addressed – hover over Wondra’s account: one conceptual, the other methodological. The conceptual problem is what constitutes a community. If we live in multiple, overlapping communities, as of course is the case in complex social life, how do we determine which community takes precedence when it comes to considering consensual decision-making? I belong to my local parish church, but also to the national church, and yet also to the Anglican Communion (to take what is actually a very simple example). What if my obligations to the other in my local church community conflict with those at a national or international level? A third tension arises at this point – one admitted right at the very end of the book (pp. 285-86) – namely that between relationality and justice. Wondra acknowledges, rightly, that her book is written from the context and experience of The Episcopal Church (TES), and implies that issues that arise as questions of justice in that context are not necessarily seen as such in some other contexts. This takes us to the heart of some of the most divisive issues in the Anglican Communion, but it also suggests that the real intellectual problem is not so much whatever understanding of authority is in question, but rather the nature of justice. I suspect that Wondra’s view of authority, give or take, would command wide assent across the Communion. But that doesn’t mean the most fraught issues can be resolved in the way she envisages, as the more fundamental questions of what constitutes justice and how it is achieved have yet to be resolved. The conceptual then has a bearing on the methodological. Since the origin of this book lies in an attempt to reconceive conflicts of authority in Anglicanism, how do we give equal attention to the theology of authority and conflict, and to the history of it? If one major component of conflict in the Anglican Communion has been the actions of (and reactions to) TES, for example, can’t one make two reasonable but conflicting cases from Wondra’s argument, namely that on the one hand churches of TES were mindful of consensus and social relations in their own communities, and prepared to act accordingly even at the cost of internal church disagreement, but on the other hand the same obligations to the wider, international communion would have surely validated very different, if not opposite, modes of action? The actual unfolding of conflict and different interpretations of authority – the historical, contextual, sociological analysis, if you like – does not of itself necessarily yield a single mode of theological interpretation, unfortunately.

For all these and other reasons, as she is evidently well aware, Wondra’s book is unlikely to be the last word on the subject. But it is a major contribution to Anglican discussion. It is formidably well grounded in the relevant literature, and clearly presented, though to this reader the style is sometimes repetitious. A more serious criticism simply of the presentation is that, for all the detailed footnotes, there is no bibliography, which makes the finding of full bibliographic details more difficult than it need have been. That said, this will surely be required preparatory reading for any future work on authority in Anglicanism.