For years, there has been talk of the importance of unity without a clear theological narrative to underpin this, leading to competing claims of what this unity is for or defined by, and challenges posed to its possibility or desirability as a polity and as a theological idea. This book is a timely theological exploration of the concept of unity in the context of divisions, frictions, frustrations and arguments both within the Church of England, and the wider Anglican Communion. Resisting the urge to merely provide a cut-and-dry definition of unity, author Charlie Bell teases out the theological currents that run in this stream of thought, and ensure that we are refining our thinking, and doing justice to a topic that may appear to contain many opposing and contradictory elements. That unity is a call of Christ to His church is not in doubt – what that unity might look like in the reality of today’s ecclesial and cultural landscape is the question that this book seeks to answer.

Charlie Bell is Official Fellow and College Lecturer in Medicine and Public Theology at Girton College, Cambridge, and a Registrar in Forensic Psychiatry. He is a priest in the Diocese of Southwark, Scholar in Residence at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York City, Visiting Scholar at Sarum College, and a Research Fellow and Associate Tutor at St Augustine’s College of Theology.