Review: The Church of England in the Twentieth Century: The Church Commissioners and the Politics of Reform 1948-1998

For the first time, the Church of England is heavily dependent on money from the living, as opposed to an income from capital gifted in the past. The Evangelicals threaten bankruptcy by withdrawing their financial support. In retaliation, the extremist liberal wing has closed its ears and walked off in the opposite direction. It is these extremists that Williams has to confront at practically every turn. All previous primates could have told them where to go, knowing that they had the money to run the church in a way that made most English people feel comfortable. Without the financial bulwark that Peel’s commissioners provided for so long, Williams has to duck and weave like no other archbishop before him. Read more