Reviewing recent Anglican history, she noted: "None of [the] instruments of union or their pronouncements had any legally binding legislative or juridical force." The Windsor report was nevertheless "written in a tone of presumptive legitimacy", and set forth "a new authoritarian polity for the Anglican Communion.

"Taking a position" on such a divisive issue has always seemed so painfully un-Anglican to me. The Anglican way is to listen and embrace multiple positions. The Anglican way prefers compromise to confrontation. The Anglican way strives for the middle ground. Thus, whenever possible, particularly among people I do not know very well, I tend to suppress my own view of the issues and to project neutrality in public.

We can probably all agree that both Tom Wright and Steve Chalke have made really important and very impressive contributions to the vitality of the church in the UK and around the globe, the former through his theological writings, the latter through his Christian social activism.

This Jesus would be unrecognizable to most Christians. The largest section of the book is an attack on "the supernatural forms of yesterday's Christianity." Spong executes this attack by means of a lengthy textual criticism of the Gospels, sprinkled with occasional undeveloped thoughts on the incompatibility of traditional belief with a modern worldview.