ABSTRACT
There is a world of difference between being a member of a congregation, and carrying the weight of its symbolic meaning in the institutionalised role of ‘priest’, whether that word is understood in a high or low sense. Power can be seen gorgeously vested, splendidly arrayed in ritual, material and organisation. In seeking to understand the local church, attention to the dynamics of power can go some considerable way to providing some causal explanations related to organisation, mission, identity and worship. Writers such as Max Weber, developing theories of charisma, have been able to point to dynamics of power that explain the functioning of complex organisations such as local churches. There is a constant wrestling for the ‘true’ identity of Anglicanism; a struggle to reach a point where its soul ceases to be restless, and becomes more fully self-conscious. Conflict can challenge commitment and breathe life into the connections that configure communion.
