Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with the currents, contours and charts that are shaping not only the church, but also its future direction. The book describes Anglicanism in spatial terms, and as a series of complex relations between church and world. It focuses on the terrain relating to some of the key challenges facing Anglicanism in the twenty-first century. The book looks at mission and management in the Church of England, and also asks some wider questions of the overall leadership of the Anglican Communion in relation to the emerging role of the Archbishop of Canterbury as an instrument of unity. It concludes with some charts and forecasts, and is a more discursive, musing analysis and conversational commentary, explores some of the problems and possibilities that Anglican ecclesial polity and identity may need to negotiate.