Common Prayer on Common Ground: A Vision of Anglican Orthodoxy

I was not expecting this book to propose specific suggestions to solve the ongoing controversy in the Anglican Communion between the "liberals" and the "fundamentalists" which centers chiefly on homosexuality and what should be the Church's "stand" on it. I like the book because Alan Jones in a very brief volume, and in his typical charming, insightful, but often meandering style does an excellent job IMO of getting to the core of Anglicanism. Anglicanism is the "Via Media" which doesn't mean -- "neither here nor there". The Via Media arises from a respect for mystery in religious experience, and that God is a mystery impossible to encapsulate in a concept or dogma. The Anglican allows for freedom from rigidly held doctrines, and stresses knowing God through experience centered in worship. Alan Jones in tracing the roots and history of Anglicanism discovers a church whose history and traditions have created a body of Christians who stress love and tolerance -- with considerable freedom in specific beliefs. Should any segment of the Anglican Communion separate themselves from the main body over the ordination of women priests, gay priests, or performing marriage ceremonies for gay or lesbian couples? That is something for each of these groups to decide -- prayerfully and wisely. They should also consider what they will lose if they break from the main body of the Church, and be careful that after they secede they do not gravitate into rigid formalism, literalism, and dogmatism --- often characteristic of fundamentalists among all religious persuasions.