This is a study of one of England's oldest, and now increasingly controversial, institutions. In-depth investigation, ranging from Lambeth Palace to the smallest parish community, into the mechanics of the church - its people, its finances and, inevitably, the problems it is facing including the threatened schism over the ordination of women. To investigate the turbulence in the Church of England, caused partly by the ordination of women and a potentially disastrous financial situation, Michael De-la-Noy has visited parish churches, retreat houses, theological colleges, rectories and Lambeth Palace. He has talked to nuns, to lay readers, to hospital chaplains and to team rectors. The failures of the Church are here at large, but so - in the faith and courage of its individual members - are its virtues, and the kaleidoscopic picture he paints is both comic and moving.