Stephen Bates examines the issues behind the debate and exposes the power battles playing out in the name of the modern Church.

Stephen Bates has left us in debt with his gripping account of recant events in the Anglican Communion. It is a sorry tale, but is one that needs urgently to be told, and Bates tells it brilliantly. -- Christopher Rowland, Dean Ireland's Professor of t Racy and enjoyable -- Sunday Telegraph The Guardian's church affairs correspondent tells this hilarious and depressing story with asperity and wit. -- Times Educational Supplement A brilliant overview of the current crisis engulfing the Church. -- Observer What Bates's book lays bare is that this is a dispute not about sex but power. -- Independent In a Church at War Stephen Bates has given us a book that reads like a thriller and unfolds like a tragedy. -- Richard Holloway, formerly Bishop of Edinburgh and

Stephen Bates is the Guardian's religious affairs and royal correspondent. An Oxford - trained historian, he has been a journalist with the BBC, The Daily Telegraph, and - for the last 14 years - the Guardian. He is a regular broadcaster as well as writer, and has contributed to a wide range of publications.