Publisher Pulls All Copies of “Incendiary” Book About Church of England

From The Spectator’s Damien Thompson:

The decline of the Church of England has been one of the most astonishing trends in modern Britain. The pews of churches in this country are emptying fast. Next week, a book was to be published about this collapse entitled That Was The Church That Was: How the Church of England Lost the English People. But suddenly the publishers, Bloomsbury, decided to pull it. The book, it seemed, was a little too incendiary.

Those reviewing the book received a panicky message:

‘Following the receipt of a legal complaint, Bloomsbury are recalling all review copies of this book and ask you to immediately return the copy received…’. Apparently there has been a legal action because of ‘a disputed passage about a Christian leader’.

It sounded intriguing. But which leader? I have a finished copy of the book in front of me, and it’s hard to guess.

…We learn something extraordinary (and, perhaps, defamatory) about a member of the Church of England hierarchy on virtually every page. Ostensibly an account of the Church of England’s decline over the past 30 years, the book reads more like a compendium of its most malicious gossip.

Read on.