Walking Together 1: Seeing the Church as a Commonwealth
Why the Church Is More Than an Institution
Commonwealth is an old-fashioned sort of word. It evokes the dry pages of history, from Cromwell to the post-imperial British world, or for Americans, the colonial nostalgia of Virginia's Old Dominion.
But dust it off, and you might just find a concept that speaks directly to the Church's present moment.
A few weeks ago, I shared some reflections on synodality and the promise of a more decentralised Church in Wales. In response, people in Wales and from elsewhere asked: what do you mean by “commonwealth”? This series is my attempt to answer that question—not with a manifesto, but with a kind of theological sketchbook. I want to test the image, see how it reframes our thinking, and ask whether it can help us imagine the Church in a way that can help us out of our institutional malaise.
The Institutional Church
Over the past century, the Church has gradually absorbed the bureaucratic habits of the world around it—structured, centralised, risk-managed, and increasingly bureaucratised. Just as the medieval Church mirrored feudalism, today's Church often mirrors the logic of public institutions and corporate systems. This has made it strategic and professional, but also often impersonal and inward-looking.
What’s usually missed, however, is that this institutional framing doesn’t just shape structures; it reshapes imagination. When we think of the Church as just another institution, we instinctively compare it to bodies like the NHS or local councils within the State. Leadership is reduced to management and local churches service hubs. In such a system, mandatory policies that affect the local level arise from the centre, often with minimal synodical input.
This institutional mindset also deepens the divide between decision-makers and the rest of the Church. Many clergy have found themselves subject to sweeping changes in their terms of office without meaningful voice, and laity often experience governance as distant or imposed.
But what if, instead of picturing the Church as a machine to be optimised, we saw it as a commonwealth to be tended— a living tapestry of people, communities, and institutions, woven together by a common calling?
The Church as Commonwealth
The idea of the Church as a commonwealth reaches deep into the roots of Christian tradition. Long before the Church came to resemble a formal institution, it was imagined as something far richer: a shared life, a moral community, a spiritual body whose bonds were formed not by power or efficiency, but by love.
In Ephesians 2, Paul describes the Church as the politeia: a “commonwealth” and “household of God,” where old divisions are broken down to form a new kind of humanity recreated as God’s temple. Peter builds on the same idea when he describes Christians as “living stones” fitted together into a spiritual house. For both, the Church isn’t just an organisation within society; it’s a holy nation, a counter-community that points beyond itself to the God whose Spirit inhabits it.
This idea found its strongest early assertion in Augustine’s City of God. Writing after the sack of Rome in 410, Augustine argued that the Church is a res publica grounded not in law or territory, but in the shared love of God and neighbour. Richard Hooker later took up the same theme. His vision of the Church, articulated in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, was of a public body (polity) whose ordered life participates in the divine wisdom that undergirds all creation.
That vision is more organic than what many of us are used to. It describes the Church not as a top-down organisation but as a living landscape of communities and institutions, each distinct, each with its own calling, held together not by uniformity or management but by a deeper, intentional ordering that reflects God’s ordering of creation.
What might this look like in practice? Let’s take the Church in Wales as an example:
Local churches, rooted in worship and place.
Ministry Areas, fostering shared mission.
Dioceses, offering oversight and care.
Governing bodies and bishops, tasked with holding theological and material life together.
Schools, chaplaincies, theological colleges, retreat centres, foodbanks, family centres—all different, all vital.
Each of these already exists, but we often fail to recognise them as institutions in their own right. Instead, we treat them as extensions of a central organisation, like franchise branches reporting up a corporate chain.
But a better analogy might be a civic ecosystem of diverse but interrelated parts: town councils, schools, charities, libraries. Each plays a distinct role, shaped by its context, yet contributing to the common good. Authority is shared. Integrity is local. And strength lies not in control, but in cooperation.
When we treat the Church like a franchise, we risk managing it into sterility. But when we see it as a commonwealth—a politeia—alive with local purpose and mutual responsibility, then we begin to glimpse the kind of body the Church is called to be.
Synodality, Subsidiarity, & Solidarity
To reimagine the Church as a commonwealth, we need better tools for thinking about life together. Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is one of them. Emerging within the Catholic Church in the late 19th century, CST is a moral tradition developed in response to the social dislocation and injustice of industrialism. Its core questions remain deeply relevant: how do we honour human dignity, uphold the common good, and live together in just and life-giving ways?
Today, when the Church feels stretched and scattered, CST reminds us of first principles: that each person bears the image of God; that power should be shared; that justice is integral to the Church’s public witness. It calls us away from bureaucratic instincts and toward something more relational—not a Church of command and compliance, but a people bound together by mutual care, listening, and the patient work of solidarity.
Three principles in particular are essential:
Synodality recognises that no one part of the body holds all the wisdom; that the Spirit moves among us through listening, especially where perspectives differ. It’s not just a process but a way of being together in faith.
Subsidiarity teaches that decisions should be made by those closest to the ground. It’s a protest against the instinct to centralise, and a vote of confidence in local life. The Anglican Communion’s own Windsor Report (2004) echoes this, affirming that “the principle of subsidiarity is fundamental to Anglican polity. It holds that responsibility and authority should reside at the most local level compatible with effective action” (§38).
Solidarity is the connective tissue. It reminds us that we belong to each other, and that when “one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it” (1 Cor. 12.26).
These are more than ideas; they shape a culture. In a time of fragile trust and disillusionment, they invite us to rediscover the Church as a relational, Spirit-led commonwealth: participatory, responsive, and grounded in mutual care. This vision doesn’t discard structure but reorders it. Authority flows from relationship, not hierarchy; leadership is exercised through listening, not imposition. It’s not about building a perfect system, but about becoming a more faithful body that can hear the Spirit speaking through every part, and can hold space for grace to move among us.
To live this vision, we must go deeper into the meaning and practice of CST’s core principles. More than just theological slogans, they’re habits of life that challenge the Church’s inherited reflexes and invite a more generous imagination. Each one opens a door: to shared responsibility (synodality), to local wisdom (subsidiarity), and to mutual belonging (solidarity). Taken together, they give shape to the soul of a commonwealth Church.
The Soul of a Commonwealth Church
That’s the straightforward truth that undergirds subsidiarity begins with a simple truth: those closest to the ground often see most clearly. It’s not about streamlining operations. It’s about trust. The Church is most alive in its local expressions—parishes, schools, chaplaincies—where the Spirit speaks through ordinary people and daily faithfulness. Authority, rightly understood, doesn’t trickle down from the central offices; it rises up from the altars from which Christians are sent out into the world.
When subsidiarity is ignored, synodality becomes a kind of managed consent. Agendas come from the top. Local leaders are expected to implement strategies they didn’t help shape. But when it’s honoured, something else emerges: co-responsibility. When subsidiarity is honoured, people aren’t passive recipients of vision. They become participants in discernment—co-authors under the Spirit’s guidance in the Church’s unfolding story.
Solidarity completes the picture. It tells us that the Church isn’t a collection of autonomous units, but a communion. “We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” (Rom. 12.5). No one part thrives in isolation. And no part should be left behind. Solidarity means we don’t just decentralise power but actively seek to share burdens. We uphold one another when resources are stretched, when vocations are few, when church life feels fragile. We belong to each other.
Taken together, synodality, subsidiarity, and solidarity offer a vision of the Church as a living body, ordered for faithfulness. They foster a vision that reminds us that the Church’s truest strength lies in its capacity to hold difference together in love, and to organise its life in ways that foster mutual trust, relational discernment, and a shared mission grounded in the Gospel.
So the real question for Anglican provinces, including the Church in Wales, isn’t whether we’re synodical on paper—we are. It’s whether our culture reflects our structure. Do we really listen? Do we really share discernment? Do we carry each other, or merely report to one another? That’s the difference between being synodical and synodal—the first describes a form of governance while the latter speaks to a culture.
The next post in this series will explore what it means to be synodal by turning to For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission—a remarkable document produced for the Catholic Church’s global synod. It doesn’t set out a blueprint. Instead, it offers a posture: a way of walking together, with open ears and honest hearts. And that posture, if lived, begins to look like something familiar: not an institution to manage, but a commonwealth to inhabit.
I love seeing how Anglican communities are wresting with this around the world. It's interesting to see so many community based ideas there are, if we can only get out of our own way!