Provocative church featured in local chronicle (10)
I believe the answer is:
incendiary
'provocative' is the definition.
(something incendiary provokes conflict)
'church featured in local chronicle' is the wordplay.
'church' becomes 'CE' (abbreviation for Church of England).
'featured in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'local' becomes 'inn' (local can mean someone's local pub).
'chronicle' becomes 'diary' (chronicle of one's life).
'ce' inserted into 'inn' is 'incen'.
'incen'+'diary'='INCENDIARY'
(Other definitions for incendiary that I've seen before include "of a provocative nature" , "Inciting riot" , "tending to stir up trouble" , "getting people excited" , "bomb" .)