Unknown author gets into scrape with church rules (8)
I believe the answer is:
canonlaw
'church rules' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't judge whether this works.
'unknown author gets into scrape' is the wordplay.
'unknown author' becomes 'anon' (short for an anonymous author).
'gets into' indicates putting letters inside.
'scrape' becomes 'claw' (clawing is a kind of scraping).
'anon' going into 'claw' is 'CANONLAW'.
'with' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for canonlaw that I've seen is " Ecumenical decrees".)