Were the conclusions of yesterday’s report to be accepted and adopted throughout the Anglican Communion, then the authority of the Arch-bishop would be enhanced and the Church more united, fitter and stronger to face future challenges. In reality, however, it could not be hoped that such fundamental disagreements would be resolved in a single year and within a single report.

That the Church is able even to conduct such a debate, in public, and without entirely tearing itself apart, is, however, a demonstration of strength. A Church that is not a living movement is a Church that either dies or seeks refuge in fundamentalist certainties that may give false relief to the uncertain but offer no real solutions to moral dilemmas. A hardline religious fundamentalism would be no more welcome in the Church of England than it is in the Islamic faith.

The crisis caused by the abortive appointment of Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading and the ordination of Gene Robinson in the US only made public and furious a rift that had long existed, and made it impossible anyway for the Church to stand still on the issue. For it is patently a contradiction to condemn homosexual acts at the same time as ordaining gay priests as long as they do not “admit” their sexuality. It is right for the Church to be tolerant, but it is also important to ensure that a single-issue movement does not dominate the Church’s thinking.

Church leaders are right to be wary of too easy an acceptance of homosexual clergy. This is a vexed issue for much of the African Church and to ditch a basic Christian principle — that of the sanctity of mixed-sex unions — in pursuit of modish support would be wrong. Better to tread slowly and risk outraging fashionable opinion than to discard doctrines that many hold to be central to the faith.

In effectively outlawing the ordination of openly homosexual bishops, the Lambeth Commission may appear to have preferred a false unity over honesty. Yet its parallel recognition that the debate on homosexuality is not closed is more than pragmatic. It represents a brave refusal to turn its back on a debate that rages beyond the borders of the Anglican Community. For the schism in the Church, between conservatives from Nigeria to Australia and liberals throughout the West, mirrors divisions in wider society.

That the Church reflects such debates is ultimately a matter for celebration, not condemnation or despair.

END