In his first public comment on the report, Dr Jensen says "it is a document that stands for peace in times that are filled with turbulence. I admire the way in which it has resisted all calls for expulsion, disciplines and headbanging. With regret, however, I think that it is bound to fail."

The report called for a moratorium on new gay bishops and same-sex blessings and also on conservative bishops intervening in other countries. It suggested both sides apologise, and proposed tightening bonds between provinces to avoid schism.

But Dr Jensen, who has emerged as a leader of the conservative evangelical section of the world's 78 million Anglicans, says it is too late.

His article says the report "over-theologised" the Anglican communion, which was already more like a web of interconnected pieces than a unitary whole, and some parts had impaired relations.

"Why not accept that we are a federation or 'commonwealth' of largely autonomous churches?" he says in his article.

There would be shame if the church abandoned dissenters in the United States or Canada. Such Christians would need a bishop from outside to care for them, or even different streams of Anglicans defined not by geography but theology.

"I do not think that we have a proper account of what the Anglican Communion is as yet. I do not think that expulsion is the way ahead," he says. "I favour the acknowledgement that we are living in a looser relationship, and the development of recognised bilateral relationships to hold as many as possible in communion."

Meanwhile, the African bishops meeting in Lagos, Nigeria, declared yesterday that the African church had "come of age". Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, whose province contains about a quarter of the world's Anglicans, said the African church must become self-sufficient to withstand unbiblical Western spirituality and militant Islam.

African bishops plan to set up their own theological training to protect young priests from Western liberal ideas.

Opening the conference, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said homosexuality was "unbiblical, unnatural and definitely un-African".

END