Two posts from the BBC:
The Lambeth Conference has ended in Canterbury amid controversy over the issue of homosexual bishops.
The BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott recorded his final thoughts from the conference, as debate on the vital issues facing the Church unfolded.
DARING THE EXTREMES TO LEAVE: 4 AUGUST
All through Sunday night Anglican bishops were leaving their student rooms on the campus of the University of Kent and getting into mini-buses and taxis for the airport, and journeys to most of the 160 countries they represent.
After almost three weeks in Canterbury what would they have to tell their scattered flocks about the state of the fractured Anglican Communion? Did they succeed in bringing it back from the brink of schism?
Rowan Williams
Dr Wililams appealed to bishops to transcend the dispute
The 670 bishops who turned up for the conference will probably report that the Communion - the association of 38 self-governing Anglican churches - is worth fighting for.
The bleaker its prospects have looked, the keener its bishops have appeared to preserve it.
They will have to admit that they barely even tried to bridge the gulf in their understanding of what the Bible teaches about homosexuality.
They must have noticed that radicals on both the liberal and conservative wings of Anglicanism have developed their attitude towards homosexuality into an article of faith.
New plan
The prospect of full sessions of all the bishops in parliamentary-style debate about the rights and wrongs of ordaining gay bishops must have filled the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams with horror. There would have been the prospect of deeper estrangement, and at worst bishops walking out.
So Dr Williams promoted another plan, and used the conference to appeal to the bishops to see their Anglicanism as transcending the dispute which reached crisis point after the Episcopal Church in the United States ordained the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson in 2003.
The long-term plan is for an agreement, or "covenant".
It would mean setting down the basic principles of Anglicanism and agreeing to be bound by them.
Some of the practices of certain dioceses in the American church continue to put our relations as a communion under strain
Dr Rowan Williams
A special body - it might be called the "pastoral forum" - would judge whether the actions of individual Anglican churches were within the rules or not.
Dr Williams told the bishops that their churches should be ready to sacrifice some of their independence in order to preserve the Communion.
He said that to work, the covenant would require a ban on the ordination of gay bishops and another on the public blessing of homosexual relationships in church services.
He told a press conference that unless the liberal American and Canadian churches accepted the need for a ban on gay bishops and blessings, "then to say the least we are no further forward…"
He added: "Some of the practices of certain dioceses in the American church continue to put our relations as a communion under strain, and some problems won't be resolved while those practices continue."
It remains doubtful that the liberal Episcopal Church would compromise its independence by signing a binding agreement.
Stacy Sauls, the Bishop of Lexington in Kentucky, said he could not support the majority view of the Bible that homosexual practice was wrong.
He said: "If the choice is that the only way I can persuade them to stay in relationship with us is to change what I believe, I can't do that with integrity. I think all of us believe that being faithful to God is even of greater importance that being faithful to each other."
It may be that the more than 200 bishops who boycotted the conference in protest at the presence there of American bishops who helped ordain Gene Robinson might also refuse to sign up.
But Rowan Williams' real battle is to win the support of the large moderate conservative middle ground.
'Intensification' strategy
The Archbishop of the West Indies, Drexel Gomez, is chairman of the committee working on the covenant.
He claims that although the bishops in Canterbury did not want to adopt a Roman Catholic-style hierarchy, they did now accept the need for some mechanism to hold the Communion together.
"I've spoken to several bishops who were opposed to it, and who are now willing to give it a try", he said.
In the past the centre ground of Anglicanism has seemed paralysed, unable to act decisively for fear of losing the liberal Americans and their allies altogether.
But the aim of the new strategy appears to be to isolate the radical liberal and conservative wings of Anglicanism, and create a new, more organised and directed, Communion with or without them.
The Rev Dr Graham Kings, of the moderate evangelical group Fulcrum, said the strategy was one of "intensification".
The new Communion would be more active, have a corporate presence around the world, more high-level meetings, and possibly regional representatives among the archbishops.
Dr Kings says this time, no-one will be allowed a veto.
"Now you don't have to join us, and that would be sad", he says. "But…that's not going to stop us in terms of moving on…it's church history in the making."
So no-one will be expelled for failing to sign the covenant, but they could find themselves in an outer sphere of the Anglican Communion. Dr Williams is banking on that being a better place to be than outside the Communion altogether.
He can afford to take that gamble, because as he himself has admitted, without an binding agreement, "further disintegration" seems unavoidable.
A TWO-TIER COMMUNION: 2 AUGUST
Amid the confusion caused by their divisions over what the Bible teaches about homosexuality, Anglican bishops meeting for the Lambeth Conference have come to realise one thing - that the Anglican Communion cannot continue as it is.
Information from the bishops' discussion of the subject shows an awareness of the enormous gulf in how each side views the very nature of Anglicanism.
For Anglicans, as the bishops' reflections document explains, "in some parts [much of Africa, for a start] homosexual and lesbian relations are a taboo; in others [the United States, for example] it has become a justice issue".
There's a growing acceptance that divisions are likely to intensify, and that the Episcopal Church in the United States is likely to ordain another gay bishop before very long.
Meanwhile the conservative alliance set up in Jerusalem last month - the traditionalist church-within-the-church that thumbed its nose at the Lambeth Conference and at the Archbishop of Canterbury - will continue to recruit and organise inside the Episcopal Church's territory.
The official group set up to find a way out of the crisis acknowledged it faced "a long and arduous road" in rescuing the Communion.
In fact, if things simply stay as they are there might not even be another Lambeth Conference.
Bishops at Lambeth Conference
Dr Williams told delegates the communion needed some structure
But a curious thing has happened. As pessimism about the chances of reconciliation has increased, so has the desire to preserve and stay inside the Communion.
It seems that this affection for the fractured family home, its history and the prestige it still commands, is about to be exploited by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in his efforts to find an alternative to absolute and permanent in the world's third largest Christian denomination.
There was a clue in Dr Williams' second main address to all 670 bishops in Canterbury.
He referred repeatedly to a focus on "the centre".
He said all sides would have to check their natural instinct to "cling to one dimension of the truth" about Anglicanism.
As Dr Williams made clear, this means the 38 independent churches of the Communion giving up part of their autonomy.
He said he did not want to create either a Roman Catholic style hierarchy or a loose confederation of churches, but the communion needed some structure.
'Further disintegration'
Some sort of council (it might be called a "pastoral commission") would judge how far actions such as the ordination of an actively gay bishop were out of bounds, and consider real sanctions.
In order to give the commission authority there would be a binding agreement - in Church-speak, a "covenant" - and this is where the pessimists have been most convinced of their case.
It is pretty clear that the Episcopal Church would not sign up to an agreement that ruled out ordaining gay bishops and blessing the relationships of gay couples.
It has come to look like a declaration of independence by the moderate middle of the communion, and Dr Williams himself
It seems dubious that for their part conservative African archbishops would commit to something that ruled out their interventions in America to provide a home for traditionalists.
Until now, both sides have seemed to have a veto, a final say - condemning the communion to an unsustainable status quo, and what Dr Williams referred to as "further disintegration".
But that's where Dr Williams' Lambeth Conference coup might emerge.
Call the bluff of both sides - traditionalist and liberal - and allow a revamped "centre" to sign up to a covenant whether or not the Americans or their conservative critics in Africa and elsewhere choose to join in.
Remove their veto, and create a new communion able to move forward without them.
If this is the strategy - and it looks highly likely - it could explain the increasingly frank acceptance of senior figures that some will choose not to commit to the covenant.
It has come to look like a declaration of independence by the moderate middle of the communion, and Dr Williams himself.
Acceptable boundaries
When one of the committee responsible for the covenant - Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies - spoke to journalists in Canterbury, he said his group was "working on something that will have acceptance by the majority of the [churches of the communion].
We will have to make space for those who can't sign up yet", he said. "We will always leave the door open".
At the same press conference the Archbishop of Brisbane, Phillip Aspinall, acknowledged that it would "difficult for some [churches] to enter".
Their "autonomy is important and jealously guarded," he said.
But the sub-text has been: "You don't have to join, but you're not going to stop us".
So a new communion will be born, committed for the first time to an explicit set of principles
Archbishop Gomez was at pains to minimise the idea of churches being punished - because they wouldn't agree to end the blessing of gay bishops, for example.
"It's not a punitive document" he said.
"It's a pilgrimage and the document is designed to help people to walk along that road".
Think of it like the EU with its varying enthusiasm for closer union.
When countries like the UK stay out of the single currency or the shelving of border restrictions, an inner core of the Union carries on anyway.
It's not that anyone is being punished, nor is their "Europeanness" being impugned. But they may be left behind.
So a new communion will be born, committed for the first time to an explicit set of principles and a mechanism for resolving whether particular actions (blessing same-sex relationships for example, lay people presiding over holy communion perhaps) inside the acceptable boundaries or outside.
No-one who is now considered an Anglican will be declared not to be one, but those who failed to join the "dynamic" inner core could not expect to be invited to Lambeth 2016 or the other representative bodies of the Church.
It's likely this new communion will be decidedly post-colonial.
It will recognise that the centre of gravity has shifted from the developed world towards the populous churches of the developing world, and could have a representative council made up of archbishops elected by the churches of individual continents.
There would be a real "corporate presence" for the Communion in the 160 countries included in it.
It would, hopes Dr Williams, escape the paralysis of debate about homosexuality, to concentrate on poverty, Aids, famine and the lack of clean water.
Trouble shooter
But how would the left-behind non-signatories react?
Would they decide to leave?
It's far from impossible.
One critical group will be watched particularly carefully
The rich Episcopal Church might envisage its own mini-communion, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand and most of Australia among other churches.
The traditionalist alliance established in Jerusalem last month might see its future outside the communion.
Dr Williams, and the other leaders of the "intensified centre", are counting on the continuing attachment to the communion, the distinctive "reformed Catholicism" it represents, and its long history and shared traditions, to persuade those who reject the covenant to accept their second-class status and stay more or less within the fold.
One critical group will be watched particularly carefully.
They are the American traditionalists who have left the Episcopal Church because of its liberal attitude to homosexuality, and are planning to set up a parallel church there.
The Williams strategy would place them under the care of the "pastoral commission" - the same new authority that the Anglican Communion has lacked up until now.
They would be part of the communion, with its traditionalist approach to homosexuality, and would have the chairman of the pastoral commission to minister to them.
A lot hangs on who is selected for that vital role.
He will have to command respect across the spectrum of Anglicanism.
He will have to appeal to American traditionalists in particular.
He will be Rowan Williams' trouble-shooter - responsible for stopping disputes about issues such as homosexuality before they take on a life of their own.
Whoever is appointed to personify the unprecedented discipline and "structure" in the Anglican Communion, and whether or not Rowan Williams' gamble pays off, it seems a little bit of church history will be made at Lambeth 2008 after all.
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