A House Divided

A decade ago it was women priests; now it's gay clergy. The Church of England is embroiled in another anguished dispute that pits liberals against conservatives and evangelicals, and threatens to split the 70-million-strong worldwide Anglican Communion apart. The trigger: Bishop of Oxford Richard Harries' appointment of a gay man as Bishop of Reading.

Arguments over homosexuality in the priesthood have simmered for years, even as a blind eye has been turned to the fact that some members of the clergy are gay. But the appointment in May of Jeffrey John, canon theologian at London's Southwark Cathedral and...