ULTIMATUM: The Rt. Rev. James Stanton, Bishop of Dallas, leads prayer at the American Anglican Council convention last week
Like other mainline denominations in the U.S., the Episcopal Church is deeply split over questions of gay ordination and marriage. But in August in Minneapolis, at its triennial General Convention, it appeared to become the first to implode over the issue, as 62 of its 107 normally conflict-averse leaders confirmed the election of a popular, openly gay priest named V. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. Outraged, more than a dozen bishops rejected the vote and threatened to remove their congregations permanently.
The possibility of such a schism sent shock waves through the 70-million-strong Anglican Communion, the global network of churches descended from the Church of England. In recent years, the Communion's power base has shifted from liberal-but-shrinking Western churches to booming, socially conservative Third World congregations, and most of the primates who lead the burgeoning provinces sided with the anti-Robinson camp. The Minneapolis vote came a month after openly gay priest Jeffrey John renounced his appointment as a Church of England bishop following a similar outcry, and on the heels of an even more controversial decision by a Canadian diocese to bless gay unions. With Anglican unity at stake, Williams called this week's two-day primates' meeting in London. Participants at the Dallas meeting predicted one of two possible outcomes: the voluntary or involuntary replacement of Robinson; or a departure by conservatives, who will pull their members and their money out of Episcopalianism and join the Third World bishops in a new Anglican alignment.
However overambitious those dreams may be, momentum favors the conservatives. No one knows precisely how issues will be decided at the closed-door meeting; but handicappers number the conservative bloc at 20 to 25 of the 38 primates. Until the last few weeks, Nigeria's Archbishop Peter Akinola had threatened to lead like-minded churches out of the Communion if it were too lenient on the U.S. But he apparently no longer feels the need. "We are not breaking away," Akinola told TIME. "It is the heretics who will leave the church; we will send them away if they do not repent." Added Archbishop of Tanzania Donald Mtetemela, "If it means cutting off the leg because it is no use, then the Lord will lead us to do that."
There was a time when the conservatives might have settled for a less severe amputation. Some had favored the establishment of two parallel-but-hostile Anglican bodies in the U.S. But, emboldened by the prospect of victory, this faction, too, has hardened its stance. Says the Rev. Canon David Anderson, head of the American Anglican Council, which organized the Dallas meeting: "The [American] church is now apostate, and the stakes are higher."
Similarly, there was a moment after his appointment in 2002 when liberals pinned their hopes on Williams. As a respected bishop-theologian, he had said in the past that stable and faithful same-sex relationships might be legitimate in God's eyes. But since his enthronement in February, he has taken a tougher line, emphasizing the need to consider how one church's choices can impact those in other nations. Two weeks ago, after meeting with Pope John Paul II, Williams told Vatican Radio that Anglican teachings on sexuality were the same as those of the Roman Catholic Church (which calls it an "objective disorder"). The statement — and his successful effort to convince John to renounce his appointment — suggested that Williams has subordinated his own views to sustaining ecumenical ties and protecting the Communion from a mass withdrawal — which, as Duncan said, would leave him "the titular head of a moribund and declining British, American and Australian sect."