Yesterday's retreat from schism reflects the Communion's pluralism, writes Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent
The decision yesterday by 37 Primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion to "deeply regret" the actions of, rather than expel, Anglican churches in the US and Canada is but the latest example of how this extraordinary body can seemingly do the impossible. It has almost squared the circle yet again, albeit while making clear the anger of the Communion at the "unilateral" action of the North Americans and the implicit threat that if the consecration of Canon Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as Bishop of New Hampshire goes ahead, there will be consequences.
It has for now, and against the forecasts, contained division while not suppressing it and illustrated once more how it can accommodate remarkable diversity without breaking apart. How long it can do so is not clear, but the very fact that it has survived this week's two-day summit intact is a huge plus.
Although it remains unclear what the more conservative Anglican churches will do if Canon Robinson is ordained, their actions are now expected to be tempered by the fact that even the most conservative Primates agreed to yesterday's outcome, which was unanimous.
That outcome has once more confounded those many commentators who were confidently predicting that the Communion would split this week at Lambeth Palace. The summit was called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to heal the crisis precipitated by the election of Canon Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire last August.
That followed last May's decision by Canada's New Westminster diocese to approve same-sex blessings and the crisis in Britain during the summer over the nomination of the openly gay Canon Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading. He withdrew his acceptance of the post after a campaign by traditionalists within the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Leading up to this week's summit, commentators drew attention to the vehemence of criticisms that followed those decisions emanating from other Anglican churches as well as the calls for expulsion of the Episcopalian church from the Communion by churches in Australia, Africa - Nigeria in particular - and among evangelicals in the UK and the US.
Indeed, no less a figure than Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, got in on the act with a most surprising intervention in the affairs of another church, and one which he would not honour with such a title but, rather, refers to as an "ecclesial community".
Almost 2,600 Episcopalians from all over the US mobilised to oppose the Robinson appointment and voted to repudiate his appointment. It was an "unbiblical and schismatic" action, they said.
Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: "I hasten to assure you of my heartfelt prayers for all those taking part in this convocation. The significance of your meeting is sensed far beyond [Dallas\] and even in this city \, from which St Augustine of Canterbury was sent to confirm and strengthen the preaching of Christ's gospel in England . . . I pray God's will may be done by all those who seek that unity in the truth, the gift of Christ himself."
On a visit to Rome earlier this month, Archbishop Rowan Williams was reminded by the Pope of the further difficulties that would be presented where progress towards church unity was concerned if homosexual clergy were accepted in the Anglican tradition.
Similar concerns were expressed by the Vatican before Anglicans voted in favour of women priests in 1988, another "square" controversy naysayers predicted would burst open the Communion's "circle".
What many people failed to recognise is that accommodation of difference is the very essence of Anglicanism. This is a particularly difficult concept to embrace for those who think in terms of exclusivity when it comes to matters of divine truth. And that applies whatever the denomination.
It can also lead to situations where Anglicans can be mocked, particularly by evangelicals and the Catholic right, for their "fuzziness", for being "market-led" or even, and very unfairly, for "relativism" in their beliefs. Which is to misunderstand profoundly - and possibly wilfully in instances - what Anglicanism is about.
It is doubtful whether adherents of any other church - or faith - on this island would have the honesty and humility to acknowledge a truth clear to most open minds where all systems of belief are concerned, that it "is one of many valid expressions of Christian faith, and that even those \ who thought that the Church [of Ireland\] 'taught truer doctrines' did not believe this meant the Church [of Ireland\] had a monopoly on Christian teaching".
That quotation is from a scoping study on sectarianism conducted within the church. Titled The Hard Gospel, it was published at the General Synod in Dublin last May.
It is this humility before truth that allows Anglicanism to be so accommodating of difference within. On our own island it has allowed a situation where people of such diverse political allegiance as former Unionist MP Willie Ross, Green Party leader Trevor Sargent, the Labour Party's Jan O'Sullivan, and former Fine Gael TD and minister Ivan Yates, can worship together.
Indeed it is this very accommodation of diversity which makes it such a unique and invaluable institution in Ireland, where it is also a minority church in both jurisdictions though the largest Reformed denomination on the island.
A report to this year's General Synod in Dublin defined what the Anglican "Communion" meant. It described it as "the irresistible summons to a difficult, trans-community, trans-cultural, and perhaps unending endeavour, an imperative of our common belief which reflects the Gospel's praise for those who would forge peace in our midst".
The globalised nature of Anglicanism meant that its communities "witnessing in diverse contexts will witness in diverse ways".
Such diversity only became threatening "where the notion of communion is held to be of value as a system for the theological coercion of the other and where the partiality and provisionality of all theological reflection has been forgotten".
When that happened there was "the possibility of theological rupture", such as could have happened this week. That occurred when "bonds of affection become bonds of restriction, and the 'struggle' of communion was thereby no longer dynamic and creative". The "Communion" then assumed "demonic form".
It continued that "to be an Anglican in the current global situation is to embrace the plural while resisting the relative. To be Anglican in the current global situation is to grasp the distinction between Babel and Pentecost."
It could be said that the Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath and Kildare, the Most Rev Richard Clarke, was interpreting that understanding in a local context when he told an Irish Association conference in Armagh last Saturday that he firmly held "the view that there is one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and that within that church there are rather a large number of traditions - a Roman Catholic tradition, an Orthodox tradition, an Anglican tradition, a Presbyterian tradition, a Baptist tradition and so on. I wouldn't put too high a wall or too unyielding a wall around the church."
Erecting walls is not the Anglican way.