Dear Giles,

When we headed this correspondence 'Waiting for Goddards' I never imagined I would leave you waiting six months for a reply and I am really sorry that only now are you getting a response to your letter of 25th March. As you know from personal conversations we've had this is not because of any offence taken or because I thought our correspondence had ended but simply due to other major pressures I've been under. I jotted down notes on your piece almost immediately but never got round to putting them together in a letter. Then I lost them and so I did the exercise again in early summer. I then found the originals but again lacked necessary time and energy to draw things together. I was delighted when you were in touch in early August to ask about starting up the conversation again but sadly I could not get a letter written to you in the few days before going on holiday. A further attempt to get going at the end of August also ran aground as other things took over and so I've decided to start again from scratch.

Although there is much I could say - especially now I've found two sets of notes! - in response to your letter (can you remember what you said?) I now think it best to put all that on one side (hopefully not for ever - I am particularly interested in exploring more the crucial question of whether or not and in what ways my 'misunderstanding of the nature and being of lesbian and gay people is so profound' that you are 'not clear how we can, usefully, continue to discuss' the issue of homosexuality). Instead of picking up that conversation now I thought I'd write about the coming weeks in the light of all the developments since we last wrote to each other: Lambeth (non-) invitations, responses to draft covenant, new bishops in US etc.

We've both I guess got used to imminent events in the Communion being described as crucial, decisive, historic etc from General Convention 2003 through Lambeth Emergency Primates' Meeting and Gene Robinson's consecration to the publication of the Windsor Report and then the ongoing Windsor Process including the Dromantine Primates' Meeting, the Nottingham ACC, General Convention 2006, Tanzania Primates' Meeting etc. Each of these has been heralded by many as a watershed, the time for resolution or realignment and each has come and gone and generated its own new set of challenges and further impairments within the life of the Communion. I guess the TEC House of Bishops next week and the September 30th deadline may prove simply another similar crisis that passes without being qualitatively different from these others and yet there are clear signs that indeed things may be at a major crossroads.

For me, the significance and urgency of these next few days and weeks is in part because of the clear and specific, time-limited requests to TEC from the Primates and their warning that "if the reassurances requested of the House of Bishops cannot in good conscience be given, the relationship between The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole remains damaged at best, and this has consequences for the full participation of the Church in the life of the Communion". With Lambeth now less than a year away if there are indeed to be 'consequences for...full participation' it is clear the Primates will either have to eat their words or action will have to be taken by the Instruments sooner rather than later.

There is also the rapid rise in interventions within TEC and these now increasingly in the form not of taking parishes for a period under a foreign jurisdiction but of consecrations to the episcopate. When such consecrations began over 7 years ago, the then Archbishop of Canada, (in)famously remarked, "Bishops are not intercontinental ballistic missiles, manufactured on one continent and fired into another as an act of aggression". There now looks dangerously like an episcopal equivalent of an arms race developing as Nigeria (having followed Rwanda in establishing a US mission wing with its own bishop in Martyn Minns) have announced four more bishops (despite CANA having only 60 congregations and 80 clergy requiring oversight), Rwanda another 3 AMiA bishops, while Kenya and Uganda have recently joined in and elected and already consecrated new suffragan bishops to serve American parishes under their province's jurisdiction. Linked together under Common Cause and meeting as what looks like a potential proto-college of bishops just after TEC's House of Bishops and just before the African provinces of CAPA gather in early October, it now seems TEC's claim to be the sole structural representative of Anglicanism in the US is unsustainable, especially if a number of dioceses shortly seek to remove themselves and become part - as whole dioceses - of another Anglican province. While this is, of course, simply the latest in a long line of defections and breakaways over the last 30 or 40 years, the fact these are fully integrated into other provinces of the Communion and their leadership apparently committed to working together in mission and ministry mean we are now clearly in uncharted waters for the Communion and its unity. These "interventions by some of our number and by bishops of some Provinces, against the explicit recommendations of the Windsor Report, however well-intentioned, have exacerbated this situation" (Primates at Dar) and I wish they had not happened and would now be stopped. However, they will only come to an end and the bishops and congregations somehow reintegrated and made regular within an ordered church if the American bishops next week change course.

My hope and prayer is therefore obviously that TEC's bishops will respond clearly and positively to the request of the Primates. That will require them to reverse their initial rejection of the proposed Pastoral Scheme (which rash rejection, to be honest, played into the hands of those eager for more interventions, certainly in the case of Kenya and Uganda who were happy to work with the Scheme as a means of providing oversight for their American congregations). They will also need clearly to give the assurances sought[1] as to the effect of the actions of General Convention 2006 (and I don't think they are being asked to unconstitutionally usurp or 'trump' Convention but simply to interpret its ambiguous resolutions and to make commitments clearly within their remit as bishops - episcopal authorisation of rites and consent to elected candidates for the episcopate). Only this will enable the Primates at last to be "in a position to recognise that The Episcopal Church has mended its broken relationships".

Sadly, this outcome looks highly unlikely and so serious thought needs to be given to what happens next. I look forward to hearing how you think the Communion should respond to such an outcome but suspect you will call for a recognition of provincial autonomy and diversity in secondary matters, the need for ongoing respectful dialogue on both sexuality and the nature and structures of life in communion (especially as regards the proposed covenant), and the importance of Lambeth 2008 as a place where such dialogue can take place and bonds of affection be strengthened. As I write that - please forgive me for putting the words into your mouth and correct me where I am wrong! - I realise that stated in those general terms and abstracted from our recent history I could agree. The difficulty is that, as with the majority of the Communion, I don't at present see these as areas of legitimate diversity. I also honestly believe that if the dialogue and Lambeth conference we so urgently need is to be in the context of trust that will enable conversations to flourish and move everyone on from the current impasse then the American church must take the steps called for in the Windsor Report and reaffirmed consistently by all the Instruments of Communion.

What then do I think should happen if TEC fails to respond adequately? In one sense of course that is of little importance. TEC is responding to the Primates who in turn are simply following the mind of the Communion as expressed in TWR and its reception. It is, therefore, vital for the Primates as a body to determine - or at least be integrally involved in the determination of - the Communion's response. The Dar communiqué clearly stated that "the Primates request that the answer of the House of Bishops is conveyed to the Primates by the Presiding Bishop by 30th September 2007". Unless and until the Primates themselves act or establish some other authority to adjudicate and respond, I cannot see how any authoritative Communion response is possible. The danger of course is that the longer it takes to frame a response the more likely it is that provinces or groups of provinces will fill the vacuum and offer their own responses. My hope is therefore that any conclusion reached by the Joint Standing Committee meeting after the TEC House of Bishops is purely advisory and considered by the Primates as a whole either through a full Primates' Meeting or through some other form of consultation such as regional gatherings of Primates meeting to talk and pray and then communicate their deliberations to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The focus of any decision in response to TEC was also clearly stated in Dar - "consequences for the full participation of the Church in the life of the Communion" - and that must now relate to invitations to the Lambeth Conference. I personally think it of vital importance that Archbishop Rowan's letter with the original invitations included two key phrases (italics added below):

"I have said, and repeat here, that coming to the Conference does not commit you to accepting every position held by other bishops as equally legitimate or true. But I hope it does commit us all to striving together for a more effective and coherent worldwide body, working for God's glory and Christ's Kingdom. The Instruments of Communion have offered for this purpose a set of resources and processes, focused on the Windsor Report and the Covenant proposals. My hope is that as we gather we can trust that your acceptance of the invitation carries a willingness to work with these tools to shape our future. I urge you all most strongly to strive during the intervening period to strengthen confidence and understanding between our provinces and not to undermine it"

"At this point, and with the recommendations of the Windsor Report particularly in mind, I have to reserve the right to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion"

An inadequate or negative response to the Primates from the TEC House of Bishops must seriously undermine any trust in the wider Communion that the acceptance of invitations from bishops in that province does signal the willingness called for in relation to Windsor. Furthermore, the Archbishop of Canterbury is at liberty to consider withdrawing invitations (a scenario I don't recall ever being seriously raised before this letter mentioned it) if it is held that the actions of TEC's bishops have caused exceptionally serious division.

I guess one solution would simply be to determine that the patterns of broken and newly forming bonds of communion between the increasingly fractured US Anglicans and other provinces are now so complex, and the lack of resolve to address this internally within the US so serious, that all bishops ministering in the US must be treated differently from bishops in other provinces. That might mean withdrawal of all invitations, invitations to all but only on more limited terms (eg voice but no vote, only for a part not the whole of the conference), or invitation only to a small group of bishops who could represent the different and conflicting patterns of Anglicanism to the wider Communion. This way forward would have the advantage of containing, to a certain extent, the divisions within American Anglicanism that otherwise threaten to spread across the whole Communion. It would, in effect, put American Anglicanism in a form of quarantine and create a cordon sanitaire around the existing province (and any newly formed provincial structures) until the covenant hopefully provided an opportunity and means for renewing mutual recognition, revitalising the bonds of affection, and repairing the tear in the fabric of the Communion.

Another solution would be to recognise that invitations are from the Archbishop to individual bishops and that therefore decisions by or in relation to whole provinces are part of the current problem (as will perhaps become clear if some African provinces try to enforce a boycott on all their bishops). The Archbishop could therefore seek to distinguish somehow between those bishops in America who are genuinely committed to working with the Windsor and covenant process and those who are not and are instead conscientiously convinced they are called to support actions which result in serious division or scandal within the Communion. That differentation could be effected in various ways, for example, studying any roll-call vote next week among the bishops as they respond to the Primates or eliciting a more explicit personal commitment on the part of bishops to the willingness to work with Windsor spoken of in the initial letter of invitation (perhaps with reference to the Camp Allen principles or the Dar requests).

Of course, any of these 'solutions' is a sign of failure and brokenness and disobedience but I believe that is because each of them seeks to respond as adequately as possible and with some integrity to a situation which is itself palpably one of failure, brokenness and disobedience. We do look as if we are now in the situation where groups of Christians are determinedly and conscientiously convinced that they are being called by God to follow certain paths even though this results in damaging their bonds of communion and causing new levels of division within the body of Christ. I fervently hope these responses are not needed and some other outcome can be found, not least because of the effect of any of these on other parts of the Communion, especially here in the Church of England. Nevertheless, the only alternative I can currently envisage (unless the latest suggestion from Nigeria is taken up and Lambeth 2008 simply postponed) is effectively to say that the repeated and insistent refusal of the American church to heed the mind and appeals of the Communion since the last Lambeth Conference (in relation to both sexual ethics and the character of life in communion) has, in practice, no consequences for their participation in the life of the Communion. Such a response will likely lead to others parts of the Communion staying away from the Lambeth Conference and so undermining it. More fundamentally, it would amount to abandoning the whole substance, logic and dynamic of the Windsor Report and Process, disregarding the Instruments of Communion, and risking the destruction of any claim of Lambeth 2008 to be an instrument of communion. It would, in other words, likely mark the end of the Anglican Communion as we have known it.

I don't expect you to agree with that bleak analysis but I'd love to know where you think my line of thought is flawed given my commitment to Windsor. I'd especially love to know what alternatives you think there might be that are both consistent with that commitment and more likely to prevent the end of the Communion and enable the greater unity in truth and love for which we all seek and pray.

Of course, if you take as long to reply to this as I've taken to reply to your last, the Lambeth Conference will be just about to happen! Hopefully we can avoid that and return to our more frequent exchanges over the coming weeks and months. Perhaps, if nothing else, they can act as a hopeful sign that whatever happens in relation to the Instruments and structures of the Communion, ongoing conversation and personal commitment to deepening friendship and communion is possible and will continue whatever happens at the global and institutional level.

With all best wishes,

Andrew