The church, widely acknowledged as having been founded in earnest by Elizabeth I (Queen of England and daughter of Henry VIII), was ironically rocked beginning in the 1970s over the role of women who felt called to serve as priests and bishops. Older Anglican Churches in Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the US (where the church is known as the Episcopal Church) have generally been more progressive than their younger, growing, and more Evangelically-flavored Anglican counterparts in central Africa and Latin America.
During Williams’ tenure, disagreements over homosexuality divided the church into liberal and conservative elements, and Williams was often perceived as placating conservative demands (The Archbishop of Canterbury is a spiritual leader, but lacks the ‘authority’ wielded by the Roman Catholic Pope.) Nonetheless, conservative churches remained dissatisfied, and began a process of slow withdrawal from the communion during the last decade, lead by Anglican Churches in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, and the “Southern Cone” (most of Latin America and the Caribbean) and joined by 10 conservative American dioceses.
Perhaps no greater display of the divide can be shown than by comparing the reactions of Caroline Hall, President of Integrity (an Episcopalian GLBT organization) and David Virtue, an American firebrand who has served as a self-appointed internet communication headquarters for the conservative movement:
Caroline Hall:
"This decade has arguably been the most tumultuous time for Anglicans since the end of the English Civil War. It has been an incredibly difficult time to be Archbishop of Canterbury, officially the ‘Instrument of Unity’ in an Anglican Communion struggling with disunity and at times outright hostility.
When he was elected we had high hopes that Rowan Williams would be willing to take a bold stand on LGBT inclusion. Those hopes were dashed almost immediately when he bowed to conservative pressure and forced Jeffrey John, an English gay man in a celibate relationship, to step down from his nominations as Bishop of Reading. We were also disappointed by his failure to respect Episcopal Church polity and his failure to invite and welcome the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, to the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Bishops. In his attempts to keep everyone at the table, Williams has proved more willing to listen to conservative than to liberal voices, even though his own theological position is more progressive."
"I certainly admire his ability to stay in this position for a decade. To be called to leadership in the middle of rapid and contentious change is never easy and Williams has been the target for acrimonious letters and emails since he was first elected."
"Integrity wishes him well in his new position and prays that when God calls the next Archbishop he will be a forward-looking person of great courage who understands that to be the Instrument of Unity may not mean keeping everyone together in a unholy alliance. We hope [we]…will not bow to the forces who seek to keep the Church of England, and by example, the rest of the Anglican Communion, in the dark ages where women, gays, lesbians and trans-people are not welcome in the House of Bishops and thus are not welcome at all."
David Virtue:
"From the moment he took office, Dr. Rowan Williams' tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury was marked by uncertainty, controversy and unacceptable compromises to global orthodox Anglicans…..For almost a decade it has been a rocky, quarrelsome road for Dr. Williams, culminating in one third of his archbishops and bishops failing to show up at Lambeth 2008 [Ed: a meeting of the world's Anglican Bishops]. A third of his African, Southern Cone and Asian bishops failed to show up in Dublin last year when the world's Anglican Archbishops met. It was billed as a "crisis summit". As the majority of orthodox Anglican Primates failed to show, it was not a summit and a crisis was averted.
In Dromantine in 2005, Williams faced excoriation from both sides. He was accused of being weak and ineffectual by then US Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold for not standing up to Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola over homosexuality, while the Global South Primates continued their distancing from Dr. Williams. Relationships became so estranged that the Primates would not take Eucharist together.
…Williams has warned that the Anglican Communion faces a "piece-by-piece dissolution" if member churches fail to avoid actions that upset others. Many believe that his failure to act or to offer a definitive word on pressing moral issues has contributed to the dissolution.
…Dr. Williams' long struggle to prevent a schism over women and gay bishops and same-sex unions has been a high wire act that has no resolution. Orthodox Anglicans in the West and the vast majority of the Global South are deeply entrenched in Scripture's prohibition of any form of sexual expression outside of marriage between a man and a woman, while Western liberal provinces embrace pansexuality with first a homosexual and then a lesbian bishop [Mary Glasspool, consecrated in the Diocese of Los Angeles on May 15, 2010] consecrated in The Episcopal Church...
[If the new Archbishop] is a liberal, it will only ratchet up the continuing and ongoing realignment now firmly underway. If he is an evangelical, he will need a spine of steel to stand up to the Country's growing and very strident homosexual and Islamist lobby especially in the Church of England...Whichever way it goes one thing is certain, there will be no stopping the rise of the Global South with its millions of evangelical Anglicans and the slow but inevitable death of Western Anglicanism if it does not repent of its sin. And that it would seem, is not going to happen."
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