As one example of the financial crisis brought on by the majority of bishops endorsing sodomy, the Episcopal cathedral in the Diocese of Western Michigan, built in 1969, had to be sold to a new and biblically faithful non-Episcopal local church.

Did the national Episcopal Church headquarters in Manhattan devote any of its income or trust funds to try to help avoid the loss of this cathedral in Michigan?

I have known Dawkins for more than 20 years; we are both Oxford professors. I believe if anyone is "immune to argument" it is him. He comes across as a dogmatic, aggressive propagandist.

The American presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, condemned this poaching of souls on her turf as a violation of the "ancient customs of the church." To which the archbishop replied, in essence: Since when have you American liberals given a fig about the ancient customs of the church?

Such conflicts used to be decided in the Church of England by the king putting someone in the Tower of London. That does not appear to be an option in this case.

In some ways, it gives Canterbury a curious kind of papal individuality, but without any obvious theological or scriptural warrant. At the same time, it undermines the ecumenical capacity of Anglicanism. It is also not clear how the Primates Meeting would bring these various disputants and communion-fractured entities together under a single presidency.