GAY BISHOPS, women bishops, American liberals, African conservatives — it is little wonder that the Anglican Communion cites irreconcilable differences as it contemplates divorce.

It would not be its first failed marriage. Conceived by royal infidelity, the Church of England has gone through so many marital break-ups that, when next it seeks a union, it may qualify only for the secular rites of the register office.

Take, for instance, the terrible schism after the divisive Gorham Judgment in 1850. The trouble began three years before when Henry Phillpotts, the High Church Bishop of Exeter, refused to approve the appointment of a supposed Evangelical, George Cornelius Gorham, as vicar of Brampford Speke, a crown incumbency in his diocese.

The Bishop suspected Gorham’s theology was at odds with Anglican doctrine. To prove the point, he subjected Gorham to an eight-day inquisition during which he discovered that the vicar thought that infant baptism did not necessarily guarantee the regeneration of Christian rebirth. Shocked by such heresy, the bishop vetoed Gorham’s selection.

Evangelicals were appalled. It seemed a bishop could exclude any clergyman with whom he disagreed. Thus the battlelines were drawn. At a time when Irish Catholic immigration and the growth of Nonconformism increasingly challenged its dominance, should the Established Church respond by seeking certainty and one voice or should it confess that its doctrines were a free-for-all?

Gorham next took his case to the judicial committee of the Privy Council. This horrified those who thought such doctrinal matters should be decided by a theological convocation rather than the State. Fearing the worst, High Churchmen complained fruitlessly that the Lord Chancellor was the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister. Whichever way the ruling went would probably have resulted in schism. In the event, the judgment favoured Gorham.

Queen Victoria clapped her hands in delight. The Archbishop of Canterbury was quietly relieved. But the Bishop of Exeter looked foolish by threatening to excommunicate the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Anglo-Catholic wing was particularly aggrieved. Archdeacon Robert Wilberforce suggested to Archdeacon Henry Edward Manning that they set up a breakaway Free Church of England. Manning replied, “No. Three hundred years ago we left a good ship for a boat; I am not going to leave the boat for a tub.” So off the discontented trooped to Rome — where John Henry Newman had already gone before them.

It may be that the Anglican Communion can only survive its latest bust-up by a decision to live amicably apart. But, let us pray this tale of a tub will not be rechristened the Mary Celeste.

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