If only more members of the Anglican Communion displayed as much humility as Rowan Williams, who signs himself endearingly in one of these letters as “an averagely muddled bishop”. And if only Dr Williams could display just a little less humility in his job of leading the Church, the current stand-off in the Communion might have more chance of being resolved.

Until now, Anglicans knew Dr Williams, in his personal views, to be a liberal on the matter of gay relationships, but the evidence rested only on a rather oblique argument, set out in an essay nearly 20 years ago. These letters, however, make a much stronger and clearer case for Christians to be accepting of homosexuality, since they challenge the very scriptural basis of the Biblical prohibitions on gay sex. Dr Williams concludes that passages describing homosexuality as sinful are referring to promiscuous homosexuality by heterosexuals, rather than committed relationships between two people who are gay by nature.

This is a respectable point for an eminent theologian to argue, and it is a great pity that he has not been brave enough to argue it as Archbishop of Canterbury. Instead he has, if anything, sided with the conservatives. “I find myself personally in a difficult situation,” he admits in the letter, “between the pressures of the clear majority view in my Church [and] my own theological convictions.”

The majority view in the Church was also once against interest-bearing bank accounts, condoms and women priests. Scripture was cited in all three cases to support the conservatives' case. In the end, the arguments were won, for the Church must eventually reflect the society within which it works.

It is not as if members of the Communion did not know Dr Williams was a liberal when they chose him. And, despite Africans' claims that the process was a colonial imposition, they did choose him: although the appointment was formally made by the Queen on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, the Archbishop's name was put forward by an electoral college made up of Church members. It consulted widely, in a process that took far longer than a papal convocation, and was endorsed by a meeting of all the Anglican primates in the Communion. As Anthony Sadler, the then Archbishops' Secretary for Appointments, wrote to The Times yesterday about the meeting of the primates: “I have never attended a meeting where the presence of the Holy Spirit was so clearly and movingly in evidence.”

“We were elected as new Labour and we will govern as new Labour,” was Tony Blair's oft-incanted phrase whenever party activists put pressure on him to give in to their more left-wing demands.

“I was elected as a liberal and will govern as a liberal,” should be Dr Williams's mantra too. Members of the Anglican Communion knew what they were getting. They expected him to be liberal in office.

Instead, he has sacrificed his beliefs for the quixotic goal of Anglican unity. Even that has not satisfied the hardline conservatives. That they seem determined to crucify him now is a tragedy. He is so much more than an “averagely muddled bishop”, for all his protestations. He should have the confidence of his beliefs; and he should be given the space to propound them.

Times Recommends

• In the real world, the public sector must pay
• Playing politics in a land of double Dutch
• Be like the plinth people: not set in stone