A leading Anglican bishop has condemned conservatives as "demonic" for using his church as a punch bag.

The Bishop of Washington, the Right Rev John Chane, a leading liberal in the Episcopal Church in the United States, accused conservatives of leading the church in a "dangerous" direction.

Bishop Chane, whose diocese covers the American capital, said: "I think it's really very dangerous when someone stands up and says, 'I have the way and I have the truth and I know how to interpret holy scripture and you are following what is the right way.'

"I think it's really very, very dangerous and I think it's demonic ... the Episcopal Church has been demonised. It has been a punching bag and I'm sick of being a punching bag as a Bishop and I'm sick of my church, my province being a punching bag. Do we deserve criticism, absolutely. No question about it."

The history of the Lambeth Conference

Our historical guide traces the origins and issues that dominated the agenda at past Lambeth conferences

From the Times Archive, 1867

The first Lambeth Conference had its issues, but participants hoped future meetings would evoke the same fraternal spirit

• 1920 Conference: Birth Control

• 1958 Conference: Family Planning

• 1978 Conference: Ordination Of Women

Multimedia

• Full coverage of Lambeth Conference 2008

• Articles of faith: Ruth Gledhill's blog

• Video: Archbishop of Canterbury on Lambeth 2008

Related Links

• 'Church within a church' for conservatives

• 200 bishops spurn Lambeth Conference

Multimedia

• The Lambeth Diary

Bishop Chane is one of the 125 bishops from the Episcopal Church attending the Lambeth Conference, a gathering of 650 Anglican bishops from 38 provinces around the world in Canterbury.

About 230 bishops, mainly from the Global South provinces of Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya, are boycotting the conference because of the liberal direction of the Western church on sexuality and the Bible. More than 290 conservatives, including most of the 230, attended the recent Global Anglican Future Conference, or Gafcon, in Jerusalem which set up an alternative Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans to rival the official structures of the Anglican Communion.

Bishop Chane was talking to a BBC2 documentary on Gafcon, Battle of the Bishops, to be broadcast soon.

Dr Peter Akinola, the Nigerian primate, who is among those boycotting Lambeth, told the BBC: "Gafcon is a rescue mission - it is our duty to rescue whatever is left of the church from error, from all those, whoever they are, who have chosen to mutilate, to distort and to even deny the Gospel and to preach something different from what we know."

The Archbishop of Jos, in Nigeria, Benjamin Kwashi, another Lambeth boycotter and a man tipped as a likely successor to Dr Akinola, criticised the last Lambeth conference, held ten years ago. He said: "At Lambeth 98 we were looking for a place where we could cry our hearts out and pray and look for the support of the wider Church who would bless us and pray for us. You don't need much money, you just need some words of encouragement. Those things were absent.

"Respect is earned. When it is thrown away, gathering it can be difficult. From the Mother Church of England, there is the assumption that therefore we can do anything and Africans will automatically come with us, or respect us. I think that is an insult.

"So now Gafcon is an alternative to that, where we can cry together, look at our struggles, HIV and Aids problems, infant mortality, all those issues that dehumanise us as Africans. The wider Anglican world, if you ask my opinion, don't want to listen to us.'

BBC 2's This World: Battle of the Bishops is on July 21 at 7pm.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• The bright side of this winter rain
• Story behind the picture: Snow Leopard, 2008
• Times Charity Appeal: The Place2Be