Yes, well done to these churches for still being overtly homophobic. What is the world coming to if members of the clergy can't practice their vilification of minority groups based on some arbitrary text from a book of badly compiled bronze age myths?

The same book singles out the handicapped and advocates killing those who swear, work on the Sabbath or are children of the wrong faith. Maybe once the homosexuals are dealt with you can start on them?

Barry, Newbury, Berks

If the Episcopal Church had a real leader, a cathechism, a doctrine they wouldn't be in this position. But the Anglican and Episcopalian Communions threw out the designated leader, the cathechism, the doctrine, and those who strive to keep the Church true to Jesus (remember Him?) and to the teaching of the Apostles. They opted for interpretation of scripture by individual people, rather than having central tenets that can be traced back to the New Testament Church. I feel very sorry for all the people being hurt through this. There is a Church that strives to keep true to the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the Bible. It's called the Roman Catholic Church.

Deborah, South Salt Lake, USA/Utah

When the US and Canada chose to ignore the common stand of the anglican communion on sexuality, and the failure of lambeth to issue a clear rebuke and order a moratorium at least as a temperory means, I knew that was the end of what we know as a global Anglican Communion.
The Americans started the disobedience, who will and how will others who disobey now and in the future be asked to answer for their actions. It is time for the leadership of the Anglican communion to think harder and act now and stop pretending that the crisis will just go away with time or change of leaders. I write as a saddened Anglican and ask in the name of God that Lambeth should stop its silence and letting the fathful down
Our eyes at the moment are fixed at Lambeth.

Duku Chaplain, Melbourne, Australia

John Henry Newman, as an Anglican, saw this inevitable and sad divison of the Communion coming 150 years ago.

The structure of the Anglican Communion will not hold in the face of doctrinal challenge, he discerned, because it does not have a magisterium capable of deciding issues of faith and order definitively.

Newman's option, costly to him, has proven to be the right one. He sought to enter into fuller communion, not to wound the body of Christ with yet another divison.

As an Anglican he saw himself part of the universal body of Christ - the one holy catholic and apostolic Church. He was led to accept what Vatican II untimately stated: that all baptized Christians are part of the Catholic Church, though, sadly, not in full communion. All must seek a more profound unity with the universal community of Christ who prayed 'that they all may be one'.

This is the ministry of Peter and his successors to which Newman and others turn so that unity may overcome estrangement.

John Hodgins, Toronto, Canada

Good for Stacy Sauls! If these congregations choose to break off more power to them...but please empty your pockets and close the door quietly on the way out. I would certainly hope that these individuals make no claim on any property belonging to the American Episcopal church. They have chosen to turn their backs on their fellow parishoners and communities and seek solace from across the sea from those who share their divisive and intolerant views. To simultaneously portray themselves as victims would be disingenuous at best.

Ca, Chico, CA, USA

Why not just let the churches pull themselves apart over an issue most of the rest of the population resolved decades ago? It's a funny sort of moral leadership we're being offered here.

Toby Martin, Munich, Germany

I respect the steps these "renegade" churches have taken. In trying to become all things to all people, the "Nothern" Anglican Church has slowly become an irrelevant relic of the past. How else does one explain the declining church congregations here in the "developed" world while the developing world is experiencing an unprescedented explosion in attendance.

The time has come for the Church to reassert itself as a religious body, and not a mere social club, pandering to every whim of the media and this wider society. Every man has the freedom of association and freedom of religion - if one cannot abide by the tenets of the Bible, one must find some other accommodating club.

Osei K., London,

Yesterday, the lawyer/bishop of Lexington (Ky), Stacy Sauls, sent out a missal asking for names of parishes who have turned to Africa for oversight. Sauls is in charge of the national committee for "defending the faith" which means suing the pants of clergy AND lay volunteers in parishes who seek such oversight. The fear of litigation has replaced the love of Christ as the glue that holds our church together.

robroy, Pueblo, USA/Co