Anglicans stand in the middle of "one of the most severe challenges” to have faced the Church in history, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams said last week.

He was speaking at the 14th Lambeth Conference which saw 650 bishops from 43 national churches and 164 countries gather at the University of Kent.

Rwanda’s Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini was not among them. In fact, a large number of primates and bishops were missing because of a boycott relating to biblical authority, homosexuality and gender roles.

The current fissures began a decade ago at the last Lambeth Conference with a controversial resolution about homosexual practice and the Bible.

The ordination of an openly gay bishop, the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson from New Hampshire in 2003, the election in 2005 of the first woman primate, the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori by the Episcopal Church, USA, and the recent General Synod vote for women bishops in England have heightened tensions at the current conference.

In his opening sermon this week Dr Williams said: "We need to get beyond the reciprocal impatience that shows itself in the ways in which both liberals and traditionalists are ready – almost eager at times, it appears – to assume that the other is not actually listening to Jesus.

"We also know that how we think about that unity is itself affected by the urgency of the calls on our compassion and imagination; some sorts of division undoubtedly will seem a luxury in the face of certain challenges – as many Christians in Germany found when confronted by Hitler. We have to think and pray hard about what the essentials really are.”

The sermon marked the official start of the conference and confirmed the liberal direction of the Church.

Archbishop Kolini was unable to attend the Lambeth Conference as a matter of conscience. Obedience to the Bible matters above anything else.

Homosexuality, he believes, has been banned by God: "God can’t accept this because it’s against the Bible. The norms of the Bible have been breached and therefore as a Church of God we can’t allow this.”

For the 230 bishops who declined to attend the Lambeth Conference, the problem is that the American church has blessed people in their disobedience to God.

For the Anglican Church, the problem is that these bishops represent over 30 million of the 55 million churchgoing Anglicans and their absence.

In the Archbishop of Canterbury’s words the Church is at a "deeply significant turning point”, there is little doubt over which way it will turn but less certain is how many will follow.

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