Part 295. Let’s be pragmatic. (3)

For many years the Church of England has been an uneasy collection of Liberals, Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals.  For the most part the disparate groups rubbed along  with varying degrees of suspicion.  

The uneasy calm was shattered by moves to ordain women as priests and later to become  bishops.  An uneasy alliance of Anglo-Catholics and conservative Evangelicals blocked progress for years and eventually caved in in return for structural change in the form of alternative episcopal oversight otherwise known colloquially as 'flying bishops'. Pragmatism rather than principle triumphed, although there were some Anglo-Catholics who jumped ship and landed on the deck of the Roman Catholic Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Some Evangelicals joined Gafcon.

In the past few years a major division has opened up over the issue of blessings of same-sex marriages and the position of clergy in non-platonic, same-sex civil marriages. The division and acrimony  is on public display in the General Synod.  The outcome is uncertain.  There is talk of schism, of a new province.  Will pragmatism triumph or will there be more departures from the Church on a matter of principle? Will there be a spurious unity that does not accord with the reality?