They are, for one thing, prone to splinter. Rather than rally around a single standard and build a viable group of dissenters who can survive and prosper, Anglicans have preferred to split into several tiny, non-viable groups that are barely visible and hardly missed.

Until recently, fragmentation seemed to be the strategy du jour of traditionalists in the current Anglican crisis. This crisis was precipitated by the decision of the Episcopal Church to consecrate a divorced non-celibate gay man as the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire and to allow the blessing of same-sex unions. A minority of Episcopalians in the U.S. and a majority of Anglicans worldwide disagreed strongly with this decision and set about to scupper it.

Offshore Anglican archbishops, mainly in Africa, came to the rescue of American traditionalists by offering membership in their own traditionalist provinces. It seemed like an almost perfect solution for American conservatives. Africans provided them with new missionary bishops to oversee their congregations in the United States, while providing a way for former Episcopalians to remain (more or less) in unbroken communion with the archbishop of Canterbury.

But therein lies the rub. The problem was not that American traditionalists lacked friends overseas but rather that they seemed to have far too many of them, including sympathetic archbishops from Bolivia and Singapore. By August, conservatives could choose between missionary bishops from Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya -- and many of them did. Once again an Anglican dissenting group seemed headed toward fragmentation and diminished influence.

That is, until Sept. 27-28, when Anglican conservatives made a move toward greater unity among themselves. Bishops and bishops-elect from the Episcopal Church, the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Anglican Mission in America, the Anglican Province of America, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, the Anglican Network in Canada, as well as missionary bishops from Uganda and Kenya met in Pittsburgh as a Common Cause College of Bishops.

According to a joint statement, the bishops "repented" of the divisions that had existed among them and vowed to meet every six months as a continuing College of Bishops. Their primary agenda was to unite as soon as possible the divided Anglican groups of which they were representatives into one undivided church. Toward that end the participating bishops agreed to share clergy across the lines that still separated them.

Among the supporters in principle of this agreement were several dissenting bishops of the Episcopal Church, who proposed to bring their dioceses with them, including (one assumes) titles to church property. The dioceses present were Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, Quincy, Western Kansas, Springfield and Albany.

If successful, the new Anglican Church would have more than 600 congregations, a large enough constituency to be viable. It would also enjoy the backing of most of the archbishops from the Southern Hemisphere, who oversee the fastest-growing area in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion.

On the other hand, success is not automatically guaranteed and good intentions, however laudable, are not accomplished deeds. To begin with, the Episcopal Church is unlikely to allow several of its dioceses to secede lock, stock, and thurible without contesting property rights, the outcome of which is uncertain.

Moreover, there are continuing disagreements among conservatives, especially over the question of whether women should be ordained. While the Common Cause bishops promised to respect their differences on this issue, it is difficult to see how some decsions can be postponed forever -- unless the new church is merely a confederation of two churches under one banner.

Still, there is no reason to predict failure. There has, for example, been a small but steady stream of evangelicals into Anglican churches in recent years (especially into evangelical parishes). They were drawn by the beauty of the liturgy, the pervasive sense of historical roots that evangelical churches often lack, a deep commitment to a thinking faith, and the satisfying conviction that they were members of a genuinely catholic as well as a lively evangelical church.

It was a winning combination in the past. No reason to think it could not be in the future.

David C. Steinmetz is the Amos Ragan Kearns Professor of the History of Christianity at The Divinity School at Duke University in Durham, N.C. He wrote this commentary for the Orlando Sentinel.

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