With uncanny foresight, the 1948 Lambeth Conference declared: "Former Lambeth Conferences have wisely rejected proposals for a formal primacy of Canterbury... authority which binds the Anglican Communion together is therefore seen to be moral and spiritual, resting on the truth of the Gospel, and on a charity which is patient and willing to defer to the common mind."

"The face of Christianity is undergoing a fundamental transformation," Sam George, the director of the Global Diaspora Institute at Wheaton College, told me. "What is happening in America is just a part of a larger transformation because Christianity is getting a new face. It is getting more Black and brown and yellow."

And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, "If you are returning to the LORD with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines." So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the LORD only.... Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen.

Later, in 1994, several faithful men, led by the Rev Dr David Samuel, founded the Church of England Continuing at a meeting at St Mary's, Castle Street, Reading. The given reasons for this move were as a reaction against the use of contemporary-language liturgies (particularly the 1980 Alternative Service Book) and the recently approved ordination of women as priests. There were many other biblical and doctrinal matters which lay behind their action.