So in October 2004, there was considerable anticipation that something decisive might come forth. The 93-page Report did present, on first reading, an indictment of the actions of the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada. It called on those churches to "express regret" for their actions and to effect a "moratorium" on any further consecration of homosexuals or blessing of their partnerships.

But Windsor was just a Report, and the next step was the Primates' meeting in Ireland in late February 2005. The Primates' Communiqué, though wrapped in ecclesiastical jargon, did reaffirm Lambeth 1.10, asked the North American churches to withdraw from Communion organs until Lambeth 2008, and set up a Panel of Reference to handle beleaguered orthodox congregations.

The Episcopal House of Bishops then went through the motions of expressing "regret" (for consequences only). The Episcopal delegation, invited but not seated at the Anglican Consultative Council in June, defended the Church's actions, never once suggesting that it might have been wrong. In response, the ACC upheld the Primates' position and Lambeth 1.10. The Panel of Reference has gone AWOL, while conservative congregations and a whole diocese have sought protection under various Global South bishops.

Behind all the momentous meetings and breathless statements of the past year, the spiritual truth remains: the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada have erred and will not repent. Anyone who thinks the Windsor Report can wash away this fact is a Pollyanna. Anyone who lives inside these churches knows the truth: homosexuality is acculturated in these churches beyond return. They will not back down under any circumstances. They would rather die than change.

In this context one wonders at Archbishop Robin Eames's latest addresses, made at Virginia Theological Seminary - an institution which, by the way, has been admitting homosexual couples for the past eight years. These lectures constitute a masterpiece of liberal apologetics, capped off with the dramatic pronouncement that:

In my opinion the decisions of the House of Bishops in the Episcopal Church (USA) met that request [to "express regret" over the Gene Robinson consecration]. In fact looking at the precise wording of Windsor and the statements of the House of Bishops it is arguable the reaction exceeded what was asked for by the Windsor Report.

While Eames protests that this is just his personal opinion, one cannot ignore the fact that he is the senior Anglican prelate and Chairman of the Lambeth Commission that produced the Windsor Report.

Eames claims to be committed to the "Windsor process," but in any process there are certain non-negotiables. For the Global South, the non-negotiable is the conviction that homosexuality is contrary to Scripture. Clearly, Eames does not agree with the 1998 Lambeth Resolution. He never mentions it in his lectures and complains obliquely about the "failure to engage in dialogue on an agreed playing field between two apparently opposing views." Excuse me, Your Grace, but the playing field is tilted because of the clear teaching of Scripture, the consistent practice of the historic churches and the official action of the Anglican bishops gathered at Lambeth. No matter, apparently. He insinuates that those who hold this view are guilty of suppressing "questions which have perhaps lain submerged for too long in any healthy world debate in a world Church family."

The Archbishop has his own non-negotiables. He admits that "those members [of the Lambeth Commission] who held the liberal view could not have been expected to sign the Windsor Report if they had felt the Report's conclusions meant that the debate on the Church's attitude to human sexuality was closed." Here the Achilles' heel of the Windsor process is exposed, for by abjuring judgement on the issue at hand, the Commission had to nibble around the edges of church polity. In the Windsor world, doctrinal and moral essentials are a matter of "he said, she said," and repentance necessarily morphs into regret.

Eames sees himself as holding the middle ground in the "struggle to discern how to meet conservative concerns for proper biblical interpretation AND liberal consensus for justice and inclusion of minorities..." This formulation is revealing, for surely it should be easier to find a way around "concerns" for biblical interpretation than a "consensus" upholding justice to minorities. To describe rejection of homosexual practice as a justice issue is the first step down the Spongian road toward confessing the "sins of Scripture." In my opinion, Archbishop Eames is being disingenuous. He knows there is no long-term resolution to the conflict besetting the Communion. He just wants it to go his way.

There is a certain irony to the wealthy white establishment accusing the poorer non-white churches of injustice. And can there be any doubt that discipline would not be so casual if the issue were more politically correct. Suppose the Episcopal Church had legislated that whites and blacks worship in "separate but equal" congregations. Would a Windsor Report which recommended that the Episcopal Church "express regret" while continuing the practice be acceptable? Could it be explained away as a matter of cultural difference? Surely not, for such racial discrimination is a sin with which there can be no compromise (Galatians 2:11).

Now we turn to the reactions of the Global South leaders to the Windsor Report and the maneuverings since then. The key point is this: they never considered the Windsor Report as more than advisory, as a means of discipline and repentance. One must remember that the Global South bishops insisted on the language of the Lambeth Resolution in 1998, on threat of a walk-out. The seriousness of their rejection of homosexuality as "contrary to Scripture" can be found in a series of Lambeth Resolutions asserting the primary authority of the Bible. I do regret that they allowed the wimpy phrase "cannot advise" to go through, because the reality is they condemn sex outside marriage as sin.

The Global South leaders - a substantial majority of them at any rate - consider the actions of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion to be heretical and church-dividing. They are not willing to coexist with churches that teach heresy and practice immorality. They are not interested in clever compromises, like the English bishops' response on civil partnerships. Archbishop Peter Akinola may be the boldest in speaking his mind, but remember that his church assembly voted with him unanimously to change that Church's Constitution.

So where does this leave Windsor? Probably high and dry. Because if the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada, soothed by the assurances of the sage of Armagh, go right ahead with their agenda - and surely they will - then we shall see a split in the Anglican Communion. The greatest trauma will be felt in the compromised Western churches. The Global South churches will also suffer short-term loss of resources, but the split may be an occasion for them to rise to the full stature of apostolic leadership. In this respect, Archbishop Eames may be correct that this is an historic and providential moment.

In the future, the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Lambeth Quadrilateral, and the Lambeth Statement on Human Sexuality will still be around, informing Anglican identity - the foundations perhaps of a true Anglican Communion Covenant. The Windsor Report will become, I suspect, a relic of a sad but necessary parting of ways.

–The Rev. Prof. Stephen Noll is Vice Chancellor of Uganda Christian University in Mukono, Uganda.