Australian evangelicals have launched a response to the Windsor Report, with a clergyman at the centre of Anglicanism’s most heated conflict calling for a realignment of the worldwide Communion ‘for the sake of the gospel’.

The Windsor Report was commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury to address the tensions rocking world Anglicanism.

“You can not throw a blanket of structural communion over two different gospels,” writes the Rev David Short, a former Sydney-sider and now rector of St John’s, Shaugnessy in Canada.

Mr Short has led the protests against his bishop’s decision to authorise the blessing of gay marriages.

The comprehensive response, entitled The Faith Once for All Delivered, is sponsored by the Anglican Church League and written by evangelical Anglicans from across the Australian continent.

Although not an official response from any Australian Diocese, the 148 page document contains the views of Australia’s leading evangelical theologians.

It includes the well-publicised views of the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, and the Rev Dr John Woodhouse, principal of Sydney’s Moore Theological College, on the direction of the Anglican Communion, as well as many helpful new perspectives.

The Rev Dr Peter Adam, principal of Ridley Theological College in Melbourne, questions whether the conformity advocated by the Windsor Report might be ‘a particularly Anglican vice’.

The Rev Martin Foord, a lecturer from Trinity Theological College in Perth, helps put the conflict in a language most Australians really understand - sport.

“Imagine a soccer team and a basketball team run out into an arena to play against each other. The Windsor Report is like giving advice about ‘fair play’, while ignoring the real problem: the two teams are playing different games,” Mr Foord writes.

“The Anglican Communion is experiencing a clash between incompatible religions that exist within it. The visible issue over which these mismatched teams are divided is homosexuality. But homosexuality is only a manifestation of the deeper fundamental differences.”

“Many tell us that our differences are Anglicanism’s glory. But legitimate differences can not exist where there are no universal rules by which to play.”

“A tennis player’s unique style is seen when he or she plays within an agreed set of rules. The Anglican Communion is struggling to find an agreed set of rules by which to function and until they do, squabbling will continue.”

A PDF version of the whole report is available on Sydneyanglicans.net’s Indepth page.