Diversity is all-too-familiar in the wider Anglican Communion. The Australian Anglican Church is itself an uneasy alliance of dioceses and provinces formed in the colonial era, with distinctive histories and identities whose compatibility has always been limited.
The fragility of these arrangements is never more in evidence than at its General Synods (assemblies). In the relatively recent past, debates over women's ordination in particular, but also over human sexuality, lay presidency and liturgical texts, have seen a specific division emerge between the distinctive form of conservative evangelicalism associated with the Diocese of Sydney, and a broad but vague 'mainstream'.
The 2010 Synod met at Melbourne Grammar School, an establishment bastion every bit as solid as its Tudor Gothic bluestone walls. Those inside sensed and responded to the frailty of the Church itself. Archbishop Philip Aspinall of Brisbane, the Primate, made a heartfelt call to the Synod to exercise a generosity of spirit, which may often have been in evidence; but it is at times hard to distinguish such generosity from caution or fear.
The question of Sydney's relationship with the rest was never far from the surface, but only once or twice did it breach it in threatening ways. There was predictable posturing about the divisions in the wider Anglican Communion, but overall a curious sense of avoiding conflict prevailed: a motion 'welcoming' the proposed Anglican Covenant was met with ambivalence at both liberal and conservative ends of the spectrum. Both were satisfied with a motion referring it for further and wider study.
When the 'Jerusalem Declaration' from the gathering of conservative Anglicans held there last year came up for consideration, Perth Archbishop Roger Herft, who has been a frank critic of the conservative forces, made the generous response of seeking and gaining an amendment that encouraged study of the document and its context.
The most contentious issue at the Synod was one that actually created, at least in passing, alliances across the usual boundaries. This was Sydney bishop Glenn Davies' pursuit of an amendment to the Canons concerning Matrimony, removing any baptismal qualification for marriage in the Anglican Church.
The amendment drew support from evangelicals who want to remove any implication that marriage is a sacrament (allowing as they do only for the two biblically-mandated sacraments of baptism and eucharist), but also from a pastorally and perhaps missionally-motivated group of others who saw the move as welcoming and inclusive.
The most difficult aspects of this issue