Anglicans claim to be part of the Reformed Western catholic tradition and one of the most visible ways that continuity over the centuries is maintained is through episcopacy, which the English evangelical reformers of the 16th century quite deliberately retained in contrast to their continental counterparts.
Was that wise? In the present-day Anglican Provinces of the West, the claim to Reformed catholicity is looking ever more dubious as apostolic substance ebbs away. Moreover, disunity and doctrinal incoherence in the Anglican Communion has been an episcopally led phenomenon.
The current crisis was triggered by the consecration of Gene Robinson in 2003 as bishop of New Hampshire, despite his being quite openly in a same sex partnership, and the English bishops are all too often weather-vanes of the liberal establishment.
