Tom Sutcliffe: Why should I care if the church splits?

Last week in these pages Joan Bakewell asked why we should care if the Anglican church splits - which was characteristically inclusive of her. Myself, I've been wrestling with a far more solipsistic version of the same question. Why should I care? Why, as a doubt-free atheist of many years standing, should I feel such a sense of dismay at the slow unravelling of the Anglican communion?

Part of the answer is simple. The news reports of the continuing face-off between traditionalists and liberals, between Episcopalians and Nigerian Anglicans, are lowering because, for an atheist, they are more evidence of the depressing power of religious dogma to generate hatred. Then there's the truly Voltairian spectacle of divines who seem to think that the most urgent task at hand is to prevent the wrong kind of people loving each other. Only a satirist of savagely secularist bent could have come up with that one.

But I know that my reaction to this story is a little more complicated than a knee-jerk of anti-clericism. The Anglican church owes me nothing and yet, absurdly, I feel let down by it - and not just by those members who feel enfranchised by scriptural authority to show contempt and even hatred for co-religionists of the wrong gender or sexuality. I feel let down by the Archbishop of Canterbury too - which shouldn't trouble his advisers one bit, but has been nagging away at me. Why, since I expect nothing of him anyway?

The odd thing is that I instinctively still do. By accident of birth and upbringing, the Anglican church still holds a lien on my inner sense of moral direction. It's not for a moment that I think one requires God to underwrite a moral system. If I need a transcendent authority for the idea that altruism and generosity are right, not wrong, I can find it in moral philosophy. If I want an explanation as to why aggression is ultimately counterproductive I can turn to evolutionary psychology or sociobiology. But my mental shorthand for these concepts remains "Love thy neighbour as thyself" and "a soft answer turneth away wrath".

More than that, like a lot of people, religious or otherwise, I continue to hope that there's someone out there a lot better than me - otherwise we're sunk. And since politicians and sportsmen and artists have proved pretty poor as moral exemplars the field is broadly left clear for the churchmen. But what moral example has Rowan Williams been setting by his long balancing act on the issues which currently divide Anglicans?

What he seems to suggest is that the Anglican church should take up residence in a Potemkin village. On one side a façade in which doctrinal differences count less than loving community; on the other, a set of lash-up props and an increasingly bitter face-off between the Paulists and the Christians. And it is reasonable to ask him at what point his moral conscience might assert itself over institutional expediency?

In the passage from Romans that is always quoted by Anglican homophobes, St Paul writes of "the judgement of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death". How long before a literalist from one of the African churches decides this should be taken literally? And where would the current politic fudge stand then? The ignominy for the Anglican church, and the Archbishop, is not that the schism is coming, but that it has been held at bay for so long. Meanwhile I, with some regret, may finally have to wean myself off the beautiful moral cadences of the King James Bible.

A little bit of Bondi in London

Off to the mixed swimming pond on Hampstead Heath at the weekend, taking some visitors from Sydney to see what London has to offer by way of swimming a la nature. I was showing off, frankly.

You might fancy yourself as robust, outdoor types, I was thinking, but just wait till you see what Londoners will put up with for an al fresco swim: pea-green water, a thin scurf of duck down on the surface and the hovering spectre of Weil's disease every time you accidentally swallow a mouthful.

My prejudices were swiftly and roundly rebuked by the fact that every other voice there seemed to be Australian.

Thanks to the heatwave the place was as crowded as Bondi Beach on a bank holiday - but I suspect you'd hear a lot more English accents at Bondi.

* Talking of swimming, David Walliams has upped the ante when it comes to celebrity fund-raising by setting out to swim the English Channel for Sport Relief (weather permitting, he's greasing up and plunging in today). Since fewer people have successfully completed the crossing than have successfully climbed Everest, this puts traditional sacrifices of dignity and comfort - such as doing the can-can in fishnet stockings - into the shade. And though he might have initially suggested it as a joke, the fact that he hasn't backed down since is impressive. It also has the advantage that the training is so all-consuming he can't have had any time spare to produce another series of Little Britain. Obviously it would be selfish to support his bid for that reason alone - but if you need an extra incentive it will surely do.

t.sutcliffe@independent.co.uk