|PIC1|Bishops within the Anglican Communion in Southern Africa have called for the worldwide Church to “choose to remain united” as the threat of a split looms over the issue of homosexuality.

A statement was released Friday following a gathering in Johannesburg, South Africa, in which the bishops said, “As bishops, we remain convinced that within the Anglican Communion what unites us far outweighs what divides us.”

The split over homosexuality was ignited globally when an openly gay clergyman, Gene Robinson, was consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church in the USA in 2003.

Despite continued efforts to reconcile the two warring factions, the divide over the issue between the new liberalist wing of the Church, and those that remain with the traditional biblical interpretation has been ever-widening.

A majority in the worldwide Anglican Communion support the traditional teachings based on biblical Scripture and are firmly against homosexuality. Others, however, and a majority within the US Episcopal Church, believe that homosexuality is compatible inside the Church.

|TOP|In an attempt to keep some degree of unity within the worldwide Church the Archbishop of Canterbury earlier this year called for a two-tiered system of membership. The “covenant system” proposes that churches should be asked to sign a formal covenant, which would allow some to be fuller members of the Anglican Communion than others.

The proposed dual system would accommodate full “constituent” members to the Communion that have conformed to the traditional biblical views of the Church, but also another section of “associate” members which would incorporate rebel and more liberally-viewed churches.

The move has come following the US Episcopal Church's failure to “repent” for its actions to liberalise the gay agenda of the Church at its General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, earlier this month. In addition, the US Church also failed to vote through a moratorium on any more gay consecrations.

|AD|However, Africa's largest Anglican Church — the 17.5 million member Church of Nigeria, viewed by many as a leader among Anglicans in the developing world — has criticised the proposal. It called instead for the removal of what it called "a cancerous lump in the body".

The two dozen Southern African bishops, led by Archbishop of Cape Town Njongonkulu Ndungane, said in their statement that they affirmed their desire for the unity of the Communion to be maintained, and that they "extended a message of hope" to Anglicans.

They appealed for "generosity of spirit and a respect for diversity", pledging themselves to continue to work and pray for reconciliation and unity.

The Southern African Anglican Church's own official theological standpoint on the homosexuality issue is that it recognises "marriage in the eyes of God" as being only between a man and a woman.

The Church of the Province of Southern Africa (CPSA) has set up its own commission to examine gay issues and the church.