A minority of bishops – from Nigeria, Uganda and the diocese of Sydney in Australia – will stay at home, as indeed will a sprinkling of others from all over the place. All over the place may be a good term to coin. That is how churchmen (and it is mainly men), journalists and other commentators see it.

The Anglican Communion is all over the place. It is about to split asunder.

Yorkshire is no bad place to reflect on all this controversy, for it was the Archbishop of York, William Thomson, who helped persuade other bishops from the North of England and from elsewhere, not to attend the first Lambeth Conference in 1867. It had been called by Charles Longley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, formerly Bishop
of Ripon.

Why did he call it and where did the Anglican Communion come from and is it worth defending?

You could argue that the Communion began about half a mile south of the Forncett Industrial Steam Museum in deepest Norfolk. John Colenso, a scholarly clergyman, was Vicar of nearby Forncett St Mary and, much to his surprise, he was nominated to be the first bishop of Natal in South Africa.

Colenso was a man of great integrity. He acted on his belief. He was an early worker for justice for the black people of South Africa. He had radical ideas about the Bible. He believed many of the stories
of the patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, Moses and others – to be saga-like legends. He could see that Darwin's theory of evolution needed to be
taken seriously.

This was then a minority view and divided the people of his diocese. It had wider repercussions and the Bishop of Cape Town, Robert Gray, sought to remove him and replace him with someone less controversial.

It was this that effectively caused Archbishop Longley to call the Lambeth Conference. This, too, was virtually the birth of worldwide Anglicanism in an organised way. Out of combat, people were called together. It was profound disagreement that led the Archbishop of York to dissent from the idea of a Lambeth Conference.

Now none of this is remarkable. The Church, like many other human agencies, is shaped by controversy and disagreement.

So the point need not be laboured. Conflict and disagreement need be no bad thing. Indeed, they can help shape a healthier community. So what does that say to us? Does it matter if the Anglican Communion founders? Does all this say anything to the wider world outside the walls of ecclesiastical conference chambers?

Sitting eating supper a few months ago, my neighbour had just been to Africa. She'd met with some of the Ugandan dissenters. "If you disagree, isn't it better to meet and talk?" she said. "You may not persuade or be persuaded, but you may at least understand why others think and feel differently."

After the Great War, the League of Nations emerged. It had no teeth and nations dissented, became absentees. The tragedy of Hitler's War followed.

The all-engulfing scale of that war and the emergence of nuclear weapons gave the newly-born United Nations more muscle.

It is by no means perfect and at times it has failed. But generally all have been persuaded to come and sit around the table. It has been a brake on the powerful nations as well as the weak.

When it has failed or been ignored, humanity has been the poorer. The tragedy of Iraq is a potent and living reminder. So, the Lambeth Conference can model something for wider humanity – even for those who do not believe, or believe something else.

Bishops come to the conference by invitation and not compulsion. They are invited individually, not as phalanxes or pressure groups from distinct parts of the world or even from nation states. Archbishop Robert Runcie, at the 1988 Lambeth Conference, reminded all who were there that Anglicanism is the most widespread form of Christianity outside the Roman Catholic Church.

That is a great gift, if it is received generously. Dialogues of the deaf, closed minds and convinced dogmatism are the paving stones of the path to disintegration and a frighteningly fractured world. The Lambeth Conference is a fragile and fallible sign for Anglicans. It
may also be a gentle and appealing model for the world riven with violence.

What is its message to Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe? The same fractures are in the Church there, but Christians believe God never gives up on humanity. The Anglican Communion is worth defending and nourishing.

Stephen Platten is the Bishop of Wakefield.