St Paul, reflecting on the plurality and untidiness of the communities that are springing up, is driven to conclude that what is happening in these assemblies (the Greek word we translate as ‘church’ originally meant something like a convocation, a group of people summoned to debate together or work together) must be more than the gathering together of like-minded individuals, members of a kind of religious society. Paul uses the analogy of the different bits of the human body. Your body is not a kind of committee composed of representatives of the hands, representatives of the feet, representatives of the stomach, all sitting round a table and discussing issues of common concern. In this situation, one of them might leave, and the discussion would still go on — the authorised representatives of the interests of the stomach could get up and leave the table while the hands and feet go on negotiating. This is not how any real living organism works,

To paraphrase Paul a little, when I’ve got a cold, I’ve got a cold — t’s not just my nose that has the cold. When I have a heart attack, I have a heart attack — it’s not just a single organ in my chest that’s affected. In the body, everything affects everything; and this is why membership in the Christian community is not just like being par of a group that might go on working even if someone goes off on their own. If bits of your body start disappearing or ceasing to function, you will notice quite soon. If, as Paul puts it, one bit of the body says, ‘I can get along perfectly well without the others,’ the mistake becomes obvious in short order (Rowan Williams, Discovering Christianity: A guide for the curious, SPCK Publishing (2025), p. 38 Kindle edition).

The Eastern Church and the Western Church, the Protestants and the Roman Catholics, the ACNA and The Episcopal Church, GAFCON/GAC and the Anglican Communion: self-amputations all. Sometimes amputation is necessary to preserve the health of the whole body, but the act always leaves the body disfigured. It must always be grieved. Reunification must always be the goal. Imagine the Venus de Milo with arms.