THE preoccupation of the handful of journalists covering GAFCON in Jerusalem is the final communiqué.

There was a feeling before GAFCON began that it had essentially been written, and that the document The Way, the Truth, and the Life, given to all the participants, was it.

Next, came Archbishop Akinola’s address on Sunday evening, at which he said: “Media men, get this right: GAFCON is not here to break the Communion.” This, and other comments at the Sunday press conference (the Archbishop of Sydney spoke about “the renewal of the Anglican Communion”) led to the conviction that, whatever else is being planned, it isn’t a wholesale exodus from the Communion.

Further hints were picked up at a press conference on Tuesday, when the Rt Revd Bill Atwood, one of the bishops consecrated in Kenya to serve in the United States, spoke about “agreed principles that will lead to new voluntary associations.

“It doesn’t mean that all old associations need to be terminated. It doesn’t mean that there have to be battles and break-ups and separations at every turn.

“Those voluntary associations will rise out of principles, leading to a shared purpose and vision, and ultimately they will lead to shared structural mechanisms.

“So it’s not as if there was no structural impact of what’s happening [at GAFCON] but . . . the idea is that things are emerging, and that things are being discerned, and relationships are growing and building, and as those principles are discerned, they give more and more clarity. . .

“We’ll try and provide, if you will, some points of light, that will be like stars in a constellation, that can be used to navigate the way into the future.”

So, according to Bishop Atwood, who is on the GAFCON leadership team, we might expect some principles, which will lead to what he describes as “a higher level of commitment”, and ultimately something structural. As he said on Tuesday, “It’s not that there is a constitution in the wings waiting to be posted that people can sign on or line up or not, it’s more that it has to grow out of relationships.”

It is all much vaguer than people had come to expect, and participants will want to see something that is a significant advance on what exists at the moment, especially with the Lambeth Conference coming up.