On road to modernization, Church of England finds crisis LONDON - The surprising defeat last month of a measure allowing the ordination of women bishops has plunged the Church of England into a crisis with one issue at its core: Should religion adapt to fit an increasingly secular society, or be the enforcer of tradition in fast-changing times? Debate over that question is upending Britain's official church, the symbolic heart of a global Anglican Communion that includes the Episcopal Church in the United States. The narrow loss of the measure has so infuriated liberal church leaders that many insist the only way forward now is to simply show conservatives the door. The result is what both sides are calling a tug of war for the Church of England's soul, one offering a snapshot into the last frontier of the Western world's culture wars: the push to bring modern norms inside faith-based institutions. The move opening the way to women was approved by bishops and clergy at a General Synod last month, but it failed to win a two-thirds majority among representatives of the laity. The minority that blocked the proposal portray themselves as strict interpreters of the Bible and guardians of tradition, and they caution against wider divisions if church leaders proceed with efforts to revive the plan. At a time when causal churchgoers are abandoning pews, these conservatives argue that the Church of England cannot afford to alienate some of its most active members: Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals whose numbers are swelling even as they organize into what some here are dubbing a British version of the religious right. "What is happening here will fall into a very long story of battles amongst Christians," said Gill R. Evans, professor of intellectual history and medieval theology at Cambridge. If women bishops does go through, and we think it will eventually, there may very well be a proportion of the Church of England who walk away. In some quarters, the call for female bishops has become inexorably linked to another controversial effort, one aimed at deepening acceptance of gay and lesbian clergy and same-sex couples. The Conservative-led government this week introduced a bill that would vest most churches and other religious groups with the legal right to marry same-sex couples. Under the measure, the Church of England would be barred from conducting such ceremonies for now, a concession to conservatives. But a growing number of voices both inside and outside the church are pushing for recognition of same-sex marriages and for an update to a church policy that allows gay and lesbian clergy -to serve only if they are officially celibate. The battle lines dividing the church are exceedingly clear in places like an affluent patch of North London where the parish boundaries of All Hallows ends and St. James begins. Inside the vaulted timber rafters of All Hallows, the Rev. David Houlding runs a citadel of conservative faith for an aging and formal congregation. Houlding chafes at the notion of same-sex church marriages and opposes women bishops unless parishes like his are granted opt-outs from acknowledging their power.