Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury-designate, has rounded on his evangelical critics by insisting that he does believe in the Bible and accepts traditional church teaching on adultery and sex before marriage.
The new archbishop spoke at the weekend during a conference in his diocese of Monmouth, south Wales, after weeks of sniping from fringe groups of evangelical fundamentalists who accused him of heresy and warned they may refuse to recognise him because of his "unsoundness" on biblical teaching.
Dr Williams - a former professor of divinity at Oxford University - and his supporters argue that his remarks have been misinterpreted or wilfully misunderstood by groups attempting to push the church in a more fundamentalist direction.
Christina Rees, a lay figure, resigned at the weekend from the Church of England's evangelical council, where she was a representative of the general synod, after the council decided to inaugurate an inquisition into Dr Williams' theological views.
Mrs Rees pointed out yesterday that the evangelical fundamentalists are selective in their views about which parts of the Bible are essential. "The Bible is hostile to usury as well as homosexuality, yet many of us have mortgages," she said in a BBC interview.
During his final speech to his diocesan council, meeting in Cwmbran, Dr Williams insisted: "I have always been committed to the church's traditional teaching on adultery and sex before marriage. It seems obvious to me that if we are to show God's costly commitment in all areas of our lives, this applies as much here as elsewhere.
"We may want to be compassionate and realistic with people coming from a setting where these ideals are remote or completely unintelligible, but the last thing I'd want to do is to weaken the challenge and excitement of the traditional view that says we can and should demonstrate God's faithfulness in our bodily lives, and that this is the meaning of Christian marriage."
Evangelical pressure groups - described by opponents as "the Taliban wing of the Church of England" - have accused Dr Williams of being in "gross error" following his admission that he once ordained a homosexual.
Dr Williams has gone out of his way to reassure them, meeting leaders of the Church Society and corresponding with the pressure group Reform about their concerns, though apparently without mollifying them.