Heresy trials and confessional integrity

In the wake of the recent turmoil threatening to divide the Anglican communion, the Church of England is proposing to revive heresy trials for the first time in more than a century and a half. This would help to "rid the church of its reputation 'for believing anything or nothing.'" No one likes heresy trials, of course, and no one would argue that they should be employed in cavalier fashion over peripheral matters. All the same, where heresy trials have become inconceivable within a given communion, that communion has effectively given up on the possibility of maintaining its own confessional integrity. Similarly, where political authorities are unable or unwilling to administer penalties for crimes committed, they have effectively abandoned their own central calling to uphold justice.