In a HARDtalk interview broadcast on 10th July, Stephen Sackur talks to (Arch)bishop Greg Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone.

Watch it all (almost 23 1/2 minutes).

BISHOPS of the Anglican Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands are in London to attend the 15th Lambeth Conference of Bishops, being held July 16 to August 4. The delegation includes the Lord Bishop, Rt Rev Dr Alfred Reid, Bishop of Mandeville Rt Rev Dr Harold Daniel, Bishop of Montego Bay Rt Rev Dr Howard Gregory and the Bishop of Kingston, Rt Rev Dr Robert Thompson.

This will be the first time at Lambeth for Bishops Daniel, Gregory and Thompson. Bishop Reid attended twice before as a Suffragan Bishop (of Montego Bay). However, this will be his first time in the capacity of Lord Bishop.

Read it all.

WHAT makes a group (of voters, relatives, believers) stick together, even when its membership is varied and quarrelsome? Sometimes deference to a common authority; sometimes fear of adversaries; sometimes common axioms that trump any differences; and sometimes a sentimental “family feeling” that makes people tolerant of eccentricity or even obnoxious behaviour. If none of those factors is present, then break-up looms.

The Church of England may be approaching that point. Matters came to a head at the session this week of its ruling General Synod, which saw more than its share of tears, jeers and cheers. The topic under discussion””or so it was reported”” was whether women, who have served as priests since 1994, could also be bishops.

Actually, that was not precisely the matter at issue; the idea of women bishops had been accepted in 2005, and nobody suggested that this decision was reversible. The furore was over what accommodation, if any, should be made for the minority of the faithful who disagree with the idea of women bishops (and, in most cases, with the idea of women priests). Of these, some say that administering the sacraments (to put it simply, rites in which God’s grace is mysteriously invoked) is a male-only prerogative; others take literally the teaching of Saint Paul that authority in the church is best handled by men.

Read it all.

Fathoming a new Anglican identity will not be easy, because the conference in Canterbury is rigorously designed not to point in any direction or leave any discernible fingerprints.

Business meetings with parliamentary procedure and resolutions that live to haunt another day were scrapped in favor of small group discussions and intense get-acquainted sessions. The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, describes them as conversations that go to the root of the words, “to spend time with.”

Each day, eight groups of five will merge into gatherings of 40 for Indaba, a Zulu word for purposeful conversation among leaders, a suggestion from one of the African designers of the conference.

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you.

Read it all.

When it was announced during the House of Bishops’ March retreat that a Lambeth invitation to Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire would not be forthcoming, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said during a media briefing afterward that the bishops would make sure that Bishop Robinson was “at least as present at Lambeth as if he’d had an invitation.”

Toward that end, a number of bishops and others have promised to stop by the exhibit hall where Bishop Robinson has a booth and to keep him informed about activities underway in the indaba listening group sessions. Bishop Robinson also will be supported by a large number of gay and lesbian persons who volunteered as part of an effort to ensure that the bishops of the Communion hear the voices of faithful gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Anglicans.

Read it all.

On several of the threads related to the Lambeth conference in the past 48 hours there has been discussion of a remark made by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori about the disproportionate numbers of American bishops attending the Lambeth conference. In this article she is quoted as follows:

ENS: What kind of presence will the Episcopal Church have at the Lambeth Conference?

KJS: The bishops of the Episcopal Church will represent about one-quarter of all bishops in attendance. One of our tasks is not to overwhelm the gathering just by our sheer numbers.

That has stirred up curiosity and discussion. One commenter did some quick calculations as to relative ratio of bishops / members. We decided to take that research a bit further and turn it into a spreadsheet. It’s very revealing.

TEC and Canada together comprise 3.6% of the membership of the 20 largest provinces of the Anglican Communion, and yet combined they have 27.5% of the total 682 bishops among these top 20 Provinces. We elves are working compiling a detailed statistical overview of all Anglican Communion provinces. Look for more data from us about Provinces, relative size, relative growth and their representation at Lambeth in coming days.

-elfgirl

(ACNS) Before the bishops arrive in Canterbury for the 2008 Lambeth Conference, hundreds of them will enjoy a taste of another part of Britain.

Through the “Hospitality Initiative,” every bishop and spouse invited to the Lambeth Conference has also been invited to be the guest of an Anglican diocese in England, Wales, or Scotland. The response has been enormous, with hundreds accepting the invitation. They will spend five days in one of 57 dioceses stretching from Truro in the south to Moray, Ross and Caithness in the north and St David’s in the west.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity to offer the gift of hospitality to representatives of our sister churches around the world,” says the Revd Mark Rodel, who is organising the Hospitality Initiative in the Diocese of Portsmouth, which will be hosting 11 bishops and their spouses from Ghana and the United States.

Through the initiative, the visiting bishops will have a chance to experience firsthand how the church lives out its mission in another part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It will also provide a unique opportunity for those in the host dioceses to encounter church leaders from another part of global Anglican family.

Read it all.

Americans will represent nearly 25 percent of about 650 Anglican bishops scheduled to attend the conference, which starts next week in Canterbury, England.

In responding to questions from the media, Episcopal bishops are being encouraged to respond in a way that emphasizes two main themes:

Ӣ When Anglicans work together through the power of the Holy Spirit, we change the world; and
Ӣ At the Lambeth Conference, the bishops of the Anglican Communion review our deep unity in Christ.

The method can be illustrated with a triangular diagram, according to a handout developed by Auburn Media, part of Auburn Theological Seminary. The handout was part of a packet sent to Episcopal bishops recently by Bishop Clay Matthews of the Presiding Bishop’s Office of Pastoral Development.

Read it all.

This is the process that will be adopted:

At the heart of the Lambeth Conference 2008 are the fifteen indaba groups. After two days of meeting together, each group will be asked to nominate the member of their group whom they believe to be most capable of carrying their views and the fruit of their discussion into the reflections process in a way which expresses the aspirations outlined above. This ‘Listener’ will then join a Listening Group made up of all the listeners under the chairmanship of Archbishop Roger Herft of Perth, in Western Australia. Working with the summaries of the fruit of indaba arising from each group, it will be their duty to generate a common text which reflects authentically the indaba and is loyal to the considerations set out above.

That text will be tested by the conference through two main routes. First, preliminary drafts of the Reflections document will be circulated to the indaba groups as the work progresses at regular intervals throughout the conference. It will be possible for bishops to respond to the developing text through their listener and the discussions within the indaba groups.

Secondly, on four occasions the Listening Group will meet in open session before any bishop who wishes to attend to invite comment on and response to the developing text. These hearings are an advertised part of the conference programme, and will take place on the Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the second week of the Conference.

It is hoped that in this way every bishop attending the conference will be given the opportunity to shape the Reflections document which arise out of the conference. The hope of the Lambeth Design Group is that this process will permit the development of a Reflections Document which will meet the objectives set out for it, and be available on the last day of the conference to be received as an authentic account of the engagement of the bishops together in the service of Christ.

Read it all.

From here:

Following the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), many of you are no doubt aware of media reports, suggesting that the Anglican Communion is facing serious division.

It’s premature to comment at this point. There will be opportunities, after our return from Lambeth, for reflection on GAFCON and the Lambeth Conference and to discuss various statements and resolutions resulting from both.

Meanwhile, together with my fellow Melbourne bishops, I wish to assure the clergy and laity of the Melbourne Diocese that relationships in the Anglican Communion will be properly and prayerfully considered at the forthcoming Lambeth Conference, the ten-yearly meeting of world Anglican leaders, held from 16 July to 4 August in Canterbury, England.

Please uphold with us, affirmation of Archbishop Freier’s hope for Lambeth: that it will provide an opportunity to “live the unity that we share in Christ.”

The need is for the Church to engage in mission in a world facing suffering as varied as climate change, poverty, aggression and corruption, to name but a few. Therefore, we ask that all Melbourne Anglicans heed the Archbishop’s call to prayer, and display grace and generosity of heart to which a life centred in the Gospel calls us.

Leaders of the adherents of the Anglican faith need to stop embarrassing their flock. They are also making the Holy Trinity they listen to look confused and opening their communion to ridicule.

Come July 16, some Anglicans will be at the Lambeth Conference. Two weeks ago, another lot was in Jerusalem-Jordan-Jerusalem participating in the Global Anglican Future Conference, GOFCON, which formed the Fellowship of Confessing Christians.

The group meeting at Lambeth watched and listened. The… [GAFCON] lot will now do likewise. Each holds, not viciously so far, theological and canonical sledgehammers over the Scriptures’ stand on a juicy subject: sex.

Read it all.

Dublin: Irish evangelical leader Bishop Harold Miller of Down and Dromore conceded his decision to attend the Anglican Lambeth Conference “did not make sense” in light of the agenda and invitation list put forward by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but it was important to “give it one more chance” so as to preserve the gathering’s “moral authority.”

In his Presidential Address to the Synod of the Diocese of Down and Dromore on June 19, Bishop Miller noted this month’s Lambeth Conference would be marked by the absence of a “quarter of our bishops.” He was “deeply saddened” by their decision as it would undermine the “moral authority” of the Conference, as well as excluding the voices of the most vibrant churches in the Communion.

However, he also expressed concerns about the conference as planned, noting it had been recast into a “retreat-come-training-conference and a meeting and listening place for bishops.”

The agenda “bothers me,” he said, asking “Who is doing the ”˜training’ and how is it going to be ”˜slanted?”

Read it all.

(ACNS) The Most Revd Phillip Aspinall, Archbishop of Brisbane and Primate of the Anglican Province of Australia will act as principal spokesman for the Anglican Communion bishops attending the 14th Lambeth Conference which meets in Canterbury from 20 July to August 4.

Archbishop Aspinall acted as spokesman for the Primates at their meeting Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania in February 2007. He will chair a daily press conference during the Lambeth meeting at which he will be joined by bishops with specialist experience in the theme of the day. The themes to be covered by the bishops in their discussions range from climate change and the Millennium Development Goals to Anglican identity and the role of Covenant in the future of the Communion.

Archbishop Aspinall said it will be both a privilege and a challenge to articulate the voice of the bishops of the Communion at a time of enormous challenge for the church and the world.

“Anglicanism has much to say about many things including the challenges of poverty, insecurity, loss of faith and increasing relativism. The Conference will be a time for listening as well as speaking, and I will be as much a part of that listening process as my fellow bishops,” said Dr Aspinall.

Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury said “Archbishop Phillip is just the gifted communicator the Conference needs to tell the story of the Conference as it unfolds day by day. I am grateful to him for agreeing to take on the role of principal spokesman for the Conference”

Topics covered included both the GAFCON gathering and the Lambeth Conference–listen to it all (about 8 and 1/2 minutes).

Readers of this column have been misled. On May 23 in my column, I stated that while there will be fewer resolutions at the 2008 Lambeth Conference, there would be some. In fact, I was quoting the Archbishop of Canterbury in his January press conference. In answer to a question from Ruth Gledhill of The Times, he said quite categorically that there would be resolutions.

In April, when the Presiding Bishop of the USA had her own Lambeth Conference press launch, she was joined by one of the Lambeth designers, Professor Ian Douglas of the Episcopal Divinity School. To exactly the same question, they reassured their audience that there would be no resolutions whatsoever. In fact, the format of the conference, with its Indaba groups expressly ruled out resolutions. No motions, or items of business could come from these 40-strong groups.

I assumed then that the Archbishop of Canterbury was right and that the Presiding Bishop of the USA was wrong. After all, this is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s conference. He invites the bishops, welcomes them to Canterbury, hosts and presides over the Lambeth Conference.

So I decided to phone the communications director of the Anglican Consultative Council to investigate this considerable disparity between ”˜there will be resolutions’ and ”˜there will be none’. He explained that the design of the Lambeth Conference simply didn’t allow for resolutions and that this had been the intention of the design group. He didn’t know anything about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s statement in January, but suggested that perhaps the Archbishop meant that in circumstances of emergency, a declaration of war, for example, the Conference may issue a ”˜house resolution’.

I still wasn’t convinced that this explained the contradiction and decided that only Lambeth Palace could settle matters. After several days, the press officer did resolve it. In fact, there would be no resolutions at the Lambeth Conference, the Lambeth Design group’s work had now completely ruled this out.

I’m left wondering who is in the driving seat at the Lambeth Conference the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Presiding Bishop of the USA, Lambeth Palace or the Lambeth design group?

It’s no real surprise that some bishops are intending not to go to the Lambeth Conference. The Bishop of Lewes, Wallace Benn, told me last week that among his reasons for not attending was the fact that Lambeth was downgraded from a synod of bishops to a training conference. Other English bishops have intimated that should their dire expectations of the conference be fulfilled they will be getting in their cars and returning home.

The Lambeth Conference will cost millions of pounds, yet there is no real process which will lead to any substantial piece of work done by the conference. In fact, there will be no opportunity for anything really surprising to come out of the assembly of bishops, because nothing can be tabled, and no resolutions can emerge from conversations in the groups. In 1988, Bishops from the global south called for a Decade of Evangelism, which in turn saw extraordinary growth over the next 10 years in many provinces in the communion. Lambeth Conferences in the past have made major contributions to contemporary debates on marriage and family life, on debt and social justice. 2008 seems to preclude the possibility of any such intervention on important issues facing the world.

Listening to many of the lectures and sermons from the Global Anglican Future Conference on Anglicantv (www.Anglicantv.org) prompts me to wonder that if the organization of the Lambeth Conference had been put in the hands of the group who organised this, whether a much larger attendance at Lambeth would now be guaranteed. In five months, the Gafcon organisers have assembled 1,000 people, including some 200 bishops in the Holy Land, with all the difficulties that entails. There is an opportunity for pilgrimage, networking and spiritual refreshment, as well as, the work of the conference, including a final statement.

There have been hiccups. I have been critical of both the timing and the place for the conference. The selection of Jerusalem ruled out bishops and delegates from countries such as Pakistan. Furthermore, the refusal of Jordanian authorities to allow the Archbishop of Nigeria to cross the border meant that the entire conference decamped from their Jordan base to Jerusalem early.

The reassuring message from Gafcon however, is overwhelmingly one of staying in the communion, and reforming from within, when at times it looked as though a separatist tendency might rule the day.

–This article appears in the Church of England Newspaper, June 27, 2008 issue, on page 23

See what you make of it.

At least one Church of England bishop will defect to Rome soon after the Lambeth Conference, I gather from Anglo-Catholic sources. And there could be more to follow.

I can’t tell you much more than that at the moment, because the negotiations with Rome are so sensitive – and the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, who distrust Anglican traditionalists, are quite capable of throwing a spanner in the works.

Read it all.

He said: “The reason I don’t feel I can go [to Lambeth] is because I don’t think I can pretend to have fellowship with those with whom there is a broken fellowship.

“How am I meant to set down at a table with people who are persecuting my friends?

“I don’t believe I can pretend that the facts on the ground of the tearing of the fabric of the Communion doesn’t exist.

“It is of great regret to me that the invite list includes almost all those who have torn the fabric of the Communion.”

Read it all.

Many of those who are not attending Lambeth are in Jerusalem this week for an alternative meeting, to discuss how they see the way forward. The parallel meetings are a clear manifestation that the bonds of communion have broken down. The Archbishop of Canterbury is not in Jerusalem, and is not welcome there. The breach appears irreparable and therefore the Anglican Communion’s days as a global community centred in Canterbury are numbered.

That is a sadness for those, like myself, who have affection for the Anglican sensibility. But sensibilities are not doctrines, and it cannot be the case that members of the same communion can hold directly contradictory views on matters of grave importance. The Canadian and American proponents of same-sex marriages are arguing that homosexual acts can be morally good, and even sacramental. The traditional Christian view is that such acts are sinful. That is a gap that cannot be bridged: Either one holds to the ancient and constant teaching of the Christian Church, or one rejects it in favour of a different position. It cannot be that both views exist side-by-side as equally acceptable options.

It is not a disagreement only about sexual morality. It goes deeper than that, to what status the ancient and apostolic tradition has in the Church today. There can be no doubt that the blessing of homosexual relationships is entirely novel and in contradiction to the Christian tradition. So if that tradition no longer holds, it raises questions about the apostolicity of those communities which have abandoned it.

An additional sadness for Catholic and Orthodox Christians is that if the Anglican Communion embraces the path of doctrinal innovation, they will be closing the door on closer ecumenical relations. By unilaterally choosing to do what Catholics and Orthodox have always taught is outside our common tradition, they would be choosing the path of division.

Read it all.

The question we must ever face is not “What errors do we see in our opponents position?”, but “What values do we discern in our opponents position, values that our
own position may not be stressing as fully?” And we need to see these questions not as ones simply to be asked in a formal way, but as expressing an attitude of a path of shared discovery on which we are willing to embark, within the debate in which we are participating.

And so concerning the current ”˜troubles’ in our communion:

· We might ask that the debate be shaped in terms of values rather than policies or strategies

· We thus ask each Province to express the values it sees being expressed in it present position, relating these to values within our scriptural and traditional
inheritance

· We note that as a metaphysical ”˜fact’ values clash and that this creates a significant space within which a variety of good options can be considered .

· We seek to articulate this ”˜space’ as an area within which diversity can be accepted, as being paths that seek to live in the light of Christian values, noting
that this limited variety is not ”˜anything goes relativism’.

· We do not expect total agreement, but we seek to circumscribe an acceptable pluralism. In doing do we reflect the recommendation of Aristotle, only to expect
that degree of precision (akribeia) of which the subject admits.

· Each Province admits that no one will in their life have achieved a total and full expression of the Divine demand, but each with due humility and repentance
offers its life to God and to the other Provinces.

To approach in this way is to accept, in Kuhn’s terms that we may need a paradigm shift in perspective, or in Goldmann’s terms “a conversion”, for a world in which values clash, is a very different world from one in which these values are potentially in harmony.

Read it all.

With my departure for GAFCON less than a week away and Lambeth a mere three weeks from now, my ruminations, which are constantly upon the ebb and flow of things here in the Diocese of South Carolina, also swing into the sway of Global Anglicanism””which frankly are also seldom far from my waking thoughts. Let me share just little of my mental scrawl.

These are tenuous times to say the least. I could even say a time of crisis””if the word wasn’t over used and misleading. In the past I’ve quoted the Stanford economist Dr. Roemer’s provocative statement, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste,” and I’ve suggested that we in The Episcopal Church are steadily wasting it. The reason why I shy away from the word crisis to describe our situation is that it suggests in many minds the idea that there will be a watershed moment in which things will tilt in one direction or another much as the mountains in North Carolina send some streams flowing towards the Savannah River to the Atlantic and others toward the Mississippi drainage and the Gulf of Mexico. I no longer think this is the best way to understand the times we are in. A metaphor I’ve taken up recalls a drive I took across Nevada some years ago on U.S. Highway 50, known in the west as “the loneliest road in America.” It is one mountain range crossing after another. You cross more separate ranges on that drive through the state than through the rest of the U.S. together whether I-40, I-10, I-80, you name it. If there is to be or has been a crossing of the Rubicon in things Anglican I think it will only be the retrospective vision that will reveal it or through some yet unrecognized prophet.
What is far more important to my mind is not in joisting at windmills with The Episcopal Church but working toward an Anglicanism sufficient for a Global Age. Some will be engaged in this work through some non-TEC realignment, and others will be striving under God’s providence to foster this emerging reality while remaining within TEC””I consider this diocese among this shrinking group. Yet I believe we in South Carolina are strategically aligned to work broadly with various constituencies””Communion Partners, Anglican Communion Network, Common Cause, TEC, and a variety of Provincial relationships. But we need to work beyond ad hoc configurations and happenstance missional relationships, (if there actually is such a thing). There will be much to say on this in the future.

These two gatherings of global Anglicanism will be yet another opportunity for my immersion into the larger Anglican world. Coming as it does in the first year of my episcopacy I am inclined to see it as a providential and formative experience that will shape this next decade for us. Thus I covet your prayers. To what end? 1) That God’s vision for the role that this diocese is to take in this emerging world of the Anglican Communion will begin to clarify in my mind and in the minds of others in this diocese who will be following these gatherings here at home. 2) That the provincial relationships which will be fundamental to our diocesan life and mission will not only be made or strengthened, but the role we are to play in helping shape the Anglicanism of this 21st Century will begin to emerge. 3) That I will be a faithful witness to our Lord Jesus Christ and the truth of the Gospel, wisely and forthrightly representing this diocese in the councils of the Church.

Faithfully yours,

(The Rt. Rev.) Mark Lawrence, Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina

What’s actually going to happen at the Lambeth Conference? Well, I have no crystal ball to tell me exactly what the outcomes will be. But what I most hope and pray is that we emerge from the quite intensive programme with the two main goals taken forward ”“ having gained more confidence about our Communion and having helped to give bishops more resources for their primary work of serving the Church in mission.

But what we can say a bit about is the way in which the business is going to be done. The programme, devised by a very gifted and dedicated international team, responds to the widely felt concerns that we ought to get away from too ‘parliamentary’ and formal a style. It’s going to be important that no-one goes home feeling they haven’t ever been listened to. So it’s important to devise structures that guarantee everyone has a chance to be heard. It’s also crucial to build the sort of trust that allows deep and passionate differences to be stated and explored together, with time allowed for getting past the slogans and the surface emotions.

So the new thing about Lambeth this time is that the whole body of the bishops will be divided into middle-sized groups, called ‘indaba’ groups, from a Zulu word describing community discussion and decision-making. In these groups of forty or so, expert facilitators will be enabling the kind of discussion in which everyone has a chance to speak; and people will be given the responsibility of reporting on behalf of each group, so that over the two weeks of work there will be a lot of attention given to how what comes out of the groups can be woven together in a final statement. This work by the ‘reporters’ will be offered for public discussion at a number of points in the Conference so that anyone who wishes can give some feedback as the Conference works towards its final reflections.

Read it all.

In a move that marks a significant split in the established Church, at least three bishops, including the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, will decline an invitation from Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to attend the Lambeth Conference.

Up to six more bishops are understood to be considering similar action because of Dr Williams’s decision to allow controversial figures to be at the gathering of worldwide Anglican bishops, which meets only once in 10 years.

The boycott will intensify the row over gay clergy, which was reignited when The Sunday Telegraph disclosed last week that two gay priests had exchanged vows in a version of the marriage service.

Read it all.

In an attempt to try to lower the rhetoric, Archbishop Williams has left a few names off the list of invitees, notably Bishop Robinson (who plans to go anyway to speak to the media) and three or four conservative bishops who had been visiting other dioceses without local permission. Also, the bishops of Uganda and Rwanda disclosed that they will boycott the sessions to protest what they see as the Anglican Church’s liberal “drift.”

Here in Rhode Island, Bishop [Geralyn] Wolf notes that she has long maintained a policy of not allowing the blessing of any same-sex relationships to take place on any Episcopal Church property. She also supports continuing the moratorium on ordaining any new homosexual bishops, arguing that the measures are important to the unity of the Anglican Communion.

Frankly, she says, she doesn’t know what will emerge from next month’s meeting. She says she is very keen on holding the Anglican Communion together.

She said she suspects that, even though no votes are to be officially taken, some sort of decision will come “through the back door.”

Read it all.

It is true that the forthcoming Lambeth Conference will also be a divided body, boycotted by an unprecedented numbers of bishops. But the semi-fiasco of Gafcon means that Dr Williams still has a chance of keeping the conservative Christians of, say, Uganda, in dialogue with the liberal provinces of the United States and Canada.

Whether the Anglican Communion can survive the inevitable discord of Lambeth is still unclear. But it is encouraging that some of the most vociferous critics of liberal Anglicanism have decided to join in debate and worship with their fellow bishops at their traditional gathering in England rather than declare allegiance to a rival body meeting in the Middle East.

Read it all.

At the last Lambeth Conference, in 1998, the bishops overwhelmingly passed a resolution saying that homosexuality was “incompatible with Scripture,” and that homosexuals should not be ordained. The vote revealed the growing strength of the conservative bishops from Africa and the developing world.

To forestall conflict, the organizers of this year’s Lambeth Conference have planned for no resolutions, no proposals and no votes. Instead, the bishops will meet in small groups, on the theory that they will overcome their divisions by building personal relationships.

The Rev. Dr. Ian T. Douglas, a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., who served on the design committee for Lambeth, said in a news conference last month, “It’s fundamentally about the encounter, about conversations among the leaders all oriented to: what is God calling the Anglican Communion and the bishops to be about in the wider world?”

Bishop Minns said of the Lambeth Conference, “It’s unfortunate, at a time the church needs clear and strong leadership, it gets two weeks of conversation.”

Read it all.

He said next month’s Lambeth Conference ”“ a global meeting of Anglican bishops held every 10 years ”“ could prove a turning point.

“My hope is that the conference will be a real trust building event,” said the Archbishop.

“The challenge is whether we manage those issues in such a way that they don’t just split us apart and isolate us from one another.

“I think that we face some very serious choices within the church but I don’t think the Church of England is on the edge of schism.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

The Vatican, which is sending representatives to the July 16-Aug. 4 gathering of the world’s Anglican leadership, will be closely following its deliberations to see what direction it takes on such crucial questions as internal unity, authority, the role of the bishop and Anglican identity.

What has pushed these questions to the forefront is the ordination of openly gay clerics, the blessing of gay unions and the ordination of women bishops in some Anglican provinces.

Those developments have threatened to split the Anglican Communion. For the Vatican, they have raised new questions about the future of the 40-year-old dialogue with the Anglican Church.

“It’s very important for Anglicans to understand the depth of the change in our relationship that, in a sense, is being forced on us by the positions they are taking,” said one Vatican official, who asked not to be named.

In the Vatican’s view, it’s not just a question of ethical and sexual issues. Above all, it is seen as a problem of ecclesiology, as the new tensions in the Anglican Communion have weakened the bonds among the provinces.

Read it all (emphasis mine).

When I interviewed Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns of the Convocation of Anglicans of North America (CANA) this week, he was already in Jerusalem a week before the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCon) which will gather 300 conservative bishops representing 35 million Anglicans, more than half of those in the world.

Most are from the “Global South,” such as Africa, Asia, South America, Australia. However, many are “missionaries” from those countries to the U.S., such as Minns, who has attracted 55 conservative congregations, most of which have fled the increasingly liberal Episcopal Church. Another 250 have left for such groups as the Anglican Mission in America.

The gathering of GAFCon bishops is almost revolutionary, because only weeks later, the Archbishop of Canterbury will preside over Lambeth, a conference for the world’s Anglican bishops. The Global South bishops decided not to attend Lambeth, but to hold their own gathering instead.

Does this mean there will be split in the Anglican Communion?

Minns thought not: “We are in a process of realignment. When children grow up, you have to re-do your relationship, and begin to relate as equals. They are no longer kids and want to share in the leadership of the family. Institutional change is difficult.”

Read it all.