However, in an interview with The Church of England Newspaper in April 2008, Dr Williams backed away from his conclusive views on the morality of homosexual conduct, while statements last week at the Lambeth Conference about “wrong” sexual conduct, have further muddied the waters.

In a 1989 essay The Body’s Grace, Dr Williams wrote that “the absolute condemnation of same-sex relations of intimacy must rely either on an abstract fundamentalist deployment of a number of very ambiguous biblical texts or on a problematical and non-scriptural theory about natural complementarity, applied narrowly and crudely to physical differentiation.”

Asked in April by CEN whether he still held to this view, Dr Williams replied, “What I said about the ambiguity of the scriptural texts would need a lot of qualification. “What we have to say theologically about the nature of sexual identity is still to me unfinished business,” Dr Williams stated.

Asked during a July 21 press conference what he believed would constitute “wrong” sexual behaviour, Dr Williams responded in language that appeared to affirm the moral validity of public same-sex unions or partnerships. What would be “wrong” would be “any relationship which is outside a covenant, public covenant of mutual support, love in the presence of God.” Dr Williams added: “I don’t believe that sex outside marriage is as God purposes it.”

Read it all.

The just-completed Lambeth Conference opened itself to instant ridicule by doing little more than talking and keeping a formal split at bay for the moment. Liberals refused to declare an ultimatum that would force the dissenters to stay or go. Some were angered by what they saw as Lambeth’s toothlessness. Conservatives didn’t quite defect, though many scoffed at Lambeth as a waste of time and $12 million, and proclaimed their readiness to quit.

But to dismiss the conference as a failure of nerve would miss the point that is so vividly illustrated in this crisis: that Christianity itself, in all of its varieties, is a fragile thing indeed. There is every reason to believe that Anglicanism is beset by as many serious moral and theological problems as any church body. The distinctions arise in how denominations meet those challenges.

The Anglican way of openness to opposing views and a decentralized form of government that allows for broad deliberation has much to commend it. Like democracy with which it shares much, Anglican decision making is messy and inefficient, but it comports well with what many leading historians believe to be the method used by the churches of early Christianity. It allows for considerable diversity in belief and practices but sometimes an issue like homosexuality becomes divisive and demands attention.

The archbishop of Canterbury more resembles the Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople as the “first among equals” than he does the pope. He can do almost nothing by himself. At every level, from parishes to dioceses to regions to the world conferences, Anglicans argue and vote. The question is whether this is a God-given means of deciding church teaching. In some form or other, it appears that the early church believed it to be.

Read it all.

The Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd Christopher Hill, said that he had been “exhilarated and moved” by the Conference, and found positives in the “definite steer” towards commitment to a Covenant process and in “recognition that a covenant clearly has to have some teeth”. He described the develop­ment of structures as “a huge achievement. . . The Anglican Communion has not had over­arching structures capable of bearing this strain.”

The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Michael Perham, said that “people came to realise that they wanted us at all costs to find ways of staying together in one Communion, recognising the huge loss if we do not.”

There had been some shifting of ground between “the liberal bishops who came to Lambeth very doubtful about the concept of the Covenant; the more conservative bishops and provinces clear it was needed”. Moratoriums had best been described as “a gracious season of restraint”, Bishop Perham said.

He observed: “One of the key changes in the Anglican picture as a result of Lambeth is the enhanced authority of Archbishop Rowan. Conservatives and liberals alike, as well as all those of us who don’t fit either label, were inspired by his scholarly, gentle and holy leadership.”

Read it all.

Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” Sound familiar? Describing, in The Atlantic Monthly, his own struggles to keep his attention span from contracting like the wild ass’s skin in Balzac’s novel, Nicholas Carr cites a British study of research habits among visitors to two serious scholarly websites which suggests a more general problem: that “users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of ”˜reading’ are emerging as users ”˜power browse’ horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.”

Almost seems? I don’t know about Mr. Carr, but I have no doubt that I go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense. The question is, how guilty do I need to feel about this? In his view, presumably, quite a lot guilty, since by reading online as much as I do I am depriving myself of the ability to read offline. He takes this insight to an even more alarming conclusion in the end, writing that “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.” And if that’s the case for veteran readers, think how much worse it must be for the jeunesse dorée of the information age, if they never developed the habits that accompany “deep reading” in the first place.
It is these poor cultural orphans, for whom “information retrieval” online is the only kind of reading they know, who are the main concern of Mark Bauerlein in his new book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future. One would think that a whole future in jeopardy would be too serious a matter for the flippancy of the rest of the subtitle: Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30. But Professor Bauerlein, who teaches English at Emory University and is a former director of research and analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, is not always sure just how much a matter of mirth “the dumbest generation” is, or isn’t. After all, it is not really their fault if, as he says, they have been “betrayed” by the mentors who should have taught them better. Yet he seems to agree with Nicholas Carr that what we are witnessing is not just an educational breakdown but a deformation of the very idea of intelligence.

Read it all.

The Olympic Village’s religious center has become the target of a quiet protest by athletes, coaches and other delegates who say its staffing and services fall woefully short of the promises made by Chinese organizers.

Previous Olympic hosts welcomed foreign chaplains, but China has banned them from living with the athletes. It has instead pledged that it will provide equivalent services from its pool of state-employed pastors, imams and other clerics.

Josh McAdams, 28, an American athlete who runs the 3,000-meter steeplechase, said members of the U.S. track and field team have been “quite dissatisfied” with the center. Not only are the services conducted in broken English, most staff members do not have experience with sports or with foreigners.

“They should allow chaplains””perhaps one from each country””to be in the village. … This is important, because for many of us, athletics is not only physical and mental but spiritual,” said McAdams, who is Mormon.

Read it all.

Bishop Lamb noted that his efforts to communicate with alienated clergy have been hampered by the fact that he does not have an updated list of clergy and addresses. That information remains in the possession of the Anglican Diocese of the San Joaquin, led by Bishop John-David Schofield.

On Aug. 4, Bishop Schofield, his standing committee and diocesan council wrote to Bishop Lamb informing him that “we accept the recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury of our bishop and reject any purported authority of The Episcopal Church, or Bishop Jerry Lamb, over any of our ministries. Our obligation is to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the world-wide Anglican Communion.”

Bishop Lamb expressed cautious optimism about the Windsor Continuation Group proposals unveiled during the Lambeth Conference.

Read it all.

Recently a friend assured me that a book by a well-known evangelical Christian was the new “Mere Christianity.” For an evangelical this possibly cryptic statement needs no explanation. As evangelicals, we are called to evangelize — to share the good news about Jesus Christ. Most of us also are surrounded by friends and co-workers who may be curious about our beliefs. And for over 55 years, Christians have turned to C.S. Lewis’s little book “Mere Christianity” for both of these reasons.

Of course, C.S. Lewis was an Irish-born Anglican and was committed to a mode of worship and a tradition far removed from those of American evangelicals. But he was also an adept Christian apologist who used his literary gifts — his fluent prose style, his powers of description, his engaging narrative voice, his way with metaphor — to explain the basic tenets of Christianity: what it meant to believe in Jesus Christ and to live according to Christian principles. More than that: He was at pains to capture, in prose, what it meant to discover Christianity as something worthy of belief. On the page, he thought his own faith through, trying to make sense of it for himself and others. There is always something ecumenical and instructive to Lewis’s religious writings, and “Mere Christianity” — which has sold several million copies since it was first published in 1952 after its original incarnation as a series of radio broadcasts — is the nonfiction book by which American Christians, not least American evangelicals, know Lewis best.

But much has changed in the last half-century.

Read it all

The issue concerns the authority of scripture. What is the Bible? That is the question that is being worked out here at Lambeth.

What concerns me is that the conservatives in our church want to pick and choose which lines of scripture are meant to be taken literally and which are more metaphoric.

Of course, it says that a man lying with a man is an abomination, but it also says that eating shellfish is the same. Do we storm the Lobster Pot restaurant and brand all inside as sinners?

I find that the issue of divorce to be a good marker for this discussion.

In the Bible, Jesus is emphatic, divorce is not permissible, no debate, no back-sliding. And this is Jesus, not Leviticus or St Paul; this is the founder of our faith.

Read it all and then take the time to read this old blog thread and the comments and linked material.

Firstly, accept my thanks for your wonderful website. I check it daily for the news and the frequently insightful comments. Although I am not an Anglican (I’m a Roman Catholic), I am deeply grieved by what is happening to the Anglican Communion. It must be bewildering to the faithful.

I have frequently visualized you at your desk assembling the daily blog. It must take a considerable amount of time, more than I probably realize. I know that I, and I’m sure many others, would be very interested to learn how you compile the stories, how much time it takes, how do you get permission to reproduce the entries, do you have any help, any problems, do you need funding, etc. etc.

This is a dire time for your church and you have much more important things to occupy your time than to respond to such a request. But, if you ever find the time, it would certainly interest me at least. Thanks.

The comments from both at their home in the Pacific Northwest are very worthwhile (almost 7 minutes along). If you do not know Tom Sine’s Mustard Seed Conspiracy book, it needs to be on your list.

After Robert Powell hit the Florida Lottery jackpot last month and took home more than $6 million, he thought of his church.

And he offered to drop his tithe, around $600,000, in the collection plate of First Baptist Orange Park.

But the church and Pastor David Tarkington politely declined and told Powell they will not accept the lottery winnings.

Many churches do not approve of the lottery and gambling but on the other hand Pastor Dr. Lorenzo Hall of the El-Beth-El Divine Holiness Church says $600,000 can do a lot of good.

Read it all.

The original article on which the article posted yesterday was based is here. (Hat tip: BM)

I will post comments on that article here so as to prevent confusion between the two threads. I will also consider posting additional comments on this fuller article submitted first by email to Kendall’s E-mail: KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

When John McCain and Barack Obama appear on the same stage Saturday at the sprawling religious campus of Orange County’s Saddleback Church, their presence will vividly underline the reach that has made Pastor Rick Warren among the most significant evangelists of his generation.

But the joint appearance — one of Warren’s highest-profile endeavors — will also underscore a tension that is central to his role.

Warren has been called perhaps “America’s most influential pastor,” an evangelical megastar who leads the nation’s fourth-largest church, reaches thousands of ministers through the Internet and crusades against poverty and AIDS.

That globe-trotting work — and his phenomenally successful book, “The Purpose Driven Life” — have propelled him into the vanguard of a movement that inspires young and socially conscious Christians.

Read it all.

How can the Episcopal Church claim to be the thinking people’s church when so few parishes devote sufficient time to adult education on Sunday mornings?

It is a question worthy of much pondering. I think we should where at all possible give one hour to adult spiritual formation on the Lord’s day ”” but if you study how parishes actually function, the number who use this standard is precious few.

In some parishes there is little or no adult education to speak of on Sunday mornings, whereas there are such offerings for children. But following Christ is a life long call, and this approach won’t do.

Thankfully in the last two to three decades more and more parishes are offering adult education on the Sabbath day. But how much time do they give them?

I have here a parish newsletter from one of the largest parishes in the country, and on their Sunday morning schedule they offer several classes for 35 minutes.

You know how this works in practice. People come out of worship, people have struggles finding a parking spot, people need to use the rest room, and before you know it, 35 minutes becomes 25 or less in practice. But this is much less time than a typical college class, or an average session in a business seminar. Does this communicate a priority on adult education?

Other parishes do better and actually give 45 minutes. But again, one has to go beneath the surface in the parish to see how this actually functions in a number of instances. One quite vibrant parish comes to mind that has 45 minute classes, but in this parish the choir members leave after 30 minutes for Sunday morning choir practice. What does this communicate about priorities, never mind the distraction to other class members?

I believe one hour needs to be devoted to adult education, because even then with all the distractions on most Sunday mornings the time actually spent on the material is less, but it at least allows substantive engagement. Yes, parishes should use every considerable resource. By all means we should use different formats that taken into account the fact that adults learn in different ways than children do.

I realize, too, that some parishes have physical space constraints that make this amount of time impossible without unduly damaging the chance to worship.

But if we do not give it sufficient time, we communicate in our actions that it really isn’t a priority.

It is time for the church that claims to be the thinking person’s church to live into its own claims and devote a whole hour on the Sunday morning schedule to adult education of real quality and variety.

Imagine that””a church that claims to be for thinking people giving people real time to think on Sunday morning about what it means to Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. If it is really important to us can we do any less?

— The Rev. Canon Dr. Kendall S. Harmon is convenor of this blog

A group of 14 traditionalist bishops claim that there are “irreconcilable differences” over historic reforms that would introduce women as bishops without giving proper concessions to oponents of the move.

In a letter to 1,400 clergy who have indicated that they are considering defecting from the Church of England, they are highly critical of a decision by the General Synod – the Church’s parliament – to ignore proposals for a compromise over the divisive issue.

The Anglo-Catholic bishops have vowed to support clergy who feel unable to remain in the Church, but have pledged to fight for a better deal for traditionalists who do not believe women should be consecrated.

Signed by three senior bishops – the Rt Rev John Hind, Bishop of Chichester, the Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, Bishop of Blackburn and the Rt Rev Geoffrey Rowell, Bishop in Europe – the letter will serve as a reminder to Dr Rowan Williams that there is still a battle ahead over making women bishops.

Read it all.

The United States accused Russia yesterday of waging a campaign to cripple Georgia’s ability to defend itself in the future.

As American military transport aircraft landed in Tbilisi to strong complaints from Moscow, the Russian Army undertook search-and-destroy missions on Georgian soil, defying the ceasefire agreement brokered by President Sarkozy of France.

Tanks and soldiers continued to occupy Gori despite promising to leave by yesterday. A Georgian military base in the city was destroyed and the Georgian Ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe accused the Russians of laying mines before a withdrawal.

The Pentagon vented its anger with Moscow by cancelling two joint naval exercises involving Russian ships. In a clear sign that the Georgia crisis was escalating into a broader superpower conflict, the US reached agreement with Poland last night over the controversial missile defence shield.

Read it all.

The oil-price shocks of 1973 and 1979 motivated Japan, in particular, to become more energy-efficient. In 1980, when U.S. consumers were griping about $1.25-a-gallon gas — $3.30 in today’s prices — their counterparts in Japan were paying roughly twice as much. They started using a lot less. In 1983, Japan consumed about 25% less oil per person than it had in 1973. Last year, Japan used 14 barrels per person, and the countries in the euro zone consumed 17. The U.S. used 25 barrels per person.

—From a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled “U.S. Retools Economy, Curbing Thirst for Oil”

As for why I decided to offer his letters to the public arena, I have written to Dr [Tom] Wright at length, but suffice it to say that as events moved from GAFCon to Lambeth I became almost sure for various reasons that the liberals knew far more about Dr Williams’s personal views than the traditionalists did and, if so, the balance should be redressed.

Read it all from her letter in tomorrow’s Times.

Could everyone please stop hyperventilating about Michael Phelps?

Yes, he now has won more gold medals than anyone in Olympic history.

No, that does not make him the greatest Olympic athlete in history.

In fact, he doesn’t even make my top five.

Read it all. All I can say is I am really enjoying the olympics!

Before many Christians are ready for the rapture, they apparently have a lot of baggage to unpack. Lucky for them, Daniel Radosh has taken it upon himself to shake out all their dirty laundry.

In his recently published book, Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, Radosh bravely ventures into Christian music festivals, Holy Land theme park, Christian comedy clubs, and even Christian pro-wrestling matches to dig out the hairy secrets buried in the kitschy recesses of pop evangelicalism. And he lives to tell about it. And tell about it he does, spilling the embarrassing facts of this $7 billion industry.

But why? In an interview with Christianity Today, Radosh, a humanistic Jew, explains: “Honestly, I did it because a lot of it is quite funny.” But Radosh, who is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker and a contributing editor at The Week magazine, was not on a mission to mock or shock. He goes on to explain: “We think about pop culture as something ephemeral and superficial, and I wanted to try to understand how that could be combined with something like faith, which is eternal and deep.”

In working on this unusual project, Radosh had the earnest desire to look beyond the tacky bumper stickers, tasteless “Testamint” breath fresheners, and humdrum rock and roll in order to discover what is behind many of the strange phenomena that comprise this misunderstood segment of American society. In the end, what he offers is not a scathing review but a brief history and fair-minded analysis of the commercialization of Christianity. And more interestingly, he offers Christians the rare opportunity to be a fly on the wall.

Read it all, and in case you are wondering, that sound you hear is the blog host sighing about all the poor eschatology in the church these days. Agghh!

South Carolina continues to have the country’s fastest-growing Latino populations, despite a slowing economy and a tougher crackdown on illegal immigrants.

According to Census data from 2006-07 released this week, South Carolina ranked first among states in per capita growth, North Carolina was third, with Tennessee between them.

The new arrivals come not only from Mexico, Central and South America, but also New York, New Jersey and California, where U.S. economic problems has taken a greater toll, immigrants and advocates say. Latinos continue to see the Carolinas as having more jobs, cheaper housing and a better climate.

Read it all.

Bungling engineers have been left red-faced after building a railway tunnel that’s too small for trains to actually fit through.

The costly mistake was only discovered when inspectors measured the finished tunnel in the Polish capital, Warsaw, and realised the roof was so low that no trains would get under it.

Rail bosses claim the mix-up happened because workers who were laying new tracks didn’t talk to the team that was building the tunnel.

Read it all.

One crazy day in our pediatric clinic saw me hand a young patient a urine sample container and tell im to fill it up in the bathroom. A few minutes later, he returned to my nurse’s station with an empty cup.

“I didn’t need that after all,” he said. “There was a toilet in there.”

–Linda Felkie in the September 2008 Reader’s Digest, page 84

On July 10th, the Right Revd Jerry Lamb, putative bishop of the putative “Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin”, wrote this letter to the clergy of the diocese as it was constituted prior to December 8, 2007. It gave August 5th as the deadline for receiving responses from said clergy as to their intentions with respect to their future relationship to the Episcopal Church. Apparently it was not a precision operation. I know of at least two female deacons who were addressed as “Dear Father N.” I also know of two presbyters who never received the letter.

In any case, I am given to understand that the Standing Committee of the (rogue and illicit) Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin is set to meet this Friday. One might reasonably presume that their agenda includes taking notice of responses received and not received by last week’s deadline. One might further presume that a goodly number of letters will be in the mail shortly informing their recipients that they have been deposed from the ordained ministry as the Episcopal Church understands ordained ministry.

Read it all.

North Carolina and Alabama have joined a growing number of states establishing programs that allow the release of dying or infirm prisoners to cut prison system health care costs.

Alabama’s law goes into effect Sept. 1. It will allow inmates who are permanently incapacitated or terminally ill to be furloughed. It will also allow for the release of inmates 55 or older who have life-threatening illnesses. About 125 of the state’s 25,000 inmates will be eligible, Alabama Prisons Commissioner Richard Allen said.

Inmates considered for parole will be “the frailest of the frail and sickest of the sick,” Allen said.

North Carolina’s legislation took effect June 10. Authorities are still assessing policies and procedures, state prisons system spokesman Keith Acree said.

Read it all.

Still, Hong Kong Primate Paul Kwong said he regretted a lack of “concrete action” to deal with the sexuality issues. He told journalists the Hong Kong Anglican Church had ordained a woman in the 1940s but had later revoked the ordination when it became clear it was not acceptable to other churches.

“Sacrifice is what Hong Kong is asking for,” he said. “We are not talking about rights. For the sake of the communion, we are asking for sacrifice.”

However, Bishop Jon Bruno of Los Angeles said the proposals for a halt to same-sex blessings would be received with “fear and trembling” in his diocese, the Episcopal Café blog site noted. “For people who think that this is going to lead us to disenfranchise any gay or lesbian person, they are sadly mistaken.”

Some individuals expressed doubts that the archbishop’s plan for a covenant, a pastoral forum and a new round of talks with primates would heal the wounds caused by Bishop Gene Robinson’s consecration.

“I think this is not the last Anglican conference but I do think it will be the last Lambeth Conference,” said the Rev. Tom Wetzel of Anglicans United, a group headquartered in Dallas, Texas that says it campaigns for “Anglican orthodoxy”.

Read it all.

John Edwards has and had that “all American” look about him: clean-cut, polished, distinguished … and he talked all the things Americans like and need to hear.

So, when the news of his sexual liaison came out this week, I was disappointed. He was and is human after all, like all the rest of us. I don’t believe a word of his story about how the affair took place, when it started, and that the love child is not his. But that’s not my concern. All that is done in the dark comes out. It always does …

What I’m concerned about is Elizabeth Edwards, and in fact all women who deal with unfaithful husbands. Over and over, I have seen women in my office for pastoral counseling, hearts broken because of an unfaithful spouse, convinced that the Bible tells them they must stay and forgive their husbands.

The Bible does say forgive. It says nothing about staying.

And funny, the men who have cheating wives never seem to be bound by the same theological directive. They come angry and indignant, and decry the audacity of their wives to have cheated on them. I never get from them the sense … or the statement … that they should forgive their wives OR stay with them. If divorcing their wives mean they will go to hell, then, that’s life.

It’s the women – taught very well by men – who come thinking that they must forgive their husbands and that forgiving means “stay.”

There is, in other words, this huge double standard. What? Are there two gods, one for the men and another for the women, with separate instructions for each?

Catholics at worship should neither sing nor pronounce the name of God as “Yahweh,” the Vatican has said, citing the authority of both Jewish and Christian practice.

The instruction came in a June 29 letter to Catholic bishops conferences around the world from the Vatican’s top liturgical body, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, by an explicit “directive” of Pope Benedict XVI.

“In recent years the practice has crept in of pronouncing the God of Israel’s proper name,” the letter noted, referring to the four-consonant Hebrew “Tetragrammaton,” YHWH.

That name is commonly pronounced as “Yahweh,” though other versions include “Jaweh” and “Yehovah.” But such pronunciation violates long-standing Jewish tradition, the Vatican reminded bishops.

Read it all.

One of the key benefits of this Lambeth conference was the opportunity it afforded Anglican leaders from throughout the world, including our own Primate, Archbishop Greg, to meet together in groups, as well as one-on-one, to discuss important matters. There have been many reports of positive “indaba” and Bible study group meetings.

There have also been reports of frustration. Frustration that Lambeth, by design, did not produce any further clarity on the crisis ”“ no clear direction, no decisions. However, this was indeed by design and was cited by bishops who chose not to attend as one of the factors in their decision. Two Primates ”“ one attending Lambeth, one not ”“ spoke passionately and eloquently of the intransigent anti-Christian actions of the North American churches, actions that precipitated the crisis. I have great respect for both Archbishop Deng Bul (Sudan) and Archbishop Orombi (Uganda) for their courage in taking their stands when silence would have been far easier.

I was struck by the marked contrast between what I was hearing from Lambeth and what I experienced at the GAFCon meeting only a few weeks earlier in Jerusalem. The ambiguity and confusion created by Lambeth is in stark contrast to the clarity and joy of GAFCon. While Lambeth focused on holding together institutional unity in the absence of spiritual unity, GAFCon manifested the genuine unity of those who share the same Lord, the same Truth and the same Spirit. Those of us privileged to be in Jerusalem in June experienced daily symphonies of praise as brothers and sisters in Christ worshipped together in “one accord”.

Sadly, Lambeth again clearly demonstrated that there are those who call themselves Anglicans who have strayed far from Christian truth and have embraced another lord and a different gospel. The Archbishop of Canterbury, I believe, is struggling to do the impossible ”“ hold together under the Anglican banner two utterly incompatible religions. Thus, the incoherence, the confusion, and the contradictions contained in the Lambeth documents. Compare the 42 page Lambeth “Reflections” document which says everything, but in the end says nothing, to the four page GAFCon statement, which offered a clear statement of faith and outlined next steps.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, in responding to a Times report last week on correspondence in which he engaged some eight years ago on the issue of homosexuality, affirmed his acceptance of Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference “as stating the position of the worldwide Anglican Communion on issues of sexual ethics”. Dr Williams continued: “As Archbishop, I understand my responsibility to be to the declared teaching of the Church I serve, and thus to discourage any developments that might imply that the position and convictions of the worldwide Communion have changed.”

This statement raises questions about the role of the Lambeth Conference itself and, indeed, the ecclesial nature of the Anglican Communion.

The Lambeth Conference is, precisely, a conference. It is not a synod. To that extent, its resolutions do, indeed, carry great moral weight, but the Lambeth Conference’s decisions are neither definitive nor binding in the Churches of the Anglican Communion.

Read it all.