In relation to doctrine the Lambeth Conference (and, in England, the development of synodical government) were alternative to legal proceedings. All the experience of nineteenth century legal approaches to doctrine was that such methods failed. There is no reason to think that twenty-first century lawyers will be better judges of doctrine than nineteenth-century lawyers. There is no reason to think that twenty-first century bishops will be any more careful of claims of justice than were nineteenth-century bishops. And the first case in which the Primates find against the promoters will result in the court being blamed for its perverse finding and sections of the church refusing its jurisdiction. Stalemate.
Conferences and synods developed (in part) in order to talk and to keep talking and to enable argument and disagreement to continue within manageable bounds. Discourse, not law, is what keeps a communion together, keeps doctrinal debate in play, and enable both the reassertion of orthodoxy and adaptation to novel circumstances to proceed with the assent and through the reception of the majority.
It won’t please everyone. But, believe me, legal or semi-legal approaches to belief and faith will affront far, far more people.
[blockquote] But, believe me, legal or semi-legal approaches to belief and faith will affront far, far more people. [/blockquote] …and we’re going to make darn well sure that a disaster like Lambeth ’98 never happens again.
I guess the reasons synods developed are complex. However in at least two very serious cases in which clergy were accused on heresy within nineteenth century Anglicanism (Gorham and Colenso) some senior CofE and Communion clergy erxactly wanted synods called in order to affirm orthodox doctrine and appropriate discipline because the ABC and English state had failed to discipline them. Thus the devleopment of synods in Anglicanism was for some exactly due to a desire to authoritatively affirm doctrinal and disciplinary orthodoxy.
‘Keeping on talking’ was exactly what they did not want!
Keble to Pusey concerning the possiblity of a diocesan bishop disobeying the ABC:
And writing asgain the next day
While I certainly understand the desire to keep talking, I suppose that if this thinking were carried to its logical conclusion that we should not have had the great councils of the church or rather that they should have just been gabfests. Even if one wants to roll it back as far as the Jerusalem council in Acts, what if James and the elders had just decided to keep chatting, but not really make any calls? Where would we pitiful Gentiles have ended then?
It’s not a lawmaking body, it’s a corpse.
It seems to me that either the AC develops a way to enforce
uniformity in the essentials or it will disintegrate. Maybe
that choice has been made…