Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has responded to inaccurate media reports that the Lambeth Conference had been cancelled by saying, “As it hasn’t been called, it can’t have been cancelled”.
Speaking to the BBC’s William Crawley, the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion said the historic meeting of bishops from around the world would take place sometime after the primates* had met together.
“When I was installed in Canterbury as archbishop I met all the primates, they all came to that, and I said to them that I would visit all of them in their own country which, God willing, I will have done by the end of this November, and that at the end of that we would consult together about when to have a Lambeth Conference.”
Semantics. “Reconciliation” – Rowan2.0.
So….
In 1998, orthodox Anglicans from the floor forced the Lambeth Conference to consider a resolution on sexuality, against the wishes of the presiding ABC and his cronies. It was adopted overwhelmingly by bishops as resolution 1.10.
Determined to avoid a repeat of that humiliation (not to mention the challenge to their control of the Conference) the CofE hierarchy decided to neuter the 2008 Lambeth Conference. The problem was that that conference is now derided as “the Indaba Lambeth”, the one that wasn’t allowed to decide anything. [Ironically, that fact seems to have stuck in people’s minds even more than the Gafcon-related boycott.]
So what can the CofE hierarchy do now? There is really no other option left to them, except, don’t call a Lambeth Conference at all!