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
Rowan Williams: Some resolutions.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: No resolutions.
Who wins? Ms Schori.
Either Rowan Williams is being played a fool or he is playing a fool. From what I hear, he is no fool.
He simply needs to heed J. I. Packer’s advice and resign.
Everything I have seen and heard emanating from Canterbury concerning the Lambeth Conference has Schori and Company written all over it, and that includes the so-called “indaba groups,” which as far as I can determine are designed to obfuscate, confuse, and divide everyone who participates in them to the point where nothing but “talk and talk” and more “hear my pain” is all that anyone will ever see or hear from this conference. In my opinion, ++Rowan has structured this conference for the convenience and benefit of TEC and their allies, and to the detriment of the rest of the Anglican Communion.
Shame on him!
no I think Rowan is trying to throw a consfusing mantle over the whole proceedings in the hope that nothing too scandalous occurs. I bet he just wants it over with – and with as little fuss as possible. But he may discover his failure to show strong leadership over GR will come back to bite him on the bum!
Can’t the Queen of England do something about this mess? She can’t have the ABC’s head but she can have his hat.
It may be wishful thinking, but is there a chance that a strong concluding statement from GAFCON this evening has the potential to leave Lambeth 08 turning out to be essentially an irrelevant historical footnote, and any GAFCON-critical orthodox attendants caught decidedly on the back foot? Indaba, Shmindaba. Schori et al. will carry on whatever it is that they’re doing (marching merrily if litigiously into neo-Valentinian oblivion). But it will matter little, deo volente.
The Bishop of Southwestern Virginia wrote in “Connections” that he and Dorothy are packing with presents to take to Lambeth. He also intimated relief that Lambeth will do nothing more than meet, greet, and listen. Such venues suit his leadership style.
This is the same bishop who had the gall to ask people for a donation from their federal stimulus checks to go for MDGs.
Clueless.
Elected.
In for life.
Let’s face it…the ABC {] is simply no match for the red queen, er, the PB.
Google indaba and you will likely be surprised: there are several business platforms in South Africa specifically using indaba to mean a place where different parties come to a meeting place to strike a deal. Rather than being a weak, let’s just talk, affair, these South African businesses see indaba in terms of action and results!
If I am correct, many if not most African cultures have a similar meeting, when the community gathers, discusses, and comes to a communal decision, which is binding on the whole community. It is true that there are no resolutions–but just as we have seen coming out of GAFCON, there are decisions made and robustly so. (It does appear to me that GAFCON has followed the same pattern of an indaba that has been announced for Lambeth–with discussion groups involving everyone and leading to an expression of common commitments.)
If KJS and others are hoping to avoid decisions, they may be in for a rude awakening. On the other hand, they may be hoping for a decision making process that they can manipulate and attempt to declare said decisions binding on the whole community. I am praying that the African bishops will take the lead, will move the process to a strong and biblical conclusion, and surprise all of us! (I believe in a God who answers prayer.)
I am praying that Gafcon is a rallying point, a strategy session to comandeer Lambeth from the revisionists and their stooges.
LCF writes, in part:
[blockquote] …when the community gathers, discusses, and comes to a communal decision, which is binding on the whole community. [/blockquote]
I think that was the way it used to be in the Anglican Communion as well — then the arrogant Americans decided they were better than the rest of the Communion and the rest of the Communion could take a flying leap at the moon. See, for example the ECUSA ministers on subjects like Divorce, Women’s Ordination*, the Holy Scriptures, the Divinity and Resurrection of Jesus, and now the ordination of those practicing sexual immorality.
Most recently, the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA goes off to meetings with her brother bishops and gives her word, then immediately repudiates it. What good are consensus decisions when the Americans (and their followers in England) have no honor or integrity?
—-
*While I believe the ordination of women to the priesthood is consistent with the Scriptures, I disagree strongly with the arrogant way the Americans acted.
[blockquote]Can’t the Queen of England do something about this mess?[/blockquote]
I suppose she could cancel the high tea at Buckingham Palace. Then there won’t be anything for anyone to do except for Rowan and Schori to dabadabadoo together at Lambeth Palace.
Or perhaps the whole thing could be cancelled and the millions applied to the MDGs or else something useful like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick….
“Or perhaps the whole thing could be cancelled and the millions applied to the MDGs or else something useful like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick….” Good call, #11. At least something worthwhile would come out of it if that were the case. You’re comment reminded me of something from the Prophet Malachi: “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the LORD Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.” (Mal. 1:10) “You have wearied the LORD with your words.
“How have we wearied him?” you ask.
By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them….” (Mal. 2:17)
I grew up in Southern Africa. One of the meanings of indaba, as well as “talking shop” was “trouble.” “Maninge indaba” meant, in the lingua franca of the mines and farms, “a great deal of trouble.” I wonder if these whizzkid planners were aware.
Probably not. Foreign languages do not seem to be a forte of the left. I seem to recall that some genius at 815 came up with a rival organization to CANA, to be called “Convocation of Anglican Congregations in the Americas” consisting of leftist South American churches. They were apparently not aware that the acronym “CACA” isn’t very nice in Spanish.
#8 – stirke a deal???? With those who willfully defied scripture, tradition and the teaching of the previous Lambeth conference. Sorry but no! They need disciplining not a place at the table to met half way. It is that ridiculous need to be reasonable at all costs- and lets admit the compromise would be some confusing and foggy document on sexuality that says everything and nothing- that has led the Anglican Church to the brink of crisis. Yes we seek to be inclusive and reasonable BUT NOT with those who willingly break the rules, fracture the church and hold us all to ransom.
Mike Russell mentioned this on the HoB/D listserv:
“sanctions under the proposed St. Andrew’s Draft”
Can anyone tell me what is meant by this?
Is this some anti-boundary crossing being cooked up through the instruments of the AC or perhaps a GC connivance?
Addition to # 16: Could this be a TEO connivance planned for the ‘resolutionless” Lambeth next month?
HM Queeen Elizabeth II has little to no power. She is a focal point for the UK, an important symbol of continued British tradition over the centuries. Such power as she does have is purely advisory in nature.
ooopa …Queen…
I wonder what’s the point now of attending Lambeth? If there won’t be any resolutions, why to make the effort to attend? May God be merciful with the Anglican Communion.