THE UNFLINCHING pleasantness of everyone is as exhausting as these hot, humid July days in Canterbury. Because, even if the world’s Anglicans are perceived by some to be at war with one another, it is such a lovely war.
After all, who can sustain murderous thoughts for long when confronted continuously with nothing more sinister than a seemingly endless parade of whitest teeth bared only in cheery greeting. The exhausting part is that this is expected to be reciprocated in kind, however agitated one’s inner, slavering demons.
It is the Anglican way, this wearing down of rigid position through the application of the relentlessly pleasant until an acceptable level of fudge has been arrived at. And it is what is happening once again at this Lambeth Conference. That is how this most disparate worldwide Communion has survived so much. Not least women.
What a roller coaster of an article! Hooray!
A careful study of the Council at Nicea will clearly show the Fathers of the Church did not employ unbearable politness when confronting apostates or heretics, they were very clear as was the Archbishop of Sudan at Lambeth. There are lessons here for the conservative bishops to learn and apply.