Many in the Episcopal Church have been living in anticipation of Lambeth 2008 since the summer of 2003. What do you think the effects of this Conference will be on the Communion level?
Before I came here I wrote a letter to the clergy and to the diocese saying I do not think that GAFCON or Lambeth would be a “Continental Divide” for the Communion. Think, for instance, of the rivers that flow through the mountains of North Carolina. Some flow into the Mississippi River and to the Gulf of Mexico and Some flow into the Savannah River and then into the Atlantic.
What we are involved in is like a drive across Nevada on US highway 50. It is called the “Loneliest Road in America”. You cross more mountain passes on that road than if you went across the entire United States from Oregon to Connecticut. None of the divides are continental and none of the waters that flow from there ever make it to the ocean.
So it is the wrong expectation. I did not expect Lambeth to deliver the answers. It would have been nice but I did not expect it.
I am not quite so sure about GAFCON. I am tempted to say that Lambeth has shed a lot of light on GAFCON and GAFCON has shed a lot of light on Lambeth.