This is part of the bigger problem identified by Dr WilÂliams in his final address. As he put it, the question emerging from Canterbury was not “What is Lambeth ’08 going to say?” but “Where are we going to speak from?” Not only do we not know who is to resolve the ComÂmunion’s problems ”” if not the Lambeth Conference, then the Primates’ Meeting? ”” we do not know who can define them with any authority. The Windsor ConÂtinuaÂtion Group attracted attenÂtion during the Conference because it articulated the problem with candour. The group funcÂtions as something between a Select Committee and a think tank, however, and the uncerÂtainty of its status adheres also to its proÂnouncements. Its remit is merely to submit recommendaÂtions to the Anglican Consultative Council next spring, taking into account the bishops’ views as expressed in Canterbury.
Thus the weight given to the group’s resurrection of moraÂtoriums as the solution to gay consecrations, same-sex blessings, and territorial incursions seems disproportionate. The Episcopal Church in the United States will be uneasy with the request, especially as it is open-ended. When would such a moratorium end? When half the Communion embraces a more tolerant attiÂtude? When Muslims in North Africa stop taunting Christians with belonging to a “gay Church”? Similarly, conserÂvaÂtives behind plans to create an alternative US hierarchy have not been imÂpressed by attempts to put extra-provincial interventions on the same footing as same-sex blessings. Nothing suggests that they have changed their view.
All this is to say that the Anglican Communion is in a bigger fix than any conference could sort out. On the other hand, the effort and expense of the Lambeth Conference justify the expectation that it will have done something to draw AngliÂcans into a more coherent body. This is why the Reflections are so irritating. Where, indeed, are they speaking from? Whether for logistical reasons, or from a desire to avoid clause-by-clause wrangÂling, they were not available to bishops before they were issued. The result is a rich field for the higher criticism. To take a trivial instance, how many bishops asked for a Lambeth Conference every five years? A handful of enthusiasts, or the majority?
This uncertainty must colour any reading of the remarks about sexuality and suggested revisions of the Anglican Covenant ”” a consequence of holding these discussions at the end of the ConÂference, without time to achieve any corporate ownership of the suggestions. Some of the propoÂsals would take the Communion back to the drawing board, and there is no sense of the relative weight that the bishops gave to them. The Covenant remains the only game in town. It is noteÂworthy that it was not dismissed by the bishops, most of whom have reservations about it; but it would have been good to have more than a disjointed set of suggestions.
RE: “To take a trivial instance, how many bishops asked for a Lambeth Conference every five years? A handful of enthusiasts, or the majority?”
It does not matter, though. If RW wants a Lambeth Conference every five years, then enough bishops asked. If RW does not want a Lambeth Conference every five years, then not enough bishops asked and “there is no consensus” there.
That’s what happens, in fact, when you create a whole conference where nothing is to be decided or voted on — and then the head of the conference sums up with the initiatives that he desires as the consensus.
I’m glad of course that those initiatives are generally what I want too . . . and I don’t see any signal that RW will do more than what he did with the Dar “consensus” [so TEC, although quite betrayed, need not actually worry] . . . but it’s quite transparently clear how the Lambeth Conference worked.
As an enormous waste of resources to produce an enormous amount of nothing?
Shoot, man, just have a computer video conference. With all the blogging going on, it is clear that the Bishops know how to use the computer.