The Episcopal Church provided the largest block of bishops at the Lambeth Conference, sending 104 of the 469 diocesan bishops present during the conference of Anglican bishops in Canterbury.
Details on who and how many of the Anglican Communion’s 880 active bishops attended the Lambeth Conference have not been made public. However, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Consultative Council, reported the conference “involved the participation of some 680 bishops and 3,000 participants.”
There were 617 Anglican bishops registered for the conference, according to Lambeth Conference documentation obtained by The Living Church. Approximately 600 Anglican bishops were present for the group photo. Of the 617, 469 were diocesan bishops and the remaining 140 were suffragan, assisting and assistant bishops, as well as eight bishops without territorial sees.
The largest number of absentees was from Africa, with 209 of the continent’s 324 diocesan bishops missing. There were 115 diocesan and 12 suffragan bishops from African dioceses.
Thank you for this. As one used to working with numbers to hear the story they tell, it [i]is[/i] fascinating to note the vast preponderance of American diocesans in proportion to the decidedly small membership of ECUSA. Particularly in view of the trouble they have caused in the promotion of their agenda.
One might argue that so many diocesans are “necessary” owing to the great size of America. Canada, however, is equally large, and has more Anglicans, yet counts but 29 diocesans. Similarly, Australia is also a very large nation — with more Anglicans than either Canada or the US — and has a mere 20 diocesans.
Consequently, in proportion to both geography and membership ECUSA is [i]over[/i]-represented here by a factor of four or five. I wonder to what extent such disproportion has distorted deliberations at the last few Lambeth meetings, to say nothing of the most recent one.
A sense of this disproportion can be illustrated by imagining a US Congress in which Oregon, South Carolina, and New Mexico (all roughly equal size and population) each had 5 members of Congress, whilst Kansas –also roughly equal to the others in size and population– had 23 very pushy MCs merely because we had at one point decided we wanted that many districts. Oh yes, and New York state would have 10 MCs.
It’s rather like good dog whose extremely large tail is repeatedly smashing things. Perhaps a tail-docking is in order.
The headline says it all as to the problems in the AC. Disproportionate representation is little more than a recipe for impending disaster. Perhaps in return for such incredible over representation, 815 can foot the bill for the shortfall. That will leave them with that much less to spend on suing the reasserters….
Didn’t the Elves post a thread on this with some hard numbers, shortly before Lambeth? I seem to recall that TEC was not the worst offender.
So let me get this straight – there is no attempt to make the level of representation at Lambeth proportional?
#4: No, there isn’t.
There are serious questions that can be raised, theological and ecclesiological, about to what extent the church should be governed on a hierarchical model versus a democratic-slash-representative model. At the Communion level, these questions can be ducked to some extent so long as the Communion remains a relatively loose body whose various bodies have little actual power. If the Covenant people get their way and the Communion becomes more centralized, some of those questions will have to be addressed; maybe there will need to be some attempt to make Lambeth more proportionally representative. The last Covenant draft that I saw was silent on that subject, however.
The work of a bishop requires going places. A bishop should be able to travel anywhere in their diocese that day and be home for dinner. It’s not an unreasonable expectation.
JW, please note the canon -ancient or modern- that supports your assertion. Note too that by that accounting the current PB ought to fly all over the USA withou regard to timezones since it ca all be done in 24 hours. Or are you limiting it to 8 hours? ;>)
My note was explanatory rather than theological. The number of bishops may have something to do, in part, with the professionalization of clergy. Personally, I’m also skeptical about the number of bishops and am also wary about letting “democracy” be the primary way decisions get made.
But my impression is that the critique is more about sour grapes and resentment rather than anything substantial.