Some of us who attended the 1998 Lambeth Conference were not looking forward very much, if I am honest, to the one in 2008. The 1998 Conference, although it produced a lot of useful documents on mission, unity and human rights and a whole range of other subjects, fell apart on the issue of human sexuality towards the end of the Conference. The plenary dealing with Human Sexuality was the only one that refused to accept a report from a group that had been discussing the issue for three weeks and insisted on altering it, thus losing the balance of that carefully crafted document. The result was a bad tempered debate that soured everything. In reality, the issue of human sexuality had simmered under the surface of the 1998 Conference from the outset and that shows that it isn’t just the consecration of Gene Robinson or public rites of same sex blessings in Canada that are wholly responsible for the present crisis in the Communion. Throughout the ’98 Conference groups met in secret on and off campus, pursuing their own particular views on human sexuality and briefing against each other, so that when it actually came to the Resolutions, there was bound to be a conflagration and indeed, there was.
From the outset, the 2008 Conference ”“ the 14th Lambeth Conference to be held, did not appear to have a dangerous under-current simmering beneath the surface. Everyone knew of GAFCON’s meeting, i.e. the meeting of around 200 bishops who had refused the Archbishop’s invitation to Lambeth and who met in Jerusalem beforehand. Everyone knew that Gene Robinson had not been invited; everyone knew that there were different views on sexuality, and everyone knew about the events that had taken place since ’98, yet there seemed to be a genuine desire on the part of everyone to engage constructively with those holding different views. Admittedly 200 Bishops were absent mainly from Africa, one or two from England and Australia but that too needs to be seen in perspective. Uganda was the only Province not to be represented by a bishop and some of the African Bishops had come under intense pressure from their Primates not to come, even though some of them wanted to. (This tells you something about the power of Primates in some Provinces of the Communion and why some of them fail to understand why the whole Communion does not fall into line when they speak).
It helped to know, of course, that nothing would be decided at this Conference ”“ no Resolutions would be passed as has happened at most Lambeth Conferences. It was a return to the intention of the first Lambeth Conference called in 1867 by Archbishop Longley for brotherly counselling and conferring in response to a crisis caused by the Bishop of Natal who believed in a non literal interpretation of the Scriptures….
Read it all.
