The Jerusalem meeting was called after several African leaders said they would boycott the Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade global gathering of more than 800 Anglican bishops hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Lambeth, which is scheduled for July 16-Aug. 3, has traditionally involved passage of resolutions on major issues facing the Anglican churches. In 1998, a conference resolution reiterated that homosexual practice is not compatible with Christian teachings.<\/p>\n
This year, Lambeth has been restructured to focus on small-group discussion and will not involve resolutions.<\/p>\n
“You have a family in crisis … and they structured the meeting so that the crisis will not be addressed,” says Dr. [Kendall] Harmon. “They basically want to punt the ball down the field for another 10 years, but that never works.”<\/p>\n
The Rev. Ian Douglas of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., who is on the Lambeth planning committee, counters that, “Bible study and groups which call for genuine discussion on difficult issues provide much greater opportunity to deal with the question than passing resolutions in a body of 800.”<\/p>\n