This is a good place from which to participate in the Lambeth Conference which is trying to build something new while living in the ruins of a succession of spiritual communities. As everyone knows, we are in crisis, and what at one time seemed primarily an abstract problem of theological coherence has caused the Anglican Communion to begin to break up.<\/p>\n
It is an unprecedented situation which the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has decided needs an unprecedented response. Gone is the approach of the last hundred years of Lambeth Conferences, which developed, debated and voted on large numbers of substantive resolutions in a parliament of bishops. In the Archbishop`s view, resolutions (notably Resolution 1.10 of the last Lambeth Conference which addressed the blessing of same sex unions and bishops invading each other\u2019s jurisdictions) only heighten tensions in the Communion and are rarely put into action. In its place he has instituted a heavily managed process of small group discussions on prescribed topics, interspersed with optional lectures and presentations on related (and unrelated) topics.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the Archbishop has by a tour de force single-handedly altered the balance of power between his own office and that of the Lambeth Conference. For his power is now no longer simply one of invitation to the bishops to a conference which he hosts. It is one in which he now decides what the bishops can and cannot do when they gather. This is easy to exaggerate, and I know the Archbishop has no lust for power, but it is worth observing, if only as a footnote.<\/p>\n
To my knowledge, the only person who has called the Archbishop`s bluff, and that affectionately and only by implication, was that wise observer of the Anglican scene, the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, who, in a sparsely attended `self-select` session on the Windsor Report on Wednesday, teasingly observed that the main difference between the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and the Archbishop of Canterbury was that the Archbishop of Canterbury exercised infinitely more power over his bishops.<\/p>\n