This document, which was mentioned in various earlier reports on the conference, is now available as a PDF file on the official site.
You can also obtain the official bible studies booklet, Signs on the Way, from this page in two formats.
0 CommentsThe retreat finished at lunchtime today after a fifth and final address from Rowan. Among the gems was a quotation from Alan Ecclestone (I did my curacy in the parish next door to where Alan spent many years; I always found his writing more complex than Rowan’s!) that “episcope is insight as well as oversight”. The main theme took us into Hebrews and the notion of Christ who clears a new and living way so that we can go where otherwise we could not. Christians (and bishops in particular) lead by following Jesus. Writing it down makes it sound simple and obvious, but there’s a huge depth in what we have heard and it sets the context within which we will turn to the conference part of Lambeth on Monday.
Various ecumenical guests joined us this afternoon. There is enormous support for us from orthodox, catholic, protestant and pentecostal denominations, mostly in presence but some with letters of greeting. Reading all the titles of the writers made me wonder whether the problem we have with Anglican authority is that we just don’t have impressive enough words in front of our names. If Rowan styled himself catholicos, supreme head, patriarch, holiness or beatitude who’d dare oppose him? Personally my vote is for “His beatitude”, there’s something about Rowan that encapsulates what Matthew 5 is all about. We had a reading from the works of the sixth century St Dorotheus. I’m starting a rumour that he/she is the patron of Changing Attitude.
It’s been humbling to eat and speak with bishops from Sudan and Zimbabwe. To hear stories of the faith lived out under persecution from bishops whose courage and humour are intact. As when I went to Peru three years ago, it has convinced me that the Anglican Communion may seem to make little difference in England, but to these leaders of small, young churches in difficult and hostile surroundings it matters hugely to be part of something global and steeped in history. The catholicity of Anglicanism is far more at stake here than it was at General Synod two weekends ago.
Highlight of the day: I met my namesake, the cartoonist, whose work I’ve admired since I first found it on a website. We had our photos taken together to prove we’re really not the same person.
Lowlight of the day: This is the only conference I can recall that doesn’t provide good quantities of tea and coffee at every meal and break. It took me 20 minutes to find a mid afternoon hot drink.
5 CommentsPress Release
If you are in Lambeth for a few days please consider taking part in this program for visitors, guests and volunteers. Gathering ‘alongside’ the Bishops and Spouses meetings, we will be sharing our experiences of faith through Bible studies and discussions. Everyone is welcome regardless of faith background. Alongside Lambeth is sponsored by Inclusive Church and Thinking Anglicans.
Bible Study
Meet at the café in the Marketplace at 11 am any morning except July 24 and July 27. After a brief devotional, small groups will meet for Bible Study and discussion. We’ll be paralleling the Bishop’s process by using the ‘Signs on the Way’ Bible study booklet. This is a time to set aside roles and agendas as we discover the person of Jesus together through the study of John’s Gospel.
Buzz Groups
This is a unique opportunity to meet with other Anglicans. If you want to meet with people who have similar interest to you, or if there’s something you particularly want to share, you can offer a Buzz Group. You can sign up at the Inclusive Church booth in advance or give your information to the Buzz Group coordinator before the morning’s Bible Study. Groups will normally take place at 12 noon, starting on Tuesday July 22nd. After gathering at the Marketplace Café, each group will find its own space to meet in one of the public areas of the campus.
Growing in Mission
Each afternoon at 4 pm, except July 24, there will be a talk and discussion in St Stephens Church, (down the hill from the campus) followed by Evening Prayer. A variety of speakers and panels will offer reflection on the same subjects that the Bishops are considering (not necessarily in the same order). Topics include
* Care-full listening
* Anglican Identity
* Youth and Mission
* Sexuality and mission
* Environmental stewardship
See below for confirmed speakers. Information will be available at the Inclusive Church stall as speakers are added.
Evening Prayer
Each day except July 27, Evening Prayer will be led by the clergy team of St Stephens, at St Stephens. They are also available to pray and meet with people individually as needed. For Chaplaincy services please contact the Rev. Caro Hall 0750 368 1408 or enquire at the Inclusive Church Booth.
Monday July 21st Care-full Listening
Sue Burns (New Zealand): Sissi Loftin and Janet Brocklehurst (US/UK)
Sue Burns is a priest from Aotearoa/New Zealand where she works in ministry formation and theological education. In response to the request for listening in the Anglican Communion, Sue developed a process of respectful conversations which she facilitated in dioceses in Aotearoa / New Zealand and Pasifika. Together with Janet Trisk of Grahamstown SA Sue contributed a chapter on sexuality and Identity for the book prepared for Lambeth, The Anglican Communion and Homosexuality.
Sissi Loftin and Janet Brocklehurst are training as facilitators with The Compassionate
Listening Project and have been with them a couple of times to Israel-Palestine, listening to all sides of the conflict. They have also offered Compassionate Listening in their home parish and hope to find a way to use their skills in building bridges within the Anglican Communion.
Tuesday July 22nd Communion for Creation: Co-operation for the sake of God’s Earth
Eric Beresford (Canada)
Eric Beresford was the staff person responsible for planning and putting together the Anglican Communion Environmental Network. During his time with the Anglican Communion Office he worked with the ACC to prepare and pass a motion on the Patenting of Biological and Genetic materials and the implications of this for food security. Eric has taught Environmental Ethics both at McGill University and at Atlantic School of Theology where he is the President. He will be discussing the possible impact the Anglican Communion might have on current efforts to reduce climate change.
Wednesday July 23rd Youth Inc – Why’s it so scary?
Rev Canon Dianna Gwilliam (UK)
Dianna Gwilliam worked for many years as a youth minister during her training for ordination and since then. She is currently Vicar of a parish in south-east London and Chaplain to an Educational Foundation which includes 6 schools. She is particularly interested in theological education for children and young people and says that serving a parish in which there are eight schools is ‘brilliant!’
Coming soon…
Giles Goddard (UK)
Andrew Wingate (UK)
Rowan Smith (S Africa)
Jenny TePaa (New Zealand)
A panel on Sexuality and Mission
News is scarce.
Riazat Butt reports on the GAFCON releases, in Prelates ‘are justifying sin’
And also reports on the new book by Jane Williams, World of a Wah: wife of Rowan Williams speaks out.
Ruth Gledhill also reports on the GAFCON material in The Times, in Rowan Williams takes up the cross of diplomacy.
George Conger at Religious Intelligence says No signs of crisis as Lambeth Conference begins.
14 CommentsChristopher Howse avoids Lambeth entirely and writes about gravestones. See Finding a fitting stone reminder in the Telegraph.
In the Guardian Chris Chivers writes that the Anglican communion needs to take a more global perspective on its problems, see Face to Faith.
In The Times Cathy Ross writes that the average Anglican is a black, female teenager.
Giles Fraser writing in the Church Times asks Can there be compromise on women bishops?
And at Comment is free Judith Maltby notices that Suddenly, it’s time for tolerance.
Graham Kings at Fulcrum and the Church of England Newspaper asks how can bishops disagree Christianly?
3 CommentsIn last week’s Church Times Bishop Kenneth Stevenson reviewed the book to which I contributed a chapter, Rebuilding Communion: Who pays the price? From the Lambeth Conference 1988 to the Lambeth Conference 2008 and beyond Peter Francis, editor.
The review was published under the headline Telling it like it is.
Read more about the book here.
Bishop Stevenson writes:
8 CommentsIT MUST be hard to be gay and Anglican at the moment. After a largely hidden history, Anglican gays now find themselves the subject of open discussion, caused partly by a greater general readiness to talk about issues of sexuality, and partly by activists in the gay community speaking up for their rights. Sadly, the majority of them feel excluded from this discussion, and some of them even echo what some Jews used to say in Nazi Germany — “Don’t champion us, because it will only make things more difficult for us.”
A turning-point in England was the General Synod in February last year, when gay members fearlessly spoke up for themselves in a chamber that had not hitherto heard from them in that way.
This timely little book opens with an essay by Simon Sarmiento chronicling events, resolutions, and decisions about homosexuality in the Anglican Communion over the past decade. His personal views are clear, but the facts he describes are indisputable. There is a hardening of the line in many places, with some obvious exceptions.
There follow six essays from different continents, telling personal stories about what it is like to be gay and Anglican — the African perspective is particularly significant. And a third section is made up of six further short contributions, including one from Martyn Percy on Anglican history and attitudes, and one from Michael Ingham, arguing in favour of something that is still too far for many sympathisers: the same-sex blessing.
This book needs to be read far beyond the confines of the gay community. In some ways, it provides a worldwide Anglican counterpoint to those speeches at last year’s Synod. Those who are deaf, or over-ready to condemn, need at least to recognise the historic pain that this increasingly vocal minority brings to the discussion table. Whatever our views, we should all be ready to condemn homophobia, as Cardinal Hume used to remind us.
I voted for Lambeth 1.10 on that desultory Wednesday afternoon in 1998, and I have regretted it ever since. As these essays show, it has become far too blunt an instrument; moreover, the “listening process” for which it calls should have been well under way by the time Archbishop Rowan Williams arrived at Canterbury.
Here’s hoping that we can be helped to locate exactly where our disagreements lie, and to find an authentically Anglican way through them.
Two main documents have been issued:
GAFCON responds to the Archbishop of Canterbury
The Global Anglican Future Conference gathered leaders from around the Anglican Communion for pilgrimage, prayer and serious theological reflection. We are grateful to the Archbishop of Canterbury for engaging with the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. We wish to respond to some of his concerns…
Response of GAFCON to the St Andrew’s Draft Text of an Anglican Communion Covenant
…Sadly this new draft of An Anglican Covenant is both seriously limited and severely flawed. Whether or not the tool of covenant is the right way to approach the crisis within the Communion, this document is defective and its defects cannot be corrected by piecemeal amendment because they are fundamental. The St. Andrews Draft is theologically incoherent and its proposals unworkable. It has no prospect of success since it fails to address the problems which have created the crisis and the new realities which have ensued…
A third document is Changes between the Nassau and St Andrew’s Drafts of an Anglican Covenant
16 CommentsBRIEFING PAPER from the Theological Resource Group of GAFCON
Changes between the Nassau and St Andrews Drafts of An Anglican Covenant
Executive Summary
The St Andrews Draft is not a conservative revision of the Nassau Draft. Its changes are so significant theologically and practically that they completely recast both the grounds of common life together and the process by which the assault upon that common life by TEC and ACoC is to be addressed. The Nassau Draft is a much better document than its successor. The new document is severely flawed and should be repudiated…
Some more news reports and blogging from Canterbury today.
Rachel Boulding in the Church Times Dr Jefferts Schori: ‘We can get beyond sexuality’
Riazat Butt on the Guardian News blog Americans are calling the shots – with gusto – at Lambeth conference
The American bishops’ blog is here.
Ruth Gledhill Lambeth Diary: Nigerian bishop flees and also Lambeth Diary: Anglicans in Recovery.
Marites Sison Anglican Journal Lambeth prays for those present and those absent
Martin Beckford at the Telegraph has Archbishop of Canterbury faces calls to stop American clergy defecting.
Fulcrum points us to BBC World Service, where
This weekend the talking starts in earnest at the Lambeth Conference, the global meeting of the Anglican church that takes place once every ten years.
This year’s event is being overshadowed by fears of a split in the church – between liberals who support the ordination of openly gay bishops and clergy, and more traditionalist leaders who say that homosexuality is fundamentally a sin.
Ed Butler examines the theological basis for the rift in the Anglican Communion.
Those interviewed include Graham Kings and Colin Coward.
4 CommentsFriday has been like Thursday, only more so. Once again the bulk of the day has been spent at the cathedral, listening to Rowan, praying and quietly getting to know one another. In the Bible Study Groups we’re getting to a deeper level of engagement and beginning to touch on areas that we can’t simply agree as platitudes. It’s still early but the process seems to be doing what it was set up to do. As Rowan explained, we’re modelling what it is to be a cell of the Body of Christ; that doesn’t promise to resolve all disputes, but we won’t get far without it (what in my mathematician days we called a “necessary” as opposed to “sufficient” condition).
In the dining halls as well as the formal sessions there is a good mixing of traditions and stances – it doesn’t appear that many are seeking the comfort of the likeminded. Today I’ve talked with bishops from Tanzania, Canada, West Indies, USA, India, New Zealand, Eire and the UK.
The security looks big because to cordon off an outdoor area (the surrounds of the big blue) you need a lot of fencing, but it’s no more than I’m used to when I attend secular voluntary sector conferences for which participants have had to pay fees. Delegates get in, others don’t. We wouldn’t want the press in the bible studies or indabas either, but there it will be more discreet because it’s all indoors. The media have a pretty free run of much of the rest of the site. This is hardly going to be a conference that maintains a high level of secrecy, but we do have the right to do our business in a manner that allows (encourages) us all to feel able to open up to one another.
Highlight of the day: being given an invite to a drinks party hosted by Jack Iker tomorrow. Perhaps this really is engagement across the fault-lines. I felt touched, honoured, and minded to go listen.
Lowlight of the day: 2 minutes later being told the invites were only meant to be given to “sympathetic” bishops. But hey, I do sympathy really well, perhaps I am invited after all.
5 CommentsWhile we are all waiting for news to emerge, or not, from the 2008 Lambeth Conference, I thought it might be of interest to remind TA readers of the reports I wrote ten years ago, from the 1998 Conference.
You can find them all here, at the archive kept by SoAJ.
3 CommentsUpdated
First, the Church Times has a news report by Bill Bowder Bishops rally behind Dr Williams as Conference starts.
And there is a leading article Bishops should do their duty:
…A key constituency, though, is the conservative one. The loss of so many Nigerians, Ugandans, and Rwandans is critical. Given that the Lambeth Conference is not a church council with the authority to legislate for the Communion, one of its most important functions is to enable bishops to inform themselves of other models of the Church. The gay debate of the past five years has suffered from too much niche internet activity, whereby each side has logged on merely to those sites with which they agree. As a consequence, the personal encounters that would formerly have taken place through letters or telephone conversations have been lacking. This has made a face-to-face meeting all the more desirable…
And the Church Times blog carries an item on Blogging bishops.
Anglican Mainstream carries this report Today at Lambeth: Thursday 17th July 2008.
Scott Gunn has a report on Debunking mainstream media: the fence.
The official website has Lambeth Daily – Thu – 17- July. The latest issue of this official news will appear here each day.
There isn’t much news as yet, and Jim Naughton has a good analysis of why this should be so, in Live: Can a quiet conference produce “good stories”?
Added
Rebecca Paveley interviewed Rowan Williams in last week’s Church Times. It is now available online at Defiant amid the doubters.
Pat Ashworth has written on the Church Times blog about The Lambeth Reader. A sample quote:
3 Comments…“There are occasions when a church falls out of sympathy with its bishop on matters of doctrine or conduct. It must not be the case that the mere fact of ease and communication of travel become the excuse for choosing a leader in another territory to be one’s chief pastor. In the case of serious and extensive conflict, it becomes the duty of diocesan bishops to provide pastoral support in particular congregations. When a diocesan bishop fails to undertake his duty, the matter becomes a provincial responsibility.”
Reflections offered to the Primates emphasise mutual accountability. “The cost of genuine dialogue is considerable… If conservative voices are not to be driven out, it must be possible for an admonition about recent issues to do with homosexuality to be delivered, clearly argued from biblical sources. Not all such arguments are well expressed and would be supported by scholarly writing; but it is a mistake to dismiss all of them as if their sole basis was literalism or naive fundamentalism.”
The paper continues: “On the other hand, if progressive views are not to be ignored, new knowledge has honestly to be confronted. Though there is still much uncertainty, it is evident that the existence in some people of homosexual inclinations has to be understood in a way not available to biblical writers. It has to be recognised as a cost of the engagement of the gospel with the world, that Christians remain open to changing ideas with their attendant uncertainties and controversies.”
Yesterday was a quick course in the essentials of British life for our guests (how to queue for registration, how to queue for supper, how to queue for an internet ID and password); today has seen Lambeth find its feet, with the first of three days of retreat.
Scripture, fellowship and worship are to the fore. Every day, even the retreat days, begins with Eucharist, breakfast and bible study. It’s quite something to hear people harmonising to hymns they’ve nver sung before in languages they don’t speak. Rowan has been superb. This is what he is at his very best at, weaving bible passages together in ways that draw out depths of insight into what being a bishop is about.
The cathedral and its precincts have been closed off for us today and tomorrow. As I arrived I heard one frustrated visitor to Canterbury complaining that she was going home Saturday and wouldn’t get to see the city’s main attraction. But frankly, it’s a working cathedral not a monument and we’re working it pretty hard.
Down in the crypt after lunch I found a quiet side chapel with some magnificent medieval wall-paintings and fell into prayer. About 20 minutes later I sensed someone cross my vision and opened my eyes. A nun had climbed over the altar rails and was stood in the sanctuary, arms stretching upwards towards one side of the ceiling, her hands obscured by a massive supporting pillar. What a lovely posture for praise I thought, then her flash bulb went off.
Highlight of the day: Rowan’s addresses.
Lowlight of the day: No hot water in the showers this morning. Conspiracy theorists will assume this is a plot by the organisers to stop bishops even thinking about sex, let alone talking about it.
[Editors’ note: David Walker is the Bishop of Dudley in the diocese of Worcester. He will be blogging for us regularly on Lambeth from a bishop’s perspective.]
6 CommentsRiazat Butt wrote this morning for the Guardian about the forthcoming documentary on BBC2, Battle of the Bishops, to be shown next Monday evening. Read US bishop hits out at ‘demonic’ African church leaders.
The Christian Science Monitor had BOYCOTT UNDERSCORES ANGLICAN RIFT by Mark Rice-Oxley.
The Anglican Journal has Boycotting bishops at Lambeth cause ‘great grief’ by Marites N. Sison
Martin Beckford has Archbishop of Canterbury: Lambeth Conference won’t solve church’s problems in the Telegraph.
The BBC has Lambeth diary: Anglicans in turmoil and also Lambeth Conference: Anglican voices.
And also ‘I was a gay priest’ by Mark Vernon.
3 CommentsThe official account of the opening session is on ACNS and is imaginatively titled The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams opens the Lambeth Conference.
From this we learn the important fact that:
Some Bishops have chosen to stay away although only one Province (Uganda) has no Bishops present.
Dave Walker who was actually and corporeally present at the session has a guarded account on the Church Times blog at The opening session of the Lambeth Conference.
His first batch of cartoons are now available here.
The view from the press room is rather different, see Ruth Gledhill’s blog post titled Lambeth Diary: the ‘Clean and the Unclean’, although I fancy the picture of Bishop Martyn Minns was not taken yesterday. She writes:
…Read and believe if you like the official stuff trickling in a tightly-controlled way out of Jim Rosenthal’s entirely independent press operation operating from a place I’ve yet to track down somewhere on the university campus. This is where the ‘on side’ ‘journalists’, many of whom seem by coincidence to wear episcopal clerical collars, are permitted to hang out. I am sure the citizens of the former USSR were similarly enlightened by what Pravda produced on a daily basis. The real operation, the concrete prison where proper journalists do their work, is being run by the staff from Church House. Peter Crumpler and his minions, themselves shut away in an even more terrible bleak hole of a broom cupboard than our own, are brilliant. (Update: Incredibly, TEC might be coming to our rescue. A series of unofficial bishop briefings is to be organised, beginning this evening. I’ve been asked to make clear that these are nothing at all to do with the official Lambeth press operation.)
There’s nothing like a Lambeth Conference or two to swing me back into the conservative camp. Here I am, separated from the leaders of the Anglican Communion, of which I happen to be a covenanting member, by a ten foot wall. I’ve helped pay for this! Oh it makes me so cross.
Ok then, it’s not a wall, merely a security fence. And it’s probably closer to eight feet than 10, a closer inspection today has established. It comes complete with security guards. The wire lacks barbs but I’ll try and supply those. I guess David Virtue, George Conger and Riazat Butt and I, all equal in our exclusion, are the ‘terrorists’. I’m telling them, a three-foot fence of hurdles, or even a green line made of ribbon, would have been enough. Or even, they could have just asked us not to go in the Big Blue Top. But no. Forget simple human means of exchange. The staff running the Anglican Communion Office have moved beyond that. They’re probably wearing bomb-proof vests under their copes in case my pen is loaded with a bullet. Pathetic.
George Conger has an account of the day, and his own comments on the environment for the press at Religious Intelligence in Lambeth Conference: ‘Efforts must be made to preserve integrity of Church’:
…Bishops began arriving on Wednesday on the campus of the University of Kent situated on a hill to the south of Canterbury, with lines snaking across the campus as the bishops registered for the conference and were assigned dormitory rooms. A corps of yellow-sashed volunteers ranging in age from university students to elderly clergy escorted the new arrivals to their assigned rooms, while also enthusiastically patrolling the boundaries of the plenary areas —- keeping the press and on-lookers on the far side of a 10-foot high chain link fence.
Participants in the Conference have been divided into castes denoted by the color of the lanyard holding their name tag, with the freedom to roam determined by one’s colour. Bishops and their spouses wear purple, volunteers yellow, exhibitors at the Marketplace —- the venue for shops and special interest groups wear white, the press blue and conference staff red.
“Red is home, blue away” the bishops were told in the closed evening session that outlined the mechanics of the conference in between bouts of hymn singing, with the bishops cautioned to be careful in what they say to “outsiders.”
In other news about Wednesday, I had lunch with Jim Naughton who has told you all about it here. As he reveals, I shall be in Canterbury for the first time on Saturday, and will give you my own on-the-scene report after that.
11 CommentsBelow the fold are details of clergy votes in the debate on women bishops on Monday 7 July similar to my earlier details for bishops. So far only three of the votes (the Packer amendment, the vote on the adjournment and the final vote) are included.
I have matched my list of members and the voting lists by synod number. My list is based on the June 2008 list of members, which may not be totally up-to-date.
13 CommentsThe Nation reports on Kenyan bishops in England by Kenneth Ogosia:
About 10 Anglican Church of Kenya bishops are in England, raising fears that they will attend the Lambeth Conference that kicks off today, the Nation can reveal.
The Kenyan church alongside other conservative provinces, have decided to boycott the conference, protesting the laid back handling of gay clergy in the Anglican Communion.
Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi has said that he is aware of the collaboration programmes of the bishops with other churches in Europe and expressed confidence that none of them will attend the conference.
However, he said that no specific action would be taken against any bishop who decides to attend the conference on an individual capacity.
“It is upon their synods and personal conscience because morality is the pillar of Christianity,” he said.
Addressing the Press in his office, Archbishop Nzimbi said that all Orthodox Anglicans were not attending the conference since they could not preach wine and drink something else.
The bishops for Bondo, Nyahururu, Nakuru, Kericho, Machakos, Mt Kenya, Mbeere, Taita Taveta, Embu and Mumias are meeting diocesan partners in England.
He said that since it takes 10 years for all the Anglican bishops in the world to meet at Lambeth, bonding sessions take place even two months prior to the official opening of the talks.
Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria are unanimous that none of their bishops should attend the conference.
“If we allowed immorality to take place, then soon some African clergy will demand to break their vows of marriage to enter polygamy,” he said.
He said that the 1998 Lambeth Conference made a resolution rejecting homosexuality, which was not enforced by the head of the Anglican Church.
Archbishop Nzimbi pledged to ensure conservatives were united in fighting immorality.
A priest, the Rev Kenneth Wachianga, however, urged the bishops to attend the conference, saying that boycotting it would be tantamount to abandoning sinners. The priest said the mission of the church was to change sinners.
“Jesus died for sinners and left us as fishers of men. You cannot help sinners by running away from them,” he said.
And from the Standard Lambeth boycott betrays our homophobic prejudice by Kang’ethe Mungai
28 CommentsRuth Gledhill reports in The Times Bishops ‘weakening body of Christ’ in row over gays and women, and there is more detail on her blog Lambeth Diary: Welcome to the Circus.
Conservative bishops have been accused of breaching their duties and damaging the welfare of Christians as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, fights back against his critics.
Anglican bishops arriving for the Lambeth Conference yesterday were told to stop their backstabbing and in-fighting if they were not to “weaken the body of Christ”.
A background paper distributed to 650 bishops and archbishops attending the ten-yearly conference in Canterbury told them to remember that their relationships with each other were “fragile and tainted by sin”.
Anglican rows over ordaining gay priests and women bishops were damaging for “all the baptised”, it said. But the most stinging criticism was for conservative bishops, of whom 230, mainly from Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, are boycotting Lambeth.
The paper, commissioned by Dr Williams, made clear that bishops who had transgressed diocesan and provincial boundaries in search of “orthodox” primacy were considered guilty of undermining collegiality. An even worse sin, it suggested, was boycotting the conference…
As Episcopal Café has noted, this paper sounds quite similar to an earlier report of the IATDC.
IATDC? That would be the Inter Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission.
6 CommentsInclusive Church press release
Outbreak of peace?
Inclusive Church is hoping that the Lambeth Conference will witness an outbreak of peace in the Anglican Communion. IC has organised two events for the Lambeth Conference
“Strangers to Friends” – the IC Network Eucharist. 17 groups will come together to celebrate the peace we know in Christ, having worked together all year. All are welcome. Saturday 26th July: 7pm, Keynes Lecture Theatre. President – Rt Revd Carlos Touché-Porter, Archbishop of Mexico and a Primate of the Anglican Communion. Preacher – Canon Lucy Winkett, St Paul’s Cathedral.
“Inclusive Imperative – Anglican Welcome” Revd Dr Richard Burridge, Dean of King’s College London and Ms Nomfundo Walaza from Cape Town, SA will speak on “Using the New Testament now in peace-making and conflict resolution.” All are welcome. Thursday 31st July, 6.30 pm, Darwin Suite 1.
Canon Giles Goddard, Chair of IC, said “The conference has been planned as a chance for people to meet and talk. That’s it. As a church we have to work out new ways of living together. It’s not a time for point scoring or arguing but for engaging and listening.”
IC welcomes the acknowledgement by the Archbishop of Wales on Sunday that he would, if agreed by the Church in Wales, consecrate a gay bishop in a relationship. The first Lambeth Conference was born out of controversy, and focused on unity as a way forward. The reality of Anglican welcome means that the issues which face us are here to stay.
For further information contact;
Revd Canon Giles Goddard: 07762 373 674 office@inclusivechurch.net
Revd Clare Herbert: 07504 577 210 herbert.clare@googlemail.com
Voting lists for the electronic votes at the recent sessions of the Church of England’s General Synod are now online. I have summarised the bishops’ votes in the debate on women bishops held on Monday 7 July, both in a table below the fold and online as a pdf file.
The table records whether each bishop voted for or against each motion or amendment, or recorded an abstention. Some of the 45 bishops present missed some of the votes altogether and this is indicated by a dash.
Bishops are listed alphabetically by surname, and their synod number is given in the first column.
I have already given the text of each amendment and of the substantive motion, and the overall voting figures here. The table includes my very brief summary of the purpose of each amendment.
Note: Not included in the table are the bishops of Sheffield and Truro (sees vacant) and the bishops of Coventry, Chester, Ely, Leicester, Salisbury and Sodor & Man, none of whom took part in any of the votes. The bishop of Coventry was only consecrated on 3 July, the bishop of Leicester was on duty at the House of Lords and the bishop of Salisbury was ill. I don’t know why the others were absent.
25 Comments