While 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.”
Riazat 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 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
The Nation reports: Anglican Church to bishops: attend London conference at your own risk:
11 CommentsThe Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) yesterday threatened to impose “serious sanctions” on any Nigerian bishop who attends the forthcoming Lambeth Conference in London.
Registrar of the church, Mr. Abraham Yisa, issued the warning following reports that a Nigerian bishop had broken ranks and would attend the conference opening in London tomorrow.
Yisa told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that “Lambeth is a once-a-decade meeting of all Anglican bishops. We have not confirmed whether any Nigerian bishop is attending the Lambeth or not; we are waiting till the conference opens.
“Should any Nigeria bishop be at the Lambeth, then we cannot rule out serious sanctions against him because it would be contrary to the position of the House of Bishops”.
A source said at least one bishop “is already in London for the conference”.
The source said the bishop, a former employee of Lambeth, might be the only Nigerian attending the conference.
The source added that the bishop was absent at the just-concluded Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem, Israel.
“The bishop had explained that he was absent from GAFCON because he submitted his travel documents late,” the source added.
Nigerian bishops led by the Primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola, said they were boycotting Lambeth because of the invitation of pro-homosexual bishops to the conference.
The bishops also decided to stay away from the conference because of the exclusion of Rev. Martyn Minns, an American, who was consecrated as a bishop by the Anglican Church of Nigeria.
Officials of the Lambeth Conference recently said 230 of the 880 bishops in the worldwide Communion were staying away from the Lambeth Conference.
The entire Anglican provinces of Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria and at least four bishops from the Church of England are boycotting the event.
The official Lambeth Conference site is here and the official press release is here.
Lambeth Palace published this History.
It’s interesting that only 2 of the 38 provinces now have no bishops registered to attend.
Several sites have published primers about the conference:
The Guardian has this Q&A, the main players, and the absentees.
The BBC has What is the Lambeth Conference?
The Times had this history article.
Many bloggers will be there.
Dave Walker of the Church Times blog explains what he will be doing in this post.
Episcopal Café has a list of Blogging bishops and other Lambeth resources.
Fulcrum has two blogging bishops.
The Conference takes place within the parish of St Stephen’s, and the parish priest has noticed this.
The first press conference will not occur until next Sunday.
6 CommentsBishop Gregory Venables has written a letter to Bishop Schofield and others in San Joaquin, which has been published in full here as a PDF file. It includes the following:
12 Comments…In addition, I have been in conversation with Archbishop Rowan. Over the weekend I received the following message from him: “I understand that Bishop John-David Schofield has been accepted as a full member of the episcopal fellowship of the Province of the Southern Cone within the Anglican Communion and as such cannot be regarded as having withdrawn from the Anglican Communion. However, it is acknowledged that his exact status (especially given the complications surrounding the congregations associated with him) remains unclear on the basis of the general norms of Anglican Canon Law, and this constitutes one of the issues on which we hope for assistance from the Windsor Continuation Group. Bishop Schofield has elected to decline the invitation to the Lambeth Conference issued to him last year although that decision does not signal any withdrawal from the Communion. I hope there may be further careful reflection to clarify the terms on which he will exercise his ministry.”
This statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury is clear, even though we are in somewhat new territory; you remain within the Anglican Communion. Given the rigors of international travel and the work that there is to do in the Diocese, I am in agreement with Bishop John-David’s decision not to attend the Lambeth Conference. I am also aware of statements by Bishop Jerry Lamb in which he makes statements and demands that miss the mark of Christian leadership and fall short of what many consider propriety. I would encourage the clergy and lay members of the diocese to ignore this.
We are glad to have you as full members of the Southern Cone. As you can see, you are well regarded as members of the Anglican Communion. May God richly bless you!
The Government has published yet another White Paper on Lords Reform. You can find it over here.
The section relating to Church of England Bishops is reproduced below the fold.
Ekklesia has already published its opinion, Time to remove Bishops from the House of Lords:
11 Comments…The Church of England, an external institution with its own particular agenda, would be able to parachute whomever they choose into the second chamber of Parliament as a matter of right. This would not be a step forward but a step back into the dark ages of special political privilege. With the Prime Minister’s power to appoint bishops being ended, that section of the House of Lords would be more unaccountable than it has ever been…
We reported earlier on the outcome of the legal dispute at the Parish of Trumpington.
The Cambridge Evening News now has this report: Sacked vicar’s tirade over departure:
A VICAR sacked for “spitting” at his parishioners has posted a lengthy website criticism over his departure.
However, the Rev Tom Ambrose has withdrawn his bid to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights and an employment tribunal after being sacked from his Trumpington parish.
The parish becomes vacant from today and in two ‘vicar writes’ articles on the St Mary and St Michael Parish Church page of the diocese site, the Rev Ambrose is critical of the Bishop of Ely’s handling of the matter…
The two articles in question can be found (for now at least) at
Response to the Bishop of Ely’s decision
Legal representation to the Bishop
Copies of both documents have been archived: here, and also here.
4 CommentsStephen Bates has written a major essay: Church of England: Beset by liberals, hounded by conservatives, Williams needs a miracle to keep church intact.
26 CommentsPreaching to the converted
Gene Robinson is the Anglican church’s only openly gay bishop. He was denied an invitation to this week’s Lambeth conference but came anyway and on Sunday gave a dramatic sermon in London disrupted by heckling. What’s all the fuss about? Stephen Bates explains, while political sketch-writer Simon Hoggart, theatre critic Lyn Gardner and gay atheist Gareth McLean review the bishop’s performance.
Giles Fraser made his own comments earlier, in Here’s to you, Mr Robinson.
23 CommentsChristopher Landau of the BBC has a report Sexuality stance ‘embarrasses’ Anglicans.
Episcopal News Service has this report by Matthew Davies of her Sunday activities in Salisbury, Salisbury diocese welcomes Presiding Bishop, Sudanese bishops for pre-Lambeth hospitality initiative.
7 CommentsTwo items that fall into this category:
Martin Beckford reports Archbishop Desmond Tutu warns Anglican leaders not to abandon tradition of tolerance
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has warned Anglican leaders not to abandon the church’s tradition of tolerance ahead of a critical conference which is set to be dominated by divisions over homosexuality and women bishops.
Ephraim Radner has written, at Covenant an Open Letter to the Lambeth Bishops. This is also available at Fulcrum, see here.
10 Comments…I write to urge you to prayerful action in the face of widespread concerns that the upcoming Lambeth Conference will prove not only wholly irrelevant to the needs of our common life, but perhaps also the last such conference that our Communion will engage. Yet, in large measure, God has placed these matters in your hands. Although I am not privy to the planning, the intentions, and the ordering of the Conference, there are clear signs that the Conference runs the risk of failing to face and respond faithfully to the needs of God’s people within our Communion and her churches…
The Tablet had a leader article about this: Peter, Paul and women bishops. (The previous week they had Flight from women bishops.)
The Bishop of Durham issued an Ad Clerum on General Synod, which can be read here.
1 CommentJim Naughton has published some further reflections on the event, at Live: the sermon, the protester, the press, etc. Part II.
He also corrects some misinformation elsewhere, viz:
1. It is true that many people in the Episcopal Church would like to get us out from under Resolution B033, the legislation passed on the last day of our 2006 General Convention which calls upon “Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” This isn’t a secret. Numerous dioceses have already submitted resolutions to next year’s General Convention asking that the legislation be repealed, or superseded. If this legislation passes (a big if—I am not sure there are enough votes in the House of Bishops to get the job done) a gay candidate would have a better chance of being elected and confirmed. The notion that if the legislation passed we’d immediately elect another gay bishop is speculative. The notion that we’d suddenly have five or six is hallucinatory. At this point, it is not even possible to know for which dioceses will be electing bishops, which priests would be chosen as candidates, or how the internal dynamics of the dioceses would affect the elections. (I have gone on about this at some length because I have had calls from three reporters about this story this morning.)
2. Integrity has not provided cell phones for all of the Episcopal bishops attending the Lambeth Conference—or even for those sympathetic to its agenda. The Episcopal Church has provided cell phones for all its bishops—and their spouses, too, I believe.
Those who are not yet satiated with information about last night can find even more material here:
Full video of the sermon is here.
The Bishop of New Hampshire’s own blog is here.
2 CommentsMadeleine Bunting has written an article in the Guardian about Rowan Williams.
It is titled If they did it over transubstantiation, they can find a way over gay priests.
The cliches have been used so often in recent months that one wonders how the reporters will find any thing new to say about the Lambeth conference, which starts on Wednesday. We have already had the headlines announcing “the end is nigh”; the Church of England is collapsing; the Anglican communion is falling apart; and “Rowan Williams’ authority is in tatters”. They have all become so mechanical that one wonders if they have been keyed into some media keyboards: type Lambeth and out they all pour. They betray an astonishing ignorance of much of what is at stake…
Ten years ago, Madeleine was the Guardian’s Religious Affairs correspondent covering the 1998 Lambeth Conference.
0 Comments