Several English bishops have published their reflections on the Lambeth Conference. I linked to the one from Chelmsford earlier, and here are a few more.
Bishops of Lichfield, Shrewsbury and Stafford
Bishops of Ely and Huntingdon
Bishop of Manchester
Bishops of Worcester and Dudley
Bishop of Ramsbury
Church Times Leader comment: Was the Lambeth Conference a success?
Mark D W Edington Bishop in Charge The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe Last Lambeth Stuff: Unpacking (not just the suitcase)
Susan Russell An Inch At A Time Reflections on the Journey
The Quiet Vicar Kicking the can: Lambeth 2022
Helen King sharedconversations Christian dating: just try it!
Susan Russell makes an important point in her piece which needs to be said again and again until it is taken onboard. There are anti LGBTQ Christians from Europe/America There are pro LGBTQ Christians from Europe/America There are anti LGBTQ Christians from Africa There are pro LGBTQ Christians from Africa The first three groups were well represented at Lambeth, but what about the fourth group, where was their voice? How can they be helped to speak out and be heard? It is not just being heard. In Archbishop Justin’s keynote speech he said “For the large majority of the Anglican… Read more »
Simon, thank you for picking up and commenting on Susan Russell’s blog and Jim Norton’s comments. As you will remember from Lambeth 2008 significant efforts were put into ensuring that at least some LGBTQ Christians and people pro-LGBTQ Christians from Africa were present. Neither they nor we had the resources available to the anti LGBTQ networks to ensure that more representatives were able to be present and more effectively supported. No attempt was made at this year’s Lambeth to ensure that they were present and their voices heard. There would have been supportive bishops present from many Global South Provinces,… Read more »
Susan Russell and Jim Naughton are treasures in TEC.
Around 2008, a documentary about LGBTQ African Anglicans made the rounds, “Voices of Witness Africa.” What happened to these voices in 2022?
Good question, Cynthia – I remember the video. Those responsible for the video and for our presence at Lambeth 2008 have moved on and didn’t ensure that our wisdom was passed on – though the energy that drove us fourteen years ago is no longer present in the church.
To the English bishops: blah, blah, blah. Their hand-wringing on LGBTQI issues is entirely predictable but still insufficient for Queer English people, their families and friends.
Dean, you could add several more blahs. I learnt as a young academic and teacher that readers of letters are most unlikely to turn the page. That principle served me well. If you can’t say it in one, don’t bother.
Indeed, their extensive warm words seem so silly when one considers that there is only one ‘out’ gay English bishop, with a significant number remaining in the closet for whatever reason. LLF is pointless if there are prelates who don’t feel safe enough to be open about their sexuality. The closet is such a soul destroying place.
Please don’t use the slur “Queer”. It isn’t a helpful term. It really isn’t.
It’s part of LGBTQI Andrew! Many people rejoice in the term, so unhelpful to whom?
Mark Edington’s blog offers a tour of the quite extraordinary mixture of episcopal ministries that gathered at Lambeth.
Andrew Rumsey’s description of how ‘incendiary posts about the Lambeth Conference have torn about like Samson’s foxes, burning up the shocks’, vividly captures the experience of following Twitter /social media during the conference.
Thank you.
A few thoughts on why social media and blogs about the LC were so heated: A lot of Anglicans knew this was a high stakes LC. A lot of Anglicans want the LC and the AoC to retain their credibility as Instruments of Communion, and began to see that eroded. The LC organisers fuelled the tension by the late release of the Calls, their handling of 1:10, and making changes to the voting system. The press releases, interviews and follow up letters gave the impression that all is well when the Anglican Communion is dysfunctional in various ways. (They have… Read more »
I agree there were baffling flaws in the Lambeth processes and in the wording in one particular ‘Call’ which understandably pressed all the wrong buttons and left many feeling angry and vulnerable. But I think there is more to say about the presence of social media, which I chose to refollow while at the conference. Frankly, it was often hard to recognise twitter claims with events I was in the room for. Expressing anger and pain is one thing – and to be received and heard. But it is truth-telling social media finds particularly challenging. I came out of the daily… Read more »
My observation is that the Conference team didn’t lead social media which meant, as you say, that social media headed off on several tangents. Something of a missed opportunity.
Not Lambeth relevant I suppose, but how much of that honesty percolates to congregations? The upbeat tone of diocesan websites, publications and statements often strikes a jarring note for some of us present and former parish clergy who see unacknowledged elephants in rooms and for whom Stephen Griffiths’s Jeremiah quote is startlingly apt. It’s no good the ageing hierarchs embracing the benefits of modern communications but failing to plan for their downside. And a healthy organization demands 360 degree appraisal. If the lower orders are appraised by the higher echelons, then the latter need to hear and take in the… Read more »
Social media can be a useful place to say that an emperor has no clothes.
Well said Jeremy.
David R the reaffirmation of Lambeth 1.10 at the eleventh hour didn’t so much “press all the wrong buttons” as reveal the reaffirmation of something the vast majority of LGBTQ+ people consider to be queerphobic, the lack of trust we can have in current leadership in the c of e, the pointlessness of LLF and the spinelessness of the vast majority of bishops in their silence on this
The Bishop of Ramsbury’s (Andrew Rumsey) post has done a lot to restore my hope in a gathering of bishops. He writes of a human movement toward both/and inclusion that I find moving. He writes that “It wasn’t just the impossible heat that held me back from wearing my collar and cross for the first few days: like many others, I suspect, I was also clinging on to an evaporating sense of self.” Someone will no doubt comment that we have to surrender ourselves in order to follow Christ. There is a whole exegesis of that to be done but… Read more »
I was interested in the comments of +Mark Edington, his anecdote about talking with a Bishop from the Canadian north. Perhaps I could mention what is not mentioned. 2GLBTQ youth have often had to leave indigenous communities because of their sexuality and the stance of Christian leadership in their home community. They often go to Canada’s large cities Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal. Were there any two-spirited aboriginal youth voices at Lambeth? It has only been recently that some aboriginal youth have tried to re-claim their place in their communities despite the stance toward their sexual orientation by Christian leadership. Traditional aboriginal… Read more »
The Bishop of the Arctic is a notorious homophobe, who has made so many disparaging and incendiary remarks about gay people that he actually had to apologize for some of them. You will remember that he added two more bishops to his diocese in order to increase the “no” vote at General Synod and was successful (although there were other “no’s”) in making GS a fiasco in terms of the House of Bishops going against the clergy and laity votes on the “yes” side.
Curious about “traditional aboriginal spirituality”. Do we presume it is entirely compatible with Christian doctrine?
Edington refers to his “brother bishop Joey” in his article. I take it this is a reference to + Joey Royal who is one of the suffragan bishops in the Diocese of the Arctic. The diocesan there is David Parsons. I believe the incident you are referring to involved Parsons getting into it with the chair of GS, the then Primate Fred Hiltz. It was covered by Anglican Journal, in the linked article below, near the bottom. As you know, the Journal has since had its editorial independence removed by said GS. Governance issues, including the role of the order… Read more »
I’d like to thank Helen for the article on ‘Christian dating’ and her willingness to be self-disparaging and light-hearted. I simply enjoyed the read!
Thanks Susannah – it’s been a heavy few months and it’s good to offer some enjoyment in the midst of that! (Plus this seems to be something the current debates don’t go near addressing…)
Encouraged by contributions to this thread and from Stanley Monkhouse and others on another I took further encouragement and example from e-missives from the House of Bishops of the CofE helpfully featured on other threads: Lambeth Conference – 26th July – 8th August 2022 The 2018 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury took place in locations in Canterbury and London (with the official conference ending on the 7th August and departures on the 8th August); it was attended by many of the bishops and spouses invited; some offered apologies for absence. The conference began… Read more »
Have you been a University administrator?
No, or if expected to have been put in a somewhat more concisely indicative construction of what may be perceived to have been closer to the actualite there has been in what passes for my career trajectory up to this present point going backwards a certain proximity to people to whom was granted the pleasure and satisfaction of having so been, a response with a negative cast might have been thought to be appropriate; is that clear enough? If you might seek further elaboration, my dear Monkhouse, may I be so bold as suggest you give consideration to what may… Read more »
Monkhouse thanks G’eua for this model of concise clarity such as he has heretofore rarely encountered. Thrilling prose.
Très drôle! You definitely have the argot down to be a ‘consultant’ or a ‘facilitator’. As the saying goes, if you are not part of the problem you can make a great deal of money being part of the solution.