Lambeth Notes: HISTORY WILL BE THE JUDGE OF LAMBETH

by Andrew Carey
Friday August 8, 2008
The Church of England Newspaper

As always, history is the only reliable judge of the significance of the 2008 Lambeth Conference —- certainly not those of us who have been too close to the action —- including in our different ways the press, the organizers and the participants themselves.

In many ways the conference has been a highlight and a triumph for the Archbishop of Canterbury and his wife Jane. The Spouses Conference as usual lacked the controversy and heat of the bishops’ program. It was hosted with intelligence, warmth and grace by Jane Williams.

Similarly Dr Williams’ imprint of intellectual rigor and spiritual insight played a very significant part in the bishops’ conference. Bible study and one-to-one encounters have been appreciated most by the bishops themselves for the past three conferences.

Additionally Dr Williams’ clear guidance in the run-up to the conference and during his three presidential addresses was that the Anglican Communion needed a clearer account of its ecclesiological identity. It needed a roadmap to unity from the chaotic, schismatic events of recent years. The covenant was the future, he suggested, yet with a quarter of the bishops absent it is not yet clear who’ll be left to sign up to such a grant and long-term project.

-But will the Covenant really work?-

The problem he faced in 2008 was that we are in no different a place than we were five years ago, in 2003 when Gene Robinson was consecrated. As the primates warned, the fabric of the communion was torn, and we were thrust into a state of impaired communion and rapid fragmentation.

Despite years of meetings the Communion is still divided as it was before. And the progress expected from the Windsor Report onwards, with its follow-up in the meetings of the Primates, simply failed to materialize —- along with all the initiatives on the way.

The moratoria had never been observed and five years later they were being called for again —- let us hope with not the same degree of futility. The Panel of Reference had failed so dismally that it seems now like a distant memory. The Council of Advice has now metamorphosed into the Pastoral Forum. Only one aspect of the Windsor Report has been pursued with any energy (even if the urgency is missing) – the Covenant..

And we know that such a covenant can only deal with future events and not contemporary crisis.

So instead of any progress towards resolving the crisis, we’ve had the hardening of divisions, and the exporting of intractable, internal North American culture wars on the Communion. A quarter of the bishops stayed away precisely because these past five years of controversy have resulted in absolutely nothing.

-A Church in crisis-

So what is wrong with Anglicanism? For the past two weeks in Canterbury far too many bishops seemed blithely unaware of the seriousness of the situation.

It was not just the absence of so many bishops, representing perhaps half of the Anglicans worldwide, but several other factors. Firstly, on the ecumenical front.

Anglicans are no longer serious partners in dialogue for most of the other Churches in the world —- especially the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. It can be argued that the ordination of women created this climate, but confusion over authority and sexuality has further eroded the coherence and worthiness of Anglicanism.



Secondly, who can have failed to notice that the Anglican quest to build a convincing theological identity around ‘instruments of unity’ has undergone a number of setbacks.

Where once the Lambeth Conference had credibility and authority, its resolutions are now openly disputed and disregarded. Where once the Anglican Consultative Council was building up a synodical integrity — witness its role in restoring the Rwandan church’s constitution and episcopacy after the genocide — its role is now questioned. Where once the Primates’ Meeting was building its effectiveness as an executive between Lambeth Conferences, its authority is rejected by the bishop at Lambeth and by some of the Primates themselves.

And sadly, where once the Archbishop of Canterbury was counted as the one who ‘recognized’, invited and presided, Gafcon has discounted this presidency as nothing more than an ‘historic’ office.

The clock has been turned back to the 1960s, if not before — an era when serious attempts were first being made to create some kind of ecclesiological purpose around Anglicanism.

It is difficult to see where next we go. The past five years has been full of wasted opportunities. If the 2008 Lambeth Conference is not to be judged harshly, the momentum must now build towards its inexorable conclusion.

Anglicanism’s only hope for a coherent, unified Christian future is for the liberal churches either to embrace the authority of scripture and tradition, or simply to accept the logic of their position and leave.

END