20 minutes with Rowan

July 21, 2008

by Cherie Wetzel, reporting from Canterbury, England

Today, the Lambeth process changed. I won’t say ‘started fresh’, because after three days of retreat and one Canterbury Cathedral opening Eucharist, it shouldn’t be fresh. It should be old. It should be a renewed close contact with the Lord and Savior that drew us into a church in the first place. You know, that God whom you have always known, and his Son who bids you “walk this way, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Today, the bishops’ schedule changed because of the addition of the Indaba groups. Five Bible study groups combine to create an Indaba group. It is a foreign concept for almost everyone here and I think it is a gutsy choice for an international conference that has this much on the line.

Last evening, the bishops and spouses gathered in the big blue tent for the Presidential address by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Most of that text is appended below. It explains the way that the conference will be run starting this morning: our next 12 days.

Today, after the first press briefing yesterday, we had 20 minutes with Rowan. I am not being disrespectful in calling him that. Today, there were no fancy vestments and no lofty processions. Just a man in a black shirt and black suit given a job to do. He came to the pressroom, filled to overflowing with scribbling people and flashing cameras, and after a short introduction, explained to us what his purposes and intentions were in the design of this conference. I felt he was more candid than he was in New Orleans last September at the House of Bishops’ meeting. Granted, the situation is much more perilous today than it was then for the Communion and individual provinces within the Communion. He spoke simply and distinctly. He didn’t dodge any of the questions asked him. Today, I had an opportunity to appreciate the intellect and the character of the university professor, the man who took this job after begging not to be given it.

He began by explaining that today was a gear change. The retreat has no business agenda and his hope was that each would reconnect with the Lord who called him/her into priesthood to begin with. Why Indaba? Because the old method didn’t work. It was worth the chance to try something new that would reflect every person’s understanding. We must have unity that is formed not by coercion but by consent. And, we must have theological education that is excellent world-wide, so that there are many places to study in the future, not just a few in England and the United States. Study for priesthood and further study for bishops. It is essential to their calling and leadership roles.

Then the questions flew:
q Will better theological education end some of the wars that pit one religious group against another? That is my hope.
q Did GAFCON make the covenant more imperative? No. We will argue and continue to make our case with the Gafcon people after the conference ends.
q Your statement of government of the Communion by covenant and council. What does that entail? Cleaning house for serious debate. Not every province will desire to be bound by a covenant.
q The Ecumenical participants are here and Gene Robinson is not. Why not? The Ecumenical participants are full participants and have not caused a problem within the Anglican Communion. A bishop invited to this meeting represents his diocese and province and is allowed to engage in world-wide fellowship. This privilege must be guarded and protected.
q The Church of England has just finished voting to allow women to be bishops. Is this a problem? What about provinces and parishes that do not accept women’s ministry as valid ministry? Some do not agree that ministry is happening. The Church of England has work to do on this issue in the future. We are working with our ecumenical partners, especially the Vatican on this issue.
q What in human sexuality do you believe is wrong in terms of sexual behavior? Any relationship outside a public covenant of mutual love, in the presence of God is outside my belief. I believe that sex outside of marriage is not part of God’s plan. The Anglican Communion has spoken adequately on the issue of homosexuality and I will adhere to those policies and decisions.
q This conference has been challenged by many different sources. What do you hope it will achieve? Every conference is a huge challenge but this one stands at a crossroads in the Communion. I am thankful that it is never dependant solely on the archbishop. It is really dependant on God, through Jesus Christ. That’s why we did the retreat first. We need to be back in touch with the one who makes all things possible.
q Gene Robinson was not invited but his consecrators were. Why? I faced that question squarely. Some of his consecrators have expressed sorrow and asked for forgiveness; some have retired. The American church through their house of Bishops asked for forgiveness and I sent their letter to each Primate. Just over 50% felt it was an adequate response, as did the Joint Standing Committee. So, they were invited.
q Follow up question: CAPA bishops said they would not come if the consecrators were invited and their voices represent the majority of Anglicans in the Communion. How did you make that decision? I told each of them that their voice matters and we need to hear from them. I can’t invite the bishops of 70 million and not invite the bishops of 2 million. We don’t have that kind of parity or power politics in the Communion. Every voice counts.
q Does their absence devalue the statement that will be produced? There is a grave disquiet about their absence and a serious criticism that must be addressed. We will do so in the next 12 days.
q Does the Book of Common Prayer, now existing in so many different forms, lead to problems in the Communion? The original Book of Common Prayer is the touchstone and the reference for all other books but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to use it. It is important, in addition to that, that we ask people, priests and bishops, “how often do you pray? How often do you take spiritual direction?” We would less likely be at this stand off if shared patterns of prayer in the Communion were addressed more seriously.

The Archbishop sat quietly while an explanation about the Spouses’ Conference was made and then left the room, escorted to his next event, which was another speech. He did not look weary. He did not act dismayed. I think he is ready and eager for the next 12 days and has very high hopes that it will be fruitful for each participant. No giant ringing carillon bell peal; but fruitful, lower case “f”. In whatever way God wants to do that. I hope you enjoy reading his address, below. Cherie Wetzel in Canterbury, England

Archbishop of Canterbury’s Presidential Address (20 July)

As we begin our work together, we’re bound to be very much aware of people’s eyes upon us. There are expectations among our own people – both hopes and fears. There are expectations among the representatives of the world’s media – and plenty of stories already which seem to know better than any of us what is going to happen. I saw the headline “Is this the end of the Anglican Communion”. (Church of England News Friday, July 18, page 1) No-one has told us here. And there are our eyes on each other – perhaps not quite sure yet how it’s going to feel, who we’re going to be alongside, whether everything will come out right in the sense that after two weeks we shall be able to say something with real integrity that will move us forward in God’s way.

We know all that; but we need also to know what most matters – that God’s eyes are upon us and that God has entrusted something to us. In the last few days, we have had a chance to hold that firmly in mind as we have shared our time of retreat. We have reminded ourselves that God has entrusted something to each one of us as a bishop, the care of his people and the taking forward of his purpose for humankind through our share in God’s mission. We have been caught up in the infinite consequences of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection. We are part of God’s way of making those consequences real and liberating for all humanity. So all that is said and done in our context here is in some way to do with this fundamental agenda, deepening our commitment to God’s own vision of the world’s future in Christ.

But God does not hand out general prescriptions and inspirations: God works through the specifics of the community that is called in Christ’s name – the Church. And the Church is known in diverse forms and traditions. So God has not only entrusted to us the task of sharing in his mission; he has also entrusted to us one particular way embodying and serving this mission. He has entrusted to us this extraordinary thing called the Anglican Communion. And in our time together he is asking us, more sharply than ever before, perhaps, what we want to make of it – how we use the legacy we have been given for his glory and for the sake of the good news of Jesus Christ.

More sharply than ever? Yes, because we all know that we stand in the middle of one of the most severe challenges to have faced the Anglican family in its history. But at the same time, we shouldn’t assume that this is the worst of times. The very first Lambeth Conference met against the background of bitter controversy in Southern Africa and fierce disputes about who was a ‘proper’ bishop and who wasn’t.

… we have some choices ahead of us in these weeks together. And when God gives us choices he also asks us to think and pray about how we make the choices as well as what we actually choose. If what we want more than anything is to be guided by the Holy Spirit, and I’m taking it for granted that is what we want, who alone can make Christ alive in our midst, we shall want to find a way of letting that guidance be as powerful and as real as it could be. …

Quite a few people have said that the new ways we’re suggesting of doing our business are an attempt to avoid tough decisions and have the effect of replacing substance with process. To such people, I’d simply say, ‘How effective have the old methods really been?’ Earlier Lambeth Conferences issued weighty reports and passed scores of resolutions (I must put my hand up and admit that I’ve drafted parts of those reports and resolutions myself in the past!); no-one would say they have been a waste of time, because they still embody a lot of careful thinking and planning. Yet not much of this material attempts to convey what was different about meeting in a prolonged time of prayer and fellowship as we always do at these Conferences. And as for resolutions: if you look at the resolutions that have been passed since 1867, you’ll find many of them, on really important subjects, have never been acted on.

First, as you have heard, they recognised, with the help of those members who came from outside Europe and North America, that the methods we had got used to were very much tied to Western ways – and not only Western ways, but the habits that developed in the later twentieth century, with tight procedural rules, great quantities of paper, close timetables and yes-or-no decisions. All these still have their attractions, but, as I’ve said, it isn’t clear that they actually help things happen ….

Second, connected with this, decisions are most effective when they are really ‘owned’ by the greatest possible number of people involved; when they reflect a discussion in
which everyone is confident that they haven’t been manipulated, bullied or ignored. Even if the decision doesn’t come out exactly where they wanted, they can still be confident that they haven’t been sidelined or silenced. So what would it take to have an outcome from an event like this that the overwhelming majority felt they had shaped for themselves?

The process of the Conference as it’s now unfolding is an attempt to answer those questions – and not only to answer them, but to lay foundations for working better in the future. In institutional terms, we need renewal, and this is the moment for it. If you will, you can all help shape fresh, more honest and more constructive ways of being a Conference – and being a Communion. The Conference seeks to build up a trustful community in this time together – one reason we began with a retreat, so that our common trust in God could be renewed.

Everything depends of course on everyone being ready to play their part. ..The indaba process is meant to clarify what the real questions and concerns are, so that everyone comes to have some sort of shared perspective on things, even if they don’t yet agree.

We also have to draw upon the hard work of the two groups we have met this afternoon, those who have worked on the draft of a possible Covenant for our life together and those who have made up the ‘Windsor Continuation Group’. They have had one of the toughest jobs of anyone connected with this Conference because they have had to think through what needs to happen for the insights and proposals of the Windsor Report to go on steering our common life in the Communion in ways that will prevent further strain and division.

But what of these problems, what of the future of the Communion? In what I have said there may be a hint of how we should think about this. Because the greatest need of the Communion now is for transformed relationships. This does not mean simply warm feelings about each other, but new habits of respect, patience and understanding that are fleshed out in specific ways and changed habits – in responsible agreement and search for the common mind, … We need to get beyond the reciprocal impatience that shows itself in the ways in which both liberals and traditionalists are ready – almost eager at times, it appears – to assume that the other is not actually listening to Jesus.

For this to be a reality, we must be honest about how deep some of the hurts and
We cannot ignore the fact that what is seen to be a new doctrine and policy about same-sex relations, one that is not the same as that of the vast majority at the last Lambeth Conference, is causing pain and perplexity. We cannot ignore the pressures created by new structures that are being improvised in reaction to this pain and perplexity, pressures that are very visible in the form of irregular patterns of ministry across historic boundaries. Perspectives on the situation are very different at the moment. Some in our Communion would be content to see us become a loose federation, perhaps with diverse expression of Anglicanism existing side by side in more or less open competition but with little co-ordination of mission, little sense of obligation to sustain a common set of theological and practical commitments. Some would like to see the Communion as simply a family of regional or national churches strictly demarcated from each other – sovereign states, as it were, with independent systems of government…

Each of these is attractive in some ways to people at both ends of the theological spectrum. Yet each of them represents something rather less than many – perhaps most – Anglicans over the last century at least have hoped for in their Communion.

Along with many in our Communion since the Lambeth Conferences began and international Anglicanism started to have a new kind of visibility, I believe there is; but it will require some of what we take for granted to change. Because it is not an option to hope that we can somehow just carry on as we always have: the rival bids to give Anglicanism a new shape are too strong… That is why there is quite properly a sense of being at a deeply significant turning point.

It’s my conviction that the option to which we are being led is one whose keywords are of council and covenant. It is the vision of an Anglicanism whose diversity is limited not by centralised control but by consent – consent based on a serious common assessment of the implications of local change. ..The entire Church is present in every local church assembled around the Lord’s table. Yet the local church alone is never the entire Church.

If so, by God’s grace, we have it in us to be a Church that can manage to respond generously and flexibly to diverse cultural situations while holding fast to the knowledge that we also free from what can be the suffocating pressure of local demands and priorities because we are attentive and obedient to the liberating gift of God in Jesus and in the Scripture and tradition which bear witness to him.

It implies, of course, some obvious and simple things – being clear (to take an obvious example) about how we recognise and accept each other’s ministries in the conviction that we are ordaining men and women to one ministry in one Body. But it means also a deeper seriousness about how we consult each other – consult in a way that allows others to feel they have been heard and taken seriously, and so in a way that can live with restraint and patience. … There will undoubtedly, in our time

together, be some tough questions about how far we really want to go in promising mutual listening and restraint for the sake of each other.

That’s why a Covenant should not be thought of as a means for excluding the difficult or rebellious but as an intensification – for those who so choose – of relations that already exist. And those who in conscience could not make those intensified commitments are not thereby shut off from all fellowship; it is just that they have chosen not to seek that kind of unity,…

As we shall be reminded many times during these days, our own communion and unity are created and nourished by God for the sake of the Good News….Contrary to what some have claimed, it is not true that we at this Conference are using issues like the Millennium Development Goals to provide a rallying-point for Anglicans who can agree only about ‘secular’ priorities but not about the essence of the Gospel.

No-one’s interests are best served by avoiding the hard encounters and the fresh

insights. Bear in mind that in this Conference we are committed to common prayer and mutual care so that the hard encounters can be endured and made fruitful.

To conclude: I wonder if you noticed how the readings at our service this morning – they were from the Church of England lectionary; that’s what we had; there was no forethought – helped to ‘frame’ all our business in the context of the eternal and historical work of Christ? The gospel (Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43) spoke of the seed sown by the Saviour – the Word of God, who was in the beginning, in whom all things hold together. Our beginnings are in his hand; it is from the gift of the Word made flesh that all our life as Church flows. And the epistle (Romans 8: 12-25) spoke of endings – the creation set free as God’s children discover their true freedom and glory is revealed in the world we know. Our endings are in God’s hand; the Word, through the Spirit, is transforming us into Christ-likeness, so that we may pray trustfully and intimately to our Father. And in that process our relations with each other are transformed, and even our relations with the material world around us. At our roots and at our end is the Word, Jesus our Lord, embodying all that God wants to do first for us and then through us. At every point, he works in us so that our relations with God and each other may be transformed; the life and process of this Conference will be a crucial part of that transformation. As I said earlier, it won’t solve all our problems straight away; but we shan’t find a genuinely Christ-like way forward without such transformation. May this happen not only in word but in deed and in truth.