From The Times (UK):
July 11, 2008
On the eve of a Lambeth conference overshadowed by harrowing global turmoil, controversy and dark talk of schism, leading churchmen share their hopes and fears for the future of the Anglican Communion
Bess Twiston Davies
Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester
Do the bishops of the Anglican Communion have something of real significance to say to a troubled and divided world? That seems to me to be the crucial question. Global warming, rising food and fuel costs, significant shortages driving millions towards famine and the oppression of dictatorships in Africa and Asia are the critical issues. My hope is that the Anglican Communion can find a voice as a worldwide Christian community speaking into these issues and offering vision about how the world can become a safer and fairer place especially for the poor. The last Lambeth conference had much to say about remitting Third World debt, about Christian mission at the interface with Islam, but these messages were drowned out by our internal disputes. No wonder the world is disinclined to listen to us. My hope is that the Anglican Communion will rise to the challenge to look beyond its internal turmoil, and recover a sense of responsibility for others. Then we might get some of our disputes into proportion and find the humility to work out a message that addresses the world’s suffering rather than amplifying our own arguments. I go to Canterbury in the hope we can take ourselves by surprise.
Peter Beckwith, Episcopal Bishop of Springfield, Illinois
My hope is that those in attendance will recognise the seriousness of the crisis which has been allowed to envelop the Anglican Communion, and deal with the elephant dominating our living room. The Global Anglican Future conference has described the situation for most Anglicans worldwide and addressed it. What it has said, and with which I concur, is that faithful, orthodox Anglicans will not continue to abide any further the current agenda set by the Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Church of Canada and supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury through what many see as his acquiescence and benign leadership. I do not expect much to come of the conference. The process model appears very similar to what TEC’s House of Bishops has used for years which has fostered dysfunctional inefficiency, chaos, non-productivity and spiritual bankruptcy.
I believe if the first Lambeth conference had the same proposed agenda and process as projected for 2008, there very well might not have been a second Lambeth conference or even an Anglican Communion today.
Daniel Deng Bul, Primate of the Episcopal Church of Sudan
My expectation of Lambeth is that we have to unite the Anglican Communion. The Lord wants all the children in the Anglican Communion under His wing. If it doesn’t happen it will be a weakness for the Anglican world. I pray that the Anglican Communion will be mature enough so that we are able to iron out our differences.
John Bryson Chane, Bishop of Washington, DC
Lambeth is an unique opportunity to clear the air in the Anglican Communion. For too long we have let our divisions impede our efforts on behalf of God’s Church and God’s poor. My greatest hope is that out of the earshot of the media, liberated from the temptation to play for political advantage, we may speak frankly, express grievances, explore our disagreements and seek reconciliation. Sixty of us began this difficult process at a meeting of North American and African bishops last summer in Spain. There we confronted the legacy of colonialism, age-old misunderstandings and significant theological differences. The conversations were sometimes wrenching, but always fruitful. Archbishop Williams has modelled Lambeth on Spain, and I find that profoundly encouraging. Our Communion will not be saved by legislation, nor by a covenant, but by affection, forbearance and mutual support.
Carlos Touché Porter, Anglican Archbishop of Mexico
Many of us pray for a conference radically different from that ten years ago. But no one, neither God nor the Archbishop of Canterbury, will make it different if we, the participants, do not set our minds on the things of the spirit, if we do not attend with an open mind, more willing to listen than to speak, more willing to learn than to teach and more willing to question ourselves than to question others. In Mexico we say that if we do the same things we will have the same results and if we come to Lambeth with the same attitude as ten years ago, we will have the same results: nothing but anger and bitterness, nothing pain and sorrow in the heart of God. May we all this time journey to Lambeth as true brothers and sisters in the episcopate.
Dr Idris Jones, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church
The Archbishop of Canterbury has invited us to take part in an event which will help us to identify what it means to lead the people of God in Mission and to learn how to do that more effectively. I welcome this. The fact that bishops are called to offer leadership in the midst of different kinds of challenges should give us a rich and inspiring period of reflection.
Ronnie Bowlby, former Bishop of Southwark
At the 1978 Lambeth conference an American bishop was heard to say: “What keeps the Anglican Communion together? Wippells” — an ecclesiastical outfitter which has supplied robes to many bishops over the years. A few years later I was at a meeting of MPs and bishops in London, among them Enoch Powell. His answer to the question, “What holds the Church of England together?” was succinct: “The Establishment”.
Those two comments have stuck in my mind, not because I think either is right but because there is enough truth in both to make one uneasy. Thirty years later the cracks are more evident, the glue less strong.
The key question then, as now, is how to enable change and evaluate it in the absence of an overarching authority and while staying together. I do not believe that the movement towards the full recognition of women’s ministry can be delayed indefinitely, even by Rome or the Orthodox churches, and change rarely comes all at once. Nor do I believe that we can continue to confuse promiscuity (which Scripture condemns) with responsible same-sex relationships. So my hope for the forthcoming conference participants is that they will dig deep into the foundational strengths of Anglicanism, especially through their prayer and study. These go much further back than the Reformation, and it will help all of us if there then emerges some kind of new covenant which gives weight to all our history and yet points firmly to the future. This in turn could help us to be patient with each other and to trust God to lead us into fuller truth.
Nicholas Reade, Bishop of Blackburn
Whatever ecclesiastical label is attached to me, I feel I may be in one particular minority; for I am actually looking forward to Lambeth. I believe, through its emphasis on listening to God and to one another with the aim of making us “fitter for mission in the 21st century”, this will be a different kind of conference. In many places throughout the Anglican Communion there is real growth: new churches are opening. I pray that the conference will support this continuing work of mission and evangelism by ensuring that bishops are better equipped to meet current challenges and opportunities, and by encouraging us to remain faithful to our roots by proclaiming the apostolic faith we have received. I also welcome the conference as a means of reasserting and renewing the unity underlying the “Anglican Way”, at a time when parts of the Anglican family have felt it necessary to have their own separate conference. Equally, at Lambeth, others of us who also regard ourselves as traditional Anglicans, who believe in the authority of Scripture and the great tradition of the Church, will be looking for a recommitment to the Anglican way.
I rejoice that we are a Church that tolerates a broad range of understanding, but if the Church is to stand for anything there must be limits to what interpretations are acceptable. Recent events have clearly demonstrated that we need to distinguish between those things that are fundamental to the faith of the Church, and those about which agreement is less clear.
Peter Forster, Bishop of Chester
My hope for Lambeth is that it will be an opportunity for bishops to meet face to face in the context of prayer and fellowship to help the churches of the Anglican Communion to shape their mission in the 21st century.
It is my conviction that this must involve a reaffirmation of our commitment to the broad lines of our traditional theology and ethics. In relation to the current disputes over aspects of human sexuality that should mean a commitment to marriage as the proper context for sexual intimacy and the nurture of children. Any significant deviation from this will produce divisions and eventually a full-blown schism. It is the task of the bishops of the Anglican Communion to recognise what is at stake, and to lead our churches accordingly, and from the heart.
Dr Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales
Many issues divide the Anglican Communion at the moment and we fully support the Archbishop of Canterbury as he works tirelessly to heal rifts. But there is one big issue that we should all unite behind — the safekeeping of the world’s environment. Jesus’s ministry was full of concern for God’s world for He proclaimed and embodied God’s love for it. The real challenges, therefore, are not about sexuality but about eradicating poverty, injustice, violence and tackling climate change. These are the fundamental issues of our age. If Christians are to be true to the gospel of Jesus, they ought to be devoting their energies to solving them. Let this be the Lambeth conference where Christians are called to demonstrate their commitment to global needs.
Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt, Primate of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East
I hope that Lambeth will be a time of fellowship and a time of listening. But I am aware that this current crisis will, to some extent, hinder these wonderful goals. I have hoped we would deal with it before we came to Lambeth. It is not easy to enjoy an important event like this when the Anglican Communion suffers from significant division. The conference is not designed for taking decisions or making solutions. It is a time of fellowship. We had hoped it would be a place of decision-making because Lambeth is one of the instruments of unity and unless we are taking binding future resolutions, we will continue in a state of crisis. Having said all this, I believe that God is bigger than us, and He can do the impossible.
Michael Langrish, Bishop of Exeter
There has been much speculation as to who will and will not attend the conference. But it is possible to attend in the sense of being physically present, and yet not attend to others in any meaningful sense, because your mind is made up. And it is equally possible to not attend physically, but to be deeply committed to that process of attention to God and others that wisdom may be found. My hope is that the conference may be a place where we all attend to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
Martyn Jarrett, Bishop of Beverley
I go to this conference with a heavy heart, conscious that many people would prefer that people of my views were no longer to be found within the Anglican Communion, and are busy preparing legislation that would exclude me. I shall continue to fight my corner, and hope to contribute towards a greater tolerance and mutual understanding. I would enjoy supporting and being supported by other orthodox bishops from around the world. I am saddened that many have stayed away, though I understand why they have so done. I would much rather be engaged on issues relating to the ever-growing world urbanisation and the mission response it needs to generate rather than the many internal conflicts that now have to be faced by Anglicans.
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