Warning: Illegal string offset 'itemurl' in /home/lutheran/www/www/admin/global_functions.inc on line 257
Lambeth Conference Ends
Abstract: Anglican Bishops have purposeful discussions
The 2008 Lambeth Conference drew to a close on August 3. The Lambeth Conference, which brings together bishops from throughout the Anglican Communion, is one of the four Instruments of Communion for Anglicanism. The conference is held every 10 years.
The 2008 Lambeth Conference was unusual in many ways. More than 200 of the 800 Anglican bishops boycotted the conference to express dissatisfaction with the admission (in some parts of the Anglican Communion) of LGBT people and women to the clergy and episcopacy. (The dissenting bishops and their supporters staged the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) earlier this year in Jerusalem.)
Also noteworthy was the use of indaba, an African model of purposeful discussion, to structure the Lambeth program.
The conference is not a legislative assembly, and this year its output is a lengthy reflections document that attempts to summarize the bishops' discussions on a variety of topics over the three-week conference. For those who don't want to read the primary source, the Episcopal News Service distilled the highlights of the reflections document complete with helpful links to supporting material (for example, the St. Andrews Draft of the Anglican Covenant and the Windsor Process).
Though no one will say as much, the consensus of the Lambeth participants seems to be "stay the course." In practical terms, this means to continue work on an Anglican Covenant as a tool for articulating what the communion holds in common, to continue the Windsor report "moratoria" on "ordinations of persons living in a same-gender union to the episcopate, the blessing of same-sex unions, and cross-border incursions by bishops," and to let the communion's legislative and judicial bodies to proceed without interference.
Not all of the bishops in attendance will comply with the continuing moratoria. Bishop Marc Andrus of the Diocese of California said his diocese would not abide by the moratorium on same-sex blessings. He noted that he and the diocese have the responsibility "to both understand the position of those to whom that moratorium is important, and to convey the reality of our life together to the world."
