The Archbishop’s Invitation
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision to invite the Bishops of the Anglican Communion to attend the Lambeth Conference in 2008 was not a straightforward one. For four years debate, argument and conflict had increasingly shaped the relationships between different provinces across the world. The election of Bishop Gene Robinson to the diocese of New Hampshire in the United States had focussed increasingly divergent views about the authority of scripture, the nature of Episcopacy, the discipline of a holy life and about human sexuality. Many voices were advising the Archbishop not to call a Lambeth Conference this year but to seek a resolution of some of the key difficulties before inviting everyone to come together. Some anticipated that the Conference would be nothing more than the final movement in a long drawn out requiem for a dying church. Indeed, many of the journalists gathering at the Lambeth Conference had come to write that story regardless of what transpired.
Here in Leicester I had reported on some of these things to our own Diocesan Synod in the autumn of 2007. I recognised that the diocese very much wanted the Conference to take place, that the great majority of us valued the Anglican Communion and our friendships with the church in Japan, Tanzania and South India. But I had memories of the 1998 Conference which I had attended as Bishop of Dunwich. Although friendships had been made there, horizons had been broadened and an understanding of the Communion had been deepened, the last week of that Conference left painful memories of plenary gatherings at which resolutions were passed and voted on in a crowded hall leaving many people feeling damaged by the aggression and hostility which surfaced at times.
Ten years later my experience has been very different. The worst expectations that preceded the Conference were not fulfilled. The sense of a living communion in which people long to stay together and the deep respect and affection for the Archbishop of Canterbury as the one whose vision both shaped and led the Conference are much stronger than before. I am very glad to have been there and pleased to give the diocese this summary of my experience.
Hospitality in Leicester
In a sense the Conference began for us not in Canterbury but in Leicester. We were joined by six Bishops from around the world:
– Bishop Carolyn Irish from the Diocese of Utah, United States
– Bishop David Torraville from the Diocese of Central Newfoundland, Canada
– Bishop Simon Makundi from the Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
– Bishop Paul Sarker from the Diocese of Kushtia, Bangladesh
– Bishop Michael Baroi from the Diocese of Dhaka, Bangladesh
– Bishop Paul Vasanthakumar from the Diocese of Trichy-Tanjore, South India
The days spent with them leading up to the start of the Conference were rich and varied. Those who offered hospitality in their homes were generous in the extreme. The University of Leicester invited the Bishops and their spouses to a Senate Dinner. Launde Abbey opened its doors for twenty four hours to give the Bishops time and space to think and pray. The St Philip’s Centre provided opportunities to explore inter faith relations. 120 people came to a party a Bishop’s Lodge to meet the Bishops and to build friendships with them. And, perhaps most memorable of all, the ‘Lambeth Talk’ – an event designed to enable young people from all over the world to meet the Bishops and to share their ideas with them was designed and led by Robin Rolls of this Diocese and our own Bishop’s Youth Council.
All of these events were a great success. I felt immensely proud of the diocese in the care and generosity that so many people offered to ensure that our visitors had a memorable experience amongst us. And the Bishops left for Canterbury deeply grateful for what they had received and very touched by the warmth they had felt. Some of them had been apprehensive about the Lambeth Conference, worried about what they would find and how they would manage in a foreign country and an unfamiliar culture. But the Diocese of Leicester set their hearts at rest and assured them of our welcome and our prayers.
The Conference Begins
And so to Canterbury during the third week of July. The campus of the University where the Conference is based is much more spread out than any of our University campuses in this diocese. It is a good mile and a half walk from one side to the other. So we began a 17 day period involving spending much of our time on foot, carrying bags of books, papers, pencils, raincoats, bottles of water and all the other paraphernalia we needed for each day. The English Bishops were mostly billeted at the furthest point from the campus centre and for many of us most days lasted for over 16 hours, from the early morning Eucharist at 7.15am to the end of the final plenaries, discussions and night prayer, often getting back to our rooms at 10.30pm. We gathered with 650 clergy from 130 countries meeting for worship, bible study, meals, discussions and workshops. And all of us who, frankly, find ourselves often in the pivotal places of gatherings in our own dioceses, now found ourselves ‘one of the crowd’ living, learning, praying and eating like students. It was a real learning experience, finding out who we were in relation to people whose life experience, priorities and concerns were dramatically different from our own. And a key feature of the conference lay in that experience. We all shared the experience of no longer being ‘on the platform’, no longer in the spotlight, no longer responsible for events, but walking, talking, learning and listening with (as far as was possible) sensitivity and humility.
Conference Design
The Conference had been intentionally designed to avoid political process. A once in ten year conference, bringing together people from five continents and 17 different languages cannot be a decision making body. The weight attached to previous Resolutions of Lambeth Conferences has often proved more than the Resolutions can bear. The vast majority of Resolutions of Lambeth Conferences over the years have never been discussed, acted upon or implemented by the Provinces of the Communion. And some (especially the Lambeth Conference 1998 Resolution 1:10, have been elevated to the position of permanent tests of orthodoxy). So this conference was not going to produce Resolutions, but rather it was designed to build understanding, friendship and covenanted relationships.
Each day began with a Eucharist at 7.15am in the big top lead by one of the different Provinces of the Communion. At the end of the mornings worship and before we left for breakfast, we saw a five or six minute clip of that day’s ‘Lambeth Journal’ – a DVD setting out the agenda for the day and reflecting on the previous day’s agenda. It was this experience of a daily shared Eucharistic life, reflecting the variety of music, language, culture and concerns of different Provinces which was the fundamental building block of the whole Conference. It was the place where communion in its deepest sense was both experienced and celebrated.
Bible Study
After breakfast each day came the bible study groups. In my bible study were three Bishops from the Congo, living and ministering in a country ravaged by civil war, in extremely challenging conditions. Their stories of travelling, often on foot around their dioceses, of facing possible attack from militias hiding in the hills, of bringing people to Christ in remote rural areas were humbling and inspiring. We also had a young Bishop from North America working with economically disadvantaged communities in the ‘rust belt’ of north west Pennsylvania. The Bishop of Haiti was one of our number, as was the Bishop of Caschel in Southern Ireland and the Bishop of Shrewsbury from the Church of England. The group was convened by a Bishop from Canada whose diocese was over 500 miles long. Each day we worked through the set passage from St John’s gospel, exploring with each other the ‘I am’ sayings. We began to see how the presence of Christ made himself felt in very different dioceses and in very different ways. And yet we began also to understand each other, to see each other first as human beings with all our frailties, confusions and uncertainties rather than as Bishops. And after two weeks of daily meeting it would be true to say we had built a bond of trust and understanding between each other which was precious to all of us. We made a commitment to continue to pray for each other in the days ahead.
Indaba
There followed each day the much publicised indaba groups. These were made up of four bible study groups coming together. Indaba is an African idea – a village meeting of elders who come together to talk through problems and challenges for the whole community. The indaba process is not about formal decision making or vote taking on western political lines, but rather about a communal conversation that deepens understanding and discerns directions. It was difficult for the indaba groups to function fully according to the original vision. Each day the subject for the indaba discussion was identified for us by the design of the Conference. Even if we had not finished our conversation we had to move on the next day to a new subject. And it was not easy for us to learn to hear and understand each other in such large gatherings. Nevertheless it is certainly the case that in the indabas the really difficult issues around human sexuality and the authority of scripture was struggled with. In my indaba group, we resolved none of these issues but we began gradually to understand each others positions in new ways. There is certainly a basis here for changing the way the meetings of Bishops in the Church of England are shaped, perhaps trying to create space for discussion and understanding that is not always formal and procedural.
Hearings
The rest of our days in Canterbury were taken up with special meetings of various kinds. On many days there were hearings – plenary sessions in which Bishops had the opportunity to respond to proposals by speaking for up to three minutes from the floor. These hearings covered two principal areas:
a) The work of the Windsor Continuation Group
This group had been set up to devise a way forward for the Anglican Communion in the light of the Windsor report published in the aftermath of the Gene Robinson affair. The Windsor Continuation Group was chaired by a retired Bishop of Jerusalem in the Middle East, Bishop Clive Hanford. It tested out various hypotheses about what was happening in the Anglican Communion with all the Bishops, and then made a proposal for three possible moratoriums
– one for the cessation of any ordinations of actively gay Priests as Bishop
– one for the cessation of blessings of same sex unions
– one for ending interventions in one Province by Bishops from another Province
b) The second lot of hearings were designed to provide the Bishops with an opportunity to comment on the text of the proceedings of the Conference as it was being written. A group of representatives of each of the indaba groups was appointed in order to summarise the work of the indabas, to draft a text and to test it out on the mind of the Conference. Here again Bishops had a brief opportunity to comment, often at very short notice on long texts. This was one of the least satisfactory parts of the Conference experience, since it subjected us to large high pressure meetings without any real opportunity to reflect on the subject in hand. However, it lead to the production of a final text of the Conference proceedings entitled Lambeth Indaba and available on the web site at www.lambethconference.org.
Self-Select Sessions
Every day there were also a large number of ‘self select sessions’ – anything up to 30 each day for a couple of hours on a huge range of subjects which Bishops could opt into at their own choice. Two of the self select sessions I was involved with included a visit to the Conference from some of the young people from our own Youth Council in order to present the outcomes of the Lambeth Talk. Impressively, this session, attended by about 20 or 30 people towards the beginning of an immensely busy Conference was also attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury who came and participated fully in the session and at the end of it committed himself to doing what he could to ensure that young people became full participants both in the General Synod of the Church of England and on the Archbishops’ Council. Further, at a later session, Andrew Wingate came to lead a discussion on matters relating to conversion from one faith to another attended by a few Bishops from India and Sri Lanka.
In addition to these events, there were a number of plenary sessions after dinner in the evening when major speakers delivered an address to the whole conference. These included talks by Cardinal Diaz the Head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Evangelisation. They also included an extraordinary talk by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, speaking to the Conference about the idea of covenant. Of all the plenary events in the Conference, this address was the most memorable and the text can be found at http://www.lambethconference.org/daily/news.cfm/2008/7/29/ACNS4484
The Archbishop of Canterbury
But perhaps the most significant ingredient in the Conference was the contribution of the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. This was a conference very much designed in accordance with his own vision. It was to be focussed on the spiritual experience of the Bishops, the life of prayer and worship and the teaching of the faith. For Archbishop Rowan these things are primary and the political decision making processes are very much secondary. The Archbishop had concluded that the Lambeth Conference was not the place in which to produce Resolutions which either developed or changed previous Lambeth Resolutions but in which, at a time of great difficulty for the Communion, we talked, prayed, listened and supported one another.
These ideas were first introduced at a retreat which preceded the Conference and was lead by the Archbishop in Canterbury Cathedral. The retreat addresses were entitled ‘God’s Mission and a Bishop’s Discipleship’. It was an effective way of giving us time and space to focus on the essential things, to pray together and to be still in the impressive surroundings of Canterbury Cathedral before the busy demands of the Conference began. The Archbishop’s retreat addresses are also published at www.lambethconference.org. One of the key features of what he developed was the role of Bishop as one who gathers the church in his diocese in order that people can discover the presence of the living Christ in the midst of their differences and struggles. The Archbishop put it this way:
“the Bishop is someone around whom it should be possible to see what the church is. We talk about Bishops as signs of unity: and quite often what we mean by that is not a lot more than an understanding of the Bishop as a harassed chairman of endless committees who is doomed to seek for a consensus that is always escaping. If that’s all it means for the Bishop to be a sign of unity, we are (to quote St Paul) “of all people the most to be pitied”. But what if we are meant to be a sign of unity in a rather different and a rather deeper way? What if we are meant to be a sign of that unity of the new humanity in which there are no defensive boundaries between the life and the pain of diverse people and communities? What if we are meant to be signs of that unity, where, in Christ and through the Spirit, human lives flow together to announce God’s glory?”
In addition the Archbishop delivered in the course of the conference three presidential addresses. In these he seemed to be trying to reflect back to us the progress of the Conference and to remind us of some of the issues we are facing. And on several occasions he spoke about the unity to which we are called:
“We are one with one another because we are called into union with the one Christ and stand in his unique place – stand in the Way, the Truth and the Life. Our unity is not mutual forbearance but being summoned and drawn into the same place before the Father’s throne. That unity is a pure gift – and something we can think of in fear and trembling as well as wordless gratitude; because to be in that place is to be in the light of absolute truth, naked and defenceless. St John’s gospel has been reminding us that the place of Jesus is not a place where ordinary, fallen human instinct wants to go. Yet it is where we belong, and where God the Father and Our Lord Jesus Christ want us to be, for our life, our joy and our healing.”
Implications for our Diocese
Where does all this lead us in the Anglican Communion and what are the implications for our own diocese? There seems to me to be four areas to think about:
1. Our understanding of Communion.
Many of us felt that we left the Conference with a deeper sense of the Communion that exists between us. We sensed this to be a gift, rather than something we have created or deserved. One of the Bishops in my bible study group commented: “when I come to the Eucharist in the morning and see people from all over the world standing in line to receive bread and wine, then I know that this is a communion of love and that we cannot fall out of love with each other because we are held by the love of God.” In a way that summarises the experience. It means that all the debates and discussion about who is in communion with who, whether some people are in impaired communion with others, whether certain actions have the effect of diminishing communion between members of the same church, need to be seen in a different light. Communion is essentially an expression of God’s unconditional love for each one of us and the promise of His presence made available to us in bread and wine. It is not for us as human beings to attach conditions to this gift nor conditions to our readiness to commit to each other even when we disagree. And this has implications for our common life in this diocese over some of the issues which might divide us. It also has implications for our commitment as members of one global communion, to our partner churches in the diocese in Mount Kilimanjaro and in the diocese of Trichy-Tanjore. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ for whom we have a responsibility to pray and to deepen and develop our relationships.
2. Covenant.
There has been much discussion about the proposed Anglican Covenant. The Archbishop has publically lent his support to this idea, indicating that a covenant which sets out the terms of the relationship between the Provinces of the Anglican Communion world wide and which provides a basis for any disciplinary action which might need to be taken against a Province which acts without due regard to the rest of the Communion, should be put in place. A considerable proportion of the time at the Lambeth Conference was spent in giving attention to the present draft of this Covenant. This draft will be examined by the Anglican Consultative Council at its meeting in 2009. If it endorses the draft text, then that text will be submitted to all the Provinces of the Anglican Communion for examination and discussion which will take a period of several years thereafter. This would be significant change in the life of the Communion, binding us together not only in terms of mutual friendships, affection and shared history, but in terms of a legal framework. Our own General Synod will need to endorse the terms of the Covenant in due course for it to pass through the Church of England and it may well be that each of the dioceses has an opportunity to debate and discuss the Covenant in the years ahead. That will involve us in thinking deeply about our understanding of the Anglican Communion, and of the way which we are committed to preserving a global church.
3. Our life as a diocese.
Much of the talk and thinking at the Conference was about the ministry of Bishops and about the life of the dioceses which they serve. What is the most effective role of the Bishop as servant and teacher in the diocese? How can that role develop in the years ahead, when notions of hierarchy and authority are changing so fast? How can we in the diocese learn to be part of the one body, serving each other, resourcing each other, learning from each other and growing the whole body together for the sake of Christ?
4. Witness.
One of the most memorable features of the Lambeth Conference was the act of public witness in Parliament Square in support of the Millennium Development Goals – the United Nations agenda for eradicating poverty and disease. It was an impressive occasion and drew a memorable speech from the Prime Minister who addressed us. How might we add our voice as a diocese to the gospel causes in society which are significant for us? How might we be part of the witness of the Anglican Communion for justice, peace and for the causes which most affect the poor in our midst?
5. Communion.
Above all, this conference had much to teach us about how we handle difference. The experience of Bishops in parts of Africa is radically difference from North America of Western Europe. This experience shapes our understanding of discipleship, Christian ministry and the role of the Bishop. Within one worldwide family can we contain these differences so as to be a sign to the world of the “new humanity in Christ”? And that is our challenge in Leicester.