Dr Williams has made a split inevitable
A split in the Anglican Church was inevitable, a leading conservative cleric said last night as he attacked Rowan Williams’s belief that gay relationships could be “comparable to marriage”. …
The Primate of the Southern Cone, Bishop Gregory Venables, predicted the end of the communion, saying: “This is more evidence of the unravelling of Anglicanism. Without a clearly agreed biblical foundation, all the goodwill in the world cannot stop the inevitable break-up. Unity without truth is disunity.” …
– Ruth Gledhill writes in The Times.
See also: Archbishop of Canterbury’s Correspondence on Homosexuality Reveals Deep Conflict – by David Virtue.
(Photo: Jim Rosenthal, Anglican World.)
What happened (and what didn’t) at Lambeth
This week SBTS President Al Mohler interviewed Canon George Conger, who has been reporting from Lambeth for The Church of England Newspaper.
The segment starts 11 minutes 20 seconds into the programme and is downloadable as an 8.7MB mp3 file (direct link).
China to Provide ESV-Chinese Bibles at Olympics
China will provide 10,000 free Chinese-English bilingual Bibles to be distributed in the Olympic Village where the Olympic athletes and media are housed, as reported by the China Daily newspaper. The bilingual Bible text will include the CUV (Chinese Union Version) and the ESV (English Standard Version), appearing in two side-by-side columns per page. The CUV Bible is the most widely distributed Chinese Bible in the world, and the ESV Bible has recently become the fastest growing English language Bible in the world. …
The Christian population of China is estimated by some to be about 7 percent, or 90 million, of China’s 1.3 billion people. …
– Press release from Crossway (hat tip Between Two Worlds).
Baptists call for action
Press release:
“The Baptist World Alliance has called on Baptists everywhere to strongly support government, corporate and community initiatives to address the causes of human-induced climate change.
A ‘season of gracious restraint?’ Not likely
The 2008 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops ended with something more like a whimper than a bang. The once-a-decade meeting of bishops of the Anglican Communion was a matter of controversy long before it started. In an unprecedented move, over 200 conservative bishops boycotted the meeting and held their own gathering in Jerusalem a few weeks before the Lambeth conclave. The 650 bishops who did attend had faced one unavoidable question — will the Anglican Communion survive?
Anglicans — like most denominations — are no strangers to controversy. But the stresses and strains in the Anglican Communion have clearly reached the breaking point. …
– Al Mohler reflects on the outcome of Lambeth. (Photo: Together for the Gospel.)
The Trigger-Happy Church
Who’s suing who?
Christian lawyer A S Haley, who blogs at Anglican Curmudgeon, provides links to some of the lawsuits going on in the Episcopal Church.
Interesting reading.
Jaffa Cakes with Kent Hughes
As the 2008 Ministry Intensive at St. Andrew’s Cathedral approaches next month, you may enjoy this audio interview with R Kent Hughes – conducted by Lee Gatiss of The Theologian.
Conducted over a cup of tea and a plate of Jaffa cakes, the interview is downloadable from the Theologian.
Reflections on Lambeth’s Reflections
We need to remind ourselves what the Lambeth Conference was convened to achieve. The answer is, nothing. …
And now a Conference called for no particular reason, holding meetings designed to reach no particular conclusions, has produced not a report but a series of reflections. Read them, if you will.
Having decided to decide nothing, it appears that the Conference felt it must comment on everything. Thus the reader who is willing may wade through page after page of good intentions about good causes ranging from disaster relief to carbon footprints. Yet, of course, nothing is (nor could be) specific — not even the gospel which, it is claimed, lies at the heart of the Communion’s concept of mission. …
– John Richardson writes at The Ugley Vicar. Worth reading in full.
Reactions to Lambeth span spectrum
The Episcopal News Service has produced a summary – with links – to a range of reactions to Lambeth. You can read it here.
(Photo: Lambeth Conference media.)
‘He just slipped away, our noble prince’
Canterbury, England
I am glad I came here for this Lambeth and worshipped one last time in the Cathedral home of Augustine and Dunstan, Anselm and Becket, Cranmer and Laud, Temple and Ramsay. I had come to speak a word of hope and perhaps to intervene on behalf of our beloved, but in the last resolve the family refused the long needed measures. So he just slipped away, our noble prince, one dreary morning in Canterbury with hardly even a death rattle.
The new prince was born last month in Jerusalem. I was there—arriving late, departing early. I was never quite sure what I was witnessing. It was an awkward and messy birth. He hardly struck me as I gazed upon him there in the bassinet as quite ready to be heir to the throne. I even wondered at times if there might be some illegitimacy to his bloodlines. But that I fear was my over weddedness to a white and European world. May he live long, and may his tribe increase—and may he remember with mercy all those who merely mildly neglected his birth.
As for me my role for now is clear, to hold together as much as I can for as long as I can that when he comes to his rightful place on St. Augustine’s throne in Canterbury Cathedral he will have a faithful and richly textured kingdom. …
– From Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina.
(See also, from March 2008, Bishop Mark Lawrence upholds the uniqueness of Christ.)
Photo: Bill Murton, Diocese of South Carolina.
Archbishop Peter Jensen on Lambeth 2008
Statement from the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen
4th August 2008
“We have been praying for the Lambeth conference and now that it has ended we look forward to talking with those who were there.
It seems it has fulfilled the desires of the Archbishop of Canterbury and we also look forward to hearing from him.
Our absence focussed minds on the problems within the communion and spoke louder than our presence would have. However, the issues which have caused such division are still before us and require decisive action so that the mission of the church will not be further impaired.”
Lambeth ‘failure’ featured on ABC Radio
This morning’s AM programme on ABC Radio covered the conclusion of the Lambeth Conference.
Audio of the segment (in which Gene Robinson describes Bible-believing bishops as ‘bullies’) is now available from the ABC website. Direct link to mp3 file. (The 1.5MB file runs for 3 minutes 15 seconds.)
Lambeth ends: TEC PB’s statement
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori at the conclusion of the 2008 Lambeth Conference:
“… The Anglican Communion is suffering the birth pangs of something new, which none of us can yet fully appreciate or understand, yet we know that the Spirit continues to work in our midst. …”
– read the full statement via the Episcopal News Service.
Also worth reading: Galatians 1:3-9.
(Photo: Episcopal Life Online.)
Communion broken, patient dying from wounds
From the beginning, numerous voices here at Canterbury have been saying that this was the Archbishop’s show – start to finish – his to win or his to lose.
He’s functioned admirably as teacher and retreat leader. His lectures were excellent. He succeeded in keeping everyone here talking. Meanwhile Canterbury has added the weight of history. This is the mother church of the Communion.
The Communion gathered here at Canterbury is broken.
The Episcopal Church has run helter skelter through its ranks and left devastation – a rogue elephant that simply will not be reigned in. The problem is it’s a very wealthy rogue and the trail of money is everywhere. …
– The Rev. Todd Wetzel reports from Canterbury at the end of the Lambeth Conference for Anglicans United and Latimer Online.
Bishop Lawrence: GAFCON is heir apparent
The Global Anglican Fellowship Conference (GAFCON) is the heir apparent to assume leadership of the Anglican Communion, said three bishops during an informal media briefing this afternoon at the Lambeth Conference.
Bishops Mark Lawrence of South Carolina and Keith Ackerman of Quincy were joined by Bishop Hector Zavala of Chile from the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone on the campus of the University of Kent, Canterbury, shortly before Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was scheduled to deliver his final presidential address of the conference. …
– Report from The Living Church. (Photo: Bill Murton, Diocese of South Carolina.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…