The road from Lambeth
The recently-concluded Lambeth Conference provided an opportunity for bishops from around the Anglican communion to discover the deeper realities of the contexts in which each seeks to spread the gospel. …
The Anglican communion’s present reality reflects a struggle to grow into a new level of maturity, like that of adult siblings in a much-conflicted family. …
– TEC Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori writes this opinion piece in The Guardian.
Church considers £1.2m shortfall
A £1.2m deficit in the recent Lambeth Conference’s budget will be discussed on Monday by the committee that manages the Church of England’s assets.
A boycott of the conference by more than a quarter of bishops over the issue of homosexuality is thought to be partly responsible. …
– From the BBC. (The caption to the photo accompanying the article reads: “Homosexuality was the main topic discussed by bishops at the conference”. Not correct.)
Photo: Lambeth Conference media.
The Anglican Blog Song
American Anglican Paul Erlandson has composed The Anglican Blog Song and posted it on YouTube.
– A bit of light relief.
Canterbury answers critics
In response to the recent coverage of the correspondence dated back to 2000, The Archbishop Canterbury has made the following statement:
“In the light of recent reports based on private correspondence from eight years ago, I wish to make it plain that, as I have consistently said, I accept Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference as stating the position of the worldwide Anglican Communion on issues of sexual ethics and thus as providing the authoritative basis on which I as Archbishop speak on such questions. …”
– from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s website.
However see also the important Latimer Study: The Theology of Rowan Williams An outline, critique and consideration of its consequences – written by Dr Garry Williams of Oak Hill College in 2002.
(Photo: Archbishop of Canterbury’s website.)
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.
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.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…