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The Two Faces of Lambeth
One of the gifts of the Lambeth Conference is it has exposed me to the writing of several bishops through their blogs. I only have time to read a little, and I am often moved by what I read. In reading a recent posting from Neff Powell, Bishop of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia, I get the sense that there are two Lambeth Conferences. The bulk of the time is very positive and life giving. Respectful and loving relationships are being formed as bishops and spouses have the luxury of time in Bible study and Indaba groups. At the same time, there is the pressure to “fix” the Communionand anxiety around what a Covenant might look like. I keep wondering about how remarkable this conference could be if it didn’t have the Windsor/covenant cloud hanging over it. Here’s how Bishop Powell ended his post.I continue to reflect, digest, pray, and consult on what is happening. Except for the Covenant and Windsor Continuation process and that kind of activity, the heart of the Lambeth Conference is profoundly life-giving. For example, Tuesday the Province of Myanmar (Burma) led Evening Prayer. During that service they showed a video of the life of the diocese and the effects of the cyclone that brought us to tears.
Tags:Bishop Neff Powell, LambethI do remain utterly convinced that God is in charge of all creation and will win out in the end. In the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia we do have the full range of opinions regarding the matter at hand, yet we remain committed to mission and ministry together both inside our borders and throughout the world, with particular emphasis on Sudan where we have had a thirty-year relationship.
While Dorothy was on an outing with the spouses, she visited the Charles Dickens’ museum where Kay Jones (Diocese of Virginia) and she saw a copy of Charles Dickens’ Last Will and Testament. These thoughtful words of Dickens are always appropriate as we go forth in life and mission:
“I commit my soul to the mercy of God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I exhort my dear children humbly to try and guide themselves by the teaching of the New Testament in its broad spirit, and to put no faith in any man’s narrow construction of its letter here or there. Signed this 12th day of May, 1869.”
Hold us in your prayers as you are in mind. Grace and Peace from Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference,
Neff
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Mission First?
What if we put mission first in our sexuality debates? What if the goal was not purity as narrowly defined by some folks, but rather spreading the gospel and inviting people to be with Jesus? Bishop Kirk Smith from Arizona suggested this model in his blog entry from July 30. Here’s an excerpt:One of the insights that came out of our meetings this morning (Thursday) as we turned our attention to sexuality was that whereas inclusion of Gay and Lesbian people is an important part of mission strategy in the first world, just the opposite is true in the third world. We heard stories of how churches have grown in places because of the welcome given to homosexual people, and also stories of how the American churches actions have hindered church growth in other parts of the world.
It made me think, could we say something like
“As the Anglican Communion we affirm a commitment to mission above all, and we realize that like St Paul, we need to be ‘all things to all people in order that we might win some for Christ.’ Might that approach allow us to move the question of sexuality away from a theological debate over who reads the Bible correctly, to a
multifaceted missionary strategy where full inclusion could be accepted in one place and not in another?The good news so far today (and I will write more about this later today) is that the mood of listening and understanding is extra-ordinary good. So far there has not been one hint of rancor or anger. Stay tuned.
Another way of looking at this comes from Bishop Alan’s Blog. He infers a rather ironic twist of circumstances. It took a while for western missionaries to learn that they had to respect the cultural ethos of the communities to which they went. They eventually adapted their practices and allowed regional differences in the expression of Christianity. The example he gives is of polygamy. We eventually realized that we needed to let individual communities sort this out for themselves if the gospel was going to be heard. We are now wanting the same flexibility from our fellow Christians. It is now we who have the “foreign” context that needs flexability of expression. The following is from his blog:
- Our priority, thus, has to be Christ, whom we have to value and represent more than the cultural wrappings with which we received him. Vincent Donovan’s percetion, as an RC missionary among the Masai in the 1960’s, was that it is futile and non-incarnational to start from the centralised dogmatic end. Rather faith had to be built among people from the other end, with great cultural sensitivity. That’s how Jesus worked; from street level up, not Jerusalem down. We need to work as Jesus worked.
How? One great controversy of the 1860’s at Lambeth I was polygamy on the mission field. It took until 1978 for the Lambeth conference to express trust in missionary dioceses to call this one correctly in their own circumstances. Today’s communications and the speed of cultural change among us do not give us 100 years to develop trust among us around our own cultural mandates as we enflesh the Incarnation. We could, of course, simply split. That is the way of the world. Or we can challenge that way of the world, by distinguishing first from second order clearly, and choosing to walk together, different as we are.
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Lambeth “Reflections Document”
While the Bishops at Lambeth will not be voting on resolutions, there will be an official document that is “reflective” of their time together. Right now the draft is 14 pages long. It can be found HERE. It is incomplete and it doesn’t yet include the more controversial subjects. The draft ends with these words:
Further Topics on which material will be forthcoming:
Gender and Power
The Scriptures
Sexuality and Listening
The Covenant
The Windsor Process
Leading in God’s Mission
Conclusion
The text is drafted by “listeners” who are in each of the Bishop’s Indaba groups (groups of 40 bishops). They are planning on releasing the final version on August 3.
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Sermon: The Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat – Year A, Proper 11
To listen to an MP3 recording, press HERE. Tags:Matthew 13, Sermon•
Lambeth on Stephen Colbert
A parishoner sent me this link. How fun!http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=177674
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If Episcopal Bishops can Stay Together . . . ?
Here is Bishop Duncan Grey’s lovely address at a hearing at Lambeth. He, as a more conservative Bishop, speaks graciously of his more liberal colleagues and holds up a model for unity.Remarks by Bishop Dincan Gray III
At the Windsor Continuation Group Hearing
Lambeth Conference
July 28th 2008
A bit of personal history: I have been nurtured and shaped within the Evangelical tradition of my Church. Most importantly, this means that the ultimate authority of the Holy Scripture and the necessity of an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus as the way to the Father are foundational and non-negotiable components of my faith.
Within my own province, I voted not to consent to the election of Gene Robinson, for reasons both theological and ecclesiological. I have followed to the letter and the spirit of the Windsor Report — before there was a Windsor Report.
For my faithfulness to this communion I have been rewarded by regular incursions into our diocese by primates and bishops who have no apparent regard for either my theology or ecclesiology.
I have made some peace with this reality, preferring to think of the irregularly ordained as Methodists — and some of my best friends are Methodists!
What I cannot make peace with is the portrayal of my sister and brother bishops in the Episcopal Church, who disagree with me, as bearers of a false gospel. That portrayal does violence to the imperfect, but faithful, grace-filled, and often costly way, in which they live out their love of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Yes, I am in serious disagreement with many of them on the very critical sacramental and ethical issues about which the Communion is in deep conflict. Are we sometimes, at best, insensitive to the wider context in which we do ministry, and at worst, deeply embedded in American arrogance — Absolutely! And for that insensitivity and arrogance we have begged the Communion’s forgiveness on several occasions. “But do I see the Church in them?” as the most serious question at the last hearing asked. As God is my witness, I do. Despite my profound disagreements I continue to pray “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” We continue to reaffirm our creedal faith together. We continue to gather round the Lord’s table together, bringing the brokenness and imperfectness of our lives into the healing embrace of our Lord who sends us out together to the poor, the weak and the hopeless. And, in the midst of our internal conflicts, they show me Jesus.
There are dozens of bishops like me in the Episcopal Church. We are not a one, or even two dimensional Church. We are a multitude of diverse theological, ecclesiological and sacramental perspectives — and the vast majority of us have figured out a way to stay together.
How is this possible? I think it begins with the gift from Saint Paul, who taught us the great limitations of even our most insightful thought. We do, every one of us, “see through a glass, darkly.” And none of us can say to the other, “I have no need of you.”
One day, Saint Paul says, we will see face to face, the glory that we now only glimpse. But in the meantime, as each of us struggles to be faithful, may each of us, the Episcopal Church and the wider communion, find the courage, and the humility, to say to one another, “I need you — for my salvation and for the salvation of the world.”
Tags:Bishop Grey, Lambeth•
Bishop Beisner from Lambeth, Saturday, July 26
Here’s an exerpt:Each of our daily liturgies is done by a different province of the Communion. Tonight, TEC did Evening Prayer. The music, and the accompanying video images of congregations of our Church at work and worship had more than a few of us missing home. We are all pretty tired after such a challenging week, and all pretty amazed at the thought that there is so much more in front of us. Tomorrow will be a welcome sabbath day. I will be thinking of the congregations of Northern California when I go to worship at the cathedral tomorrow, and praying for you. Please remember Ann and me and all of us here.
The whole post is HERE.
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Lambeth Update, July 28
I’ve been out of the net the last few days as I transitioned to camp chaplain. But here’s a good update from the Bishop of Arizona:Monday, July 28, 2008
Day 11–Hot, and bothered!
A sweltering gym was the venue for his afternoon’s third hearing on the Windsor Continuation Report. The attached video was taken just before we got started. The room was packed, and Laura and I were setting next to the exit, trying to get some cool air. Note Rowan Williams sitting on the floor right in front of Laura.
If you are wondering where this group came from and what its purpose is, you are not alone. It was created by the Archbishop to advise him about the Windsor report, but it has taken on a life and authority of its own. There is only one American Bishop on the Committee, and no one in the group is supportive of Gene Robinson’s position–hardly representative. Yet it seems now that this group has assumed the task of plotting the future of the Communion. You can read the whole text of their report on Episcopal Cafe or the Episcopal News Service websites, but its recommendations are briefly these, none of which I feel is helpful: 1. Enforce the moratoria against blessings of same-sex unions, partnered gay bishops, and cross border incursions. 2. Create a “Forum” which would investigate violations and recommend actions, including possible discipline. 3. Halt legal actions, placing those groups who had left their provinces “in trust” until they could be reunited with their rightful bishops.
Again, if you wonder what this all means, so do most of us. The document raises as many questions as it answers. Its pretty clear thought that its purpose is to punish the American (and Canadian) Church. What was even more disappointing than the document was the attitude of some of those at the hearing. The American Church was viewed as the cause of all the problems of the communion, and is even referred to in the document as a “dysfunctional family.” I felt this afternoon that TEC had been back into a corner, which is exactly where some would like to see us.
However, the good news is that 1)These are only recommendations, the Conference is not voting or approving anything. That will come later when the Anglican Consultative Council meets in the Spring. 2) We still have a week to make our case to our colleagues, and 3)Many of them are already supportive of American position.
The question now is, can the good will that has been generated over the last week get us through the difficult discussions of the coming week? So there is hope even at the end of this rather depressing day.
We redeemed the evening by having dinner off campus with Chuck Robertson, known to many of you. He is enjoying his role as behind the scenes shuttle diplomat.
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