wfn.org | Lambeth Conference to consider Anglican-Methodist report

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 30, 1998	Contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
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By United Methodist News Service

A report on a 1992-96 dialogue between Methodists and Anglicans will
come before the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops when it meets
July 18-Aug. 9 in Canterbury, England.

United Methodist Bishop William Oden of Dallas and the Rev. Geoffrey
Wainwright, a professor at Duke University, will be ecumenical
participants at the meeting, representing the World Methodist Council.
The Lambeth Conference meets every 10 years.

"It was the Lambeth Conference that prompted the dialogue at its last
meeting in 1988," explained Wainwright, chairman of the World Methodist
Council's Ecumenical and Dialogue Committee. "We very much hope that as
the initiating body it will like the result."

The dialogue report, "Sharing in the Apostolic Communion," calls upon
the World Methodist Council and Lambeth Conference to take steps to
recognize each other fully.

In some parts of the world, such as India and Pakistan, Methodist and
Anglicans already have merged into a common body.

"We're not envisioning, at this stage, full union of this sort, but
deepening what communion is between us," Wainwright explained.

Oden was the Methodist chairman of the joint Anglican/Methodist
International Commission dialogue. The group, which met for three
lengthy sessions over a five-year period, included international
Methodist representatives as well as representatives of the black
Methodist traditions.

"We discovered that there is very little that divides us," Oden said.
"We are one in understanding of  baptism, in doctrine of the Trinity, in
the affirmation of historic creeds."

The one significant barrier, according to the bishop, is that of the
"historic episcopate." The barrier was created when John Wesley himself
ordained clergy to be dispatched to the United States. "Wesley
determined that elders had the right to ordain, not just bishops," he
added.

But Anglicans believe they are part of a succession of bishops
stretching back to the apostles, while Methodists are not, Wainwright
noted.  The dialogue report proposes that a task force find a way to
determine how the Methodists can join in the succession.

The document was approved "overwhelmingly" at the 1996 World Methodist
Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Oden said. If approved at Lambeth, the
next step will be to celebrate the report and its conclusions and then
work in various Anglican provinces and Methodist conferences "to turn
the document into actuality."

Wainwright noted that official endorsement must come separately from the
various Methodist and Anglican bodies, such as the United Methodists,
black Methodist denominations and Episcopalians in the United States.

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