wfn.org | Bishops interpret meaning of Lambeth Conference for

[John Rollins <rollins@intac.com>]

their dioceses

98-2233
Bishops interpret meaning of Lambeth Conference for
their dioceses

by James Solheim
           (ENS) Bishops of the Episcopal Church have
been struggling to explain the  meaning of this summer's
Lambeth Conference to the folks back home. Some of them
took advantage of the technological facilities-over 200
computer terminals spread  across the Kent University
campus, thanks to a grant from Trinity Church of New
York-to file regular reports by electronic mail.
           Bishop Frank Allan of Atlanta, for example,
told his diocese, "A most important  part of this
conference will never be reported in the press or
observed in photo  opportunities. This part, like the
beating of the heart, occurs in quiet ways away from the
highly visible places. I speak of the small groups of 10
to 12 bishops who meet daily for  prayer, Bible study and
discussion." His group included bishops from England,
Canada,  Peru, the Sudan, South Africa, Papua New Guinea,
Cyprus and Northern Indiana.  "Wherever I go I listen for
stories. There are tales of love, tragedy,  humor and
grace."
            Daily liturgies were offered by different
provinces of the Anglican Communion.  Allan said that he
was moved to tears the day the Church in Japan conducted
a liturgy on  the Feast of the Transfiguration,
anniversary of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.  "I
went to the Eucharist expecting to be berated about the
bombing. Instead, the Japanese  Church apologized for the
militarism which led to World War II and for the
brutality of  the Japanese Imperial Army. I found myself
in tears for this is the first time I have ever  heard an
apology from the Japanese people." Allan's family was
imprisoned by the  Japanese during the war. The sermon
was by a priest who was the daughter of the bishop  of
Singapore who had been tortured by the Japanese Army and
later "went on to baptize  one of the persons who had
tortured him."
           "We U.S. bishops were advised before arriving
to keep still and listen, and we  did," Allan said in a
reflection. Most of the energy of the conference centered
on the  issues of homosexuality and world debt, he
observed. "I believe this focus was  symptomatic of a far
deeper cultural, economic, religious and political
suspicion." When  the bishops moved into plenary to
debate and vote on resolutions, "eyes never met. There
is much we could have come to understand about our common
faith, suffering and  compassion, had we spent more time
conversing eyeball to eyeball, as we did in our  small
groups," he said.
           While not surprised by the vote on sexuality
resolution to affirm the traditional  teachings of the
church, Allan said "what surprised and shocked me was the
rhetoric of  hate and condemnation. A new biblical
fundamentalism has taken hold in the Anglican  Communion,
and this concerns me because it is idolatrous. The issue
is not the authority  of Scripture, but the
interpretation of Scripture."

Women receive warm welcome
           Bishop Chilton Knudsen of Maine expressed
similar excitement about the small  group meetings. "The
pace of this conference is so intense-the stimulation of
so many  ideas, conversations, new faces, reading
material, press interviews, etc. have forced me to  find
a few centering points in the days' schedule." She found
nourishment in the daily  Eucharist in which the Lord's
Prayer, "prayed in the native tongue of each participant,
all  making a hum of prayer which rises and falls like a
great wave." And there are the stories  "filled with the
lovely grace of simple hum encounter." She added, "In
spite of the very  strong differences between us, there
is a true sense of family here."
            Knudsen said that the women bishops were
"uniformly well-received," with "not  one bit of
discomfort by any." She added "it has been very good for
this Lambeth to  break through the gender barrier as it
has. I have had more invitations than I can count to
come overseas to this or that place to provide people a
chance to meet a bishop who is a  woman," which she
declined because she is still settling in with her
diocesan family.
            As she listened to the stories of the church
under persecution, "I have had my heart  stretched and
broken at the stories I hear, and have had my heart
warmed at the  amazingly warm welcome and affection which
continues to surround us who are women,  and the genuine
spirit of community we have built."
            The last week was rough for most of the
bishops, including Knudsen, who said it  was "exhausting
and painful." When she put up her hand to vote against
the amended  resolution on sexuality, "I was hissed and
verbally harassed by people sitting around me."  As she
had during the election process, she said that she was
"prayerfully persuaded that  God is calling us to be an
inclusive church, in which all people are welcomed,
without  prejudice or condemnation." She promised that
she would "do everything in my power to  assure that
Maine becomes ever more a safe place for everyone to seek
and serve Christ,  whatever their opinions or
circumstances."

What holds Anglicans together?
            Knudsen's colleague, Bishop Barbara Harris of
Massachusetts, the Anglican  Communion's first woman
elected to the episcopate, was even more blunt. In her
column  in the diocesan newspaper, she expressed relief
that the conference was over "and I never  have to do
this again!"
     Even though she knew a number of the bishops, Harris
said, "Nonetheless, I was  struck by how precious little
we really know about each other and the cultural norms
and  values with which we live, as well as the depth of
our divisions." She added, "At times it  was difficult to
fathom what holds the Communion together beyond our love
of the Lord  Jesus Christ and Wippell's [international
outfitters to the clergy]."
            In trying to explain "the tone of the most
contentious resolutions the conference  passed," she
pointed to "our different understandings and
interpretations of Scripture, its  place in the life of
the church and the struggle of rapidly growing churches
in the hostile  environments of many developing nations.
Another factor, she said, was the different  sharing of
authority in parts of the American church. "To put it
more bluntly, in many  provinces of the church-
particularly those in African and Asian countries-
diocesan  bishops hold absolute sway."
           For Harris "the vitriolic, fundamentalist
rhetoric of some African, Asian and other  bishops of
color, who were in the majority, was in my opinion
reflective of the European  and North American missionary
influence propounded in the Southern Hemisphere  nations
during the 18th, l0th and early 2& centuries."
     The hard-line stance on gays and lesbians and the
role of women in the church was  rooted in what she
called "a belief in the inerrancy and primacy of
Scripture, which  supports a preexisting cultural bias"
and that meant bishops from the developing world  brought
the same truth "that not only had been handed to their
forebears, but had been  used to suppress them." And they
found allies in "a small contingent of U.S. bishops who
had been unable to move their agenda at last summer's
General Convention."

A new way of being church
            Bishop Charles Jenkins of Louisiana in his
column in the diocesan paper, said that  he was "taken
aback, humbled and shocked at the stories of persecution,
depravation and  discrimination that many of our fellow,
Anglicans face around the world. The crucifixion  of
priests, children being sold into slavery or denied an
education, children being denied  an education, pregnant
women being cut open to satisfy a bet of soldiers on the
sex of the  baby, the genocide of people who have been
Christians for generations-the stories were  appalling."
            Christianity living under such dire
circumstances "tends to be more biblically  literalist,
and apparently less willing or able to live with many of
the shades of gray with  which we in the West have grown
comfortable," he added.
             As a result of his experience, Jenkins said
that "we are challenged to find a new  way of being the
Anglican Communion. The old way of being church, with a
high degree  of provincial autonomy and a trust in ways
English, is no longer viable. As much as I  liked it, it
holds nothing for the future. If we try to hold onto this
we will disintegrate  from a world-wide, catholic
communion into a squabbling mass of little entities. The
spiritual implications of such are a disaster. There is
nothing more dangerous to a  Christian than schism. So we
must find a new way of being the Anglican Church."
      Like many of his colleagues, Jenkins observed that
culture "stained" every debate.  "I do not take away the
theological integrity of any position, but culture
informed the  faith, and thus the debate, more than I had
expected it would. This says something to me  about the
level of anxiety in the church and the world and the
difficulty of moving  beyond that anxiety. The reactivity
to this Lambeth is also a sign of that anxiety."

Tense experience for Spong
            In his column entitled, "Christianity caught
in a time-warp," Bishop Jack Spong  of Newark blasted the
process and results of Lambeth, charging Archbishop of
Canterbury George Carey with abandoning his role as a
diplomat, throwing his weight  "verbally and visually
behind resolutions that have in fact left this church
polarized. Once  more in the name of the God of love, the
church has managed to insult gay and lesbian  people and
to suggest to women everywhere that they are still a
problem in the body of  Christ."
            Calling it "a tense, difficult and negative
experience" for many, Spong added,  "No one seemed to
recognize that the church in the West had engaged our
modem world  with its challenging scientific and secular
insight far more significantly than has any  other part
of the communion." And, he said, "We lived at Lambeth
with perceptions of  reality so vastly different that the
same words simply did not mean the same thing. We  became
aware that difficult local circumstances so deeply
colored one's frame of  reference that those outside
those circumstances could never understand the words that
were being spoken."
            "Western leadership was disorganized, inept,
incapable of working strategically  and without a common
purpose," Spong said. "Their overt refusal to draft a
minority  statement when it was clear that their point,
of view had no chance of prevailing and in  fact was
almost certainly going to be overwhelmed meant that
liberal bishops were  reduced to making individual
responses when the vicious resolutions were passed,
statements that he said "lacked both power and
persuasiveness and did not provide an  effective place
behind which opponents of the majority point of view
could rally."

Historic watershed
            Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh on the
other hand, said that he was  convinced that Lambeth will
"be seen by a who look back to it as a watershed in
Anglican history" by "outlining matters that cannot be
changed, in redefining the nature  of the Communion as
truly global, and reestablishing the balance (and the
means) by  which autonomous national churches are
sacrificially submitted to one another."
             He acknowledged that the conference was "a
very difficult one" for the American  bishops, who found
themselves to be "very marginalized, very far away from
the  Anglican center." For him the issue is "whether we
can be re-centered." In the Bible  studies centered on
Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians, "We are reminded
that the  apostolic way to re-center a church is to love
it, to encourage it, to go to it and, only after  all of
that, to challenge it. It also demands speaking out of
repentance, weakness and the  cross, not out of power,
wisdom or pride."
            "At Lambeth there was an implicit taboo
against saying anything critical of the  African Church,"
Bishop Martin Townsend of Easton wrote. "Its phenomenal
evangelical  success in the face of serious persecution
has placed it above reproach. Yet one Nigerian  bishop in
my group, 35 years old, conceded that polygamous
marriages do happen after  people become Christian. He
went on to say that the church couldn't afford to
discipline  them because they are usually village
leaders. The other Nigerian bishop and the Kenyan  bishop
in the group agreed that such things happen." He
concluded, "Clearly, how the  faith gets lived out is
culturally influenced."

Time for Episcopal Church to repent?
            At a gathering at Trinity Church in Ft. Worth
September 10, following an earlier  appearance in Dallas,
Bishop Jack Iker of Ft. Worth and Bishop James Stanton of
Dallas  said that Lambeth had sent a clear message to the
Episcopal Church to repent and  "foreswear its foolish
ways."
            In light of the Lambeth resolution 3.2 on the
ordination of women, Iker called on  Presiding Bishop
Frank T. Griswold "to exercise his leadership as chief
pastor in front of  his church and declare that [the
canon requiring all dioceses to implement open the
ordination process to women] is not in keeping with the
best of Anglicanism and contrary  to the great expressed
will of the whole Communion and will not be enforced."
Iker said  that "the reasonable thing for the Episcopal
Church to do is admit they made a mistake  and retract
the changes they made." Yet he admitted "that's not going
to happen. The  arrogance of the Episcopal Church is so
beyond control there's not going to be any
reconsideration."
            Iker said that the conference "is a wake-up
call to the Episcopal Church in the  USA." For him the
question was whether the Episcopal Church is "humble
enough to  hear what the Communion has appeared to say."
He is convinced that the conference "has  reminded us
that we are answerable to one another, that what we say
and teach and  preach and legislate in this country
affects brother and sister Anglicans all over the world.
It is a communion of mutual accountability and we, as the
Episcopal Church, must avoid  turning our backs on the
Communion. If we do, we do so at our own peril"
    Stanton heatedly repudiated what he saw as attempts
by liberals in the secular  media and the Episcopal
Church to downplay the importance of the vote on
sexuality. He  said that he was "tired of spin" and
resented reports that he had bought votes on the
sexuality resolution.
             "No vote needed to be bought," he said. The
overwhelming vote "tells me that  there were some people
who didn't like this phrase or that, but when it came
down to the  wire, that house accepted the whole
statement." He pointed out that the vote was not a  split
between north and south, that it carried with majorities
in the U.S., England, Canada  and Australia. Lambeth made
it clear, he said, that "diversity does not mean there
are no  limits to what provinces can do and still claim
to be in communion."
              Dismissing some claims in the press that
"this is a victory for the conservatives  or the
traditionalists triumphing over the liberals or
whatever," Iker said, "It is nothing  more and nothing
less than a clear proclamation of biblical truth and the
historic faith of  the Anglican Church.... No longer does
the United States or England speak for the  Anglican
Communion but the church in Africa and Asia does." He
returned with a new  appreciation for the cultural
diversity of Anglicanism. but as one rooted in orthodox
biblical theology. "For me the Lambeth Conference was a
proclamation of Anglican  identity."

Amazing power shift
             "The Africans came determined to speak their
minds, and when it was all over, it  was clear they had
done so," said Bishop John Howe of Central Florida, a
leading  traditionalist. The votes at Lambeth will put
the debates in the Americans church into  what he called
"a very different perspective."
             "This Lambeth Conference has demonstrated
beyond any possible argument that  those of orthodox
persuasion are in the very mainstream of Anglicanism, and
the  extremists are those who have chosen an agenda to
the contrary. Should they make good.  on their vows to
continue that agenda, despite the decisions of Lambeth,
there is little  doubt they will find themselves
increasingly isolated and out of communion with many  of
the other provinces around the world," Howe said.
      Speaking to the staff at the Episcopal Church
Center in New York, Presiding  Bishop Frank T. Griswold
said that the bishops struggled to honor one another's
perspectives but that it was difficult at times. As a
participant in the final plenary on the  Bible, he said
that the conversation "revealed the heart of diversity"
in interpreting  Scripture. "Finding ways to talk about
the authority of Scripture is an important task for  the
church in the future," he said.
             Agreeing with most observers that Lambeth
experienced "an amazing power  shift" toward the churches
of the developing world, Griswold saw some benefits in
making future conversations more equitable.

--James Solheim is the Episcopal Church's director of
news and information. Katie  Sherrod of Ft. Worth
contributed to this article.