Lambeth Bishops Warned of World Crises
Episcopal News Service. July 25, 1978 [78211]
CANTERBURY, England -- Early in the Lambeth Conference, the 440 Anglican bishops heard two appeals for saving the world from itself. Both speakers noted the amount the nations spend annually for arms -- over 350 billion dollars -- and both dealt with the vast gap between the world's "haves" and "have nots".
The warnings came as the decennial meeting of the spiritual leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion gathered at the University of Kent here near Canterbury Cathedral to wrestle with issues of the Church's role in the modern world. The 440 bishops represent 25 independently-governed Churches in 100 nations and united by common roots in the Church of England.
Lady Jackson (Barbara Ward), an economist and environmentalist, outlined many of the problems of the world, but expressed the hope of "a new Renaissance" in which man recognizes the dangers of using up natural resources and is aware that 80 percent of humanity seek emancipation and a life of equality, dignity and freedom.
We have made "a great new beginning" in the 70's, she declared, but we endanger the future by such endeavors as the arms race and the use of plutonium as fuel. There is an interdependency in nature which man threatens to undo. She called for "a cooperative world order" in which humanity will accept a measure of equality, a planetary society, or "face the reality that there won't be enough to go around."
The Rev. Charles Elliott, professor of Development and Planning at University College in Swansea, Wales, called for a "revolution" against the false values of society, particularly those values which deal so callously with the poor. He cited the paradox of our times: "a productive machine that can meet an area of human desire - for more cars, for more liquor, for electronic gadgetry -- but cannot meet a huge area of human need for clean water, adequate clothing, adequate shelter, adequate food, innoculation for their young and material dignity for their old.
"If we take the Gospel seriously," Dr. Elliott said, "we are obliged to engage in revolutionizing those structures. From that there can be no escape. And that is not enough unless there is an accompanying change in the values of our modern economy."
In response to a newspaper editorial, the assembled bishops made clear at least one thrust of the Lambeth Conference. An editorial item in the Daily Telegraph suggested the Conference was "forgetting the mystery of God amid social issues." Replying on the floor was the Rt. Rev. Colin Winter, Bishop of Damaraland in exile, who visited several dioceses in the United States last year. He expressed the belief that the Conference was both the defender and spokesman for the poor and would continue to seek justice and liberation for them. This received an ovation.
An emphatic supplement to this view came from Bishop Desmond Tutu, the first black General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches. "Some of us come from places where there are many who are voiceless," and these, he added, "are not just in the Third World but in developed countries and industrialized cities."