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Lambeth Conference Affirms Worldwide Communion

Episcopal News Service. August 11, 1988 [88172]

CANTERBURY, England (DPS, Aug. 11) -- Bishops of the Anglican Communion meeting here have preserved their "common life" by expanding the roles of certain instruments of Anglican decision-making and authority, and by providing a framework for maintaining communion in the event of a woman becoming bishop.

The 500 bishops were meeting at the Lambeth Conference, July 17-Aug. 7, on the campus of the University of Kent. The Conference is held once every 10 years at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The commitment to "hold the communion together" despite warnings of schism over women bishops was made in principal at a Lambeth Palace retreat for the primates before the start of the Conference. It was then a question of the small groups that focused on the most divisive issues writing legislation that would be acceptable to both progressive and traditionalist bishops, sources say.

In resolutions adopted overwhelmingly, the bishops urged a greater role in Anglican affairs for the triennial Primates Meeting and Anglican Consultative Council, and called for regional meetings of bishops to take place between Lambeth Conferences. The ultimate effect of these changes may be to weaken slightly the importance of the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference itself.

Another measure adopted by the bishops -- the vote was 423 for, 28 against, 19 abstaining -- urges respect of one another's decisions regarding the ordination of women as bishops. The resolution does not take a stand on the issue itself, but seeks to maintain the highest possible degree of communion and sensitivity among provinces with widely differing views on the subject, and it asks the Archbishop of Canterbury to set up a commission to monitor the process.

This legislation was drawn up by a small group on "women" in the Mission and Ministry section of the Conference. The central figures in the group were Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning of the Episcopal Church, a strong proponent of the ordination of women in all holy orders and Bishop Graham Leonard of London (Church of England), perhaps the leading opponent of the ordination of women in the Anglican Communion. Their efforts in formulating language of common ground in the resolution was essential to the positive outcome of the legislation and the eventual success of the Conference as a whole. Their discussions in the small group were described as "very friendly and facing differences."

Despite the central place of "authority" in the deliberations, the ministry of women inevitably occupied much of the Conference's time and attention. Since there were no women among the bishops, ordained women and their supporters from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, several African countries, and elsewhere, sponsored programs and activities outside the official conference schedule. The Episcopal Women's Caucus at Lambeth was a co-sponsor of the Women's Witnessing Community, which attracted frequent visits by American bishops, including the Presiding Bishop, and served to "highlight the gifts and concerns of women from throughout the world," as its co-chair described it. The Community presented programs, speakers, and services of worship, and was widely received as a quiet but effective voice for women.

Meanwhile, the bishops adopted 17 resolutions relating to the Communion's ecumenical and interfaith relations. Dialogues and conversations were encouraged between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Lutherans, Reformed, Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals and in support of the ecumenical documents sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The United Churches of South Asia (Pakistan, Bangladesh, North India, and South India) were held up as models for the rest of the Communion to emulate. Ecumenism was the sole subject of one of the four working sections of the Conference.

Perhaps the most erudite debate in the plenary sessions centered on support for conversations between Anglicans and people of non-Christian faiths. One resolution urged three-way contact between Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Some African and Asian bishops, who have experienced difficulties with Islamic fundamentalism or whose evangelical credos call on them principally to convert non-believers, objected strenuously to these measures.

There was a firm stand taken on responding to the AIDS crisis. The bishops said they would take the lead in promoting a nonjudgmental spirit in their communities and in educating them on the causes and prevention of AIDS.

The staggering diversity of the Anglican Communion proved to be the common thread running all through the Conference. Northern and Southern Hemisphere bishops sometimes found themselves on opposite sides of a question, if for no other reason, because their cultural contexts were so different. A "Church and Polygamy" resolution, for example, introduced by the Bishop of Mount Kenya East, expressly permits polygamists who convert to Christianity to keep their wives, although they must promise not to marry again after conversion. Bishops from developed countries overlooked the anathema in order to support their brother bishops in Africa. Some African bishops had to do the same when it came to resolutions on homosexual rights and women's ordination to the episcopate. From the beginning, there was an atmosphere of mutual support -- a sense of empathy among brother bishops.

Many Lambeth bishops agreed that the most important part of the schedule was daily Bible study -- this year done in small groups rather than in plenary sessions as before -- Bible study and perhaps the collegiality that so many referred to in thanking the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, for his leadership as presiding officer and host.

Dr. Runcie's sense of humor frequently brought uproarious laughter from the house, as, for example, when a resolution called "Recognition of Saints" was presented for a vote. "All those in favor of recognizing saints," the Archbishop said, "please raise your hands."

On the final day, there was a moving tribute to the Archbishop, in which all the primates joined him on the stage, and a statement was read by the Primate of Burma. A Burmese bishop had not attended a Lambeth Conference since 1948, and this year none was allowed to leave the country with more than twelve dollars in his pocket. Eyes moistened throughout the converted sports hall, as Dr. Runcie responded to the Burmese primate by saying, "Frankly, I'm so overcome by all this I don't know what to say."

He would not have topped his closing address to the Conference only a few moments earlier: "The first Lambeth Conference lasted four days; the second, in 1878, lasted four weeks. If succeeding Conferences had lengthened at the same rate, they would now last just over ten years and there would be no need for us to go home at all!"