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The Lambeth Palace Controversy by The Rev. Hartshorn Murphy Sounds like a murder mystery and before it's all resolved, there may well be bodies on the floor… There have been a goodly number of emailed articles circulating the Church over the last few weeks in response to the announcement recently reported in the press that Bishop Gene Robinson would not be invited to attend the Lambeth Conference this next summer. For those new to Anglican/Episcopal tradition − and even for those who are lifelong members of this denomination − there is a lack of awareness of what the Lambeth Conference is and what it does and can not do. What is the "Lambeth Conference" anyway? From An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church by Don S. Armentrout, we read: "The first Lambeth Conference met in 1867, marking the occasion when the various churches of the Anglican Communion began to be conscious of themselves as a single family of churches. The immediate cause of the first gathering was an effort on the part of several bishops to respond to the unsettling effects of the publication of Essays and Reviews and the "Colenso controversy." The "Colenso controversy" followed the arraignment of John Colenso, Bishop of Natal, on charges of heresy for holding "advanced" views of the creation stories in the OT. The debate aroused intense feelings. A jurisdictional dispute between two bishops in South Africa regarding the controversy became a matter of concern for all the colonial churches of England. In 1867 Charles Thomas Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury, responding to an appeal from Canada, invited Anglican bishops from all over the world to Lambeth for the purpose of mutual discussion and consultation. The meeting, neither a synod nor general council, was a purely informal gathering of bishops meeting at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The informal gathering continues to have no power to make binding decisions. The Conference has met at ten-year intervals, except during time of war. Its deliberations command considerable moral authority…" From this brief history, several observations can be made. Firstly, the conference is by invitation. The Archbishop is free to invite whom he will to, essentially, his home at Lambeth Palace. The gathering is less legislative than it is collegial and relational. Secondly, the documents that come out from the conference, while part of the teaching curricula of the Church, is not binding on the independent provinces of the Church or on individual dioceses in those provinces or individual congregations within the broader communion of Anglican churches (such as St. Augustine's.) The pronouncements do have considerable "moral authority" and should be taken seriously and prayerfully as a part of the discernment towards truth, along with scripture and human reasoning and experience. Thirdly, the Conference has, since its inception, been about responding to conflict and differences of interpretation about theology and practice. (Indeed, the first Conference dealt with both a jurisdictional as well as doctrinal dispute.) It has tried to be a place in which, in a context of mutual respect, bishops of the church can pray and worship and study together and seek consensus about the future. Gene Robinson, duly elected by his Diocese and whose election was consented to, as required by Canon law, by a majority of the Dioceses of the American Church (in his instance, at General Convention) and who was lawfully and duly consecrated the bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire; has not been extended an invitation because he is an openly gay man living in a committed relationship. The other person not invited is "Bishop" Minns who was "appointed" by African bishops to be a "missionary bishop" in America to those congregations who can not accept the ordination of gay and lesbian persons to holy orders. Bishop Minns' ordination, unlike Bishop Robinson, was never consented to by the dioceses of the American church and therefore, he was "illegally" consecrated. That Bishop Minns and other bishops from the larger communion are functioning without permission of local bishops within the jurisdictions of those local bishops continues to incite division and schism. That these two men were both excluded from the invitations to Lambeth would suggest that there is a legal equivalency in their status in the Church. My dear friend Mark Hollingsworth, Bishop of Ohio, reports that "Minns and the Bishop of Bolivia were in the Diocese of Ohio…to participate in an ordination in Akron. Neither bishop had sought or received my permission to perform Episcopal acts within the ecclesiastical jurisdiction for which I am responsible." Bishop Hollingsworth continues: "Gene Robinson's presence at the Lambeth Conference might be awkward or difficult for some of the other participants, but that is hardly uncommon in Christian community. There are plenty of bishops whose presence in the councils of the Church I find difficult, and doubtless plenty who find mine the same. However, Gene Robinson, throughout his ministry, has been unfailingly honest and open, consistently establishing and maintaining trust within the diocese he has faithfully served and throughout the Church. Time and time again he has been an instrument of reconciliation and resolution." Bishop Kirk Smith of Arizona, former Rector of St. James, Wilshire in our Diocese, wrote: "Certainly the Archbishop is within his rights to invite whomever he pleases. However, I cannot help but express my dismay that he would treat these men in the same manner. Whatever you may think of Bishop Robinson, I do not believe that his manner of life has caused division or scandal in the communion, rather it is the actions of those who have used his ordination in an intentional effort to divide both our own Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion who are responsible." And finally, recently consecrated Bishop Marc Andrus of San Francisco wrote: "The tactic of isolation and exile being employed against Bishop Robinson is retrogressive behavior that moves us towards a past from which Christ is always seeking to redeem us." Most likely, the Archbishop, in making this decision (and indicating that others might very well be excluded from the gathering as well if their actions between now and next summer warrant it) is seeking to avoid controversy by excluding "controversial" persons. He is not alone in believing that the Holy Spirit does not speak with clarity in gatherings marked by conflict and strife. In point of fact, as the history of the Conference itself would attest, that may be the only context in which the Spirit speaks for those willing to listen. To imagine that we can create an atmosphere of such calm deliberation in which highly contentious issues can be reasonably and serenely debated and resolved might well be an elitist and naive hope. Truth (and progress) almost always arrives through struggle and contention. Change rarely comes in an ordered way. Conflict and chaos is inevitable, particularly when paradigms are shifting. (Paradigms have a tendency to shift unequally, the change emerging in one place now but in another, later. The change can seem abrupt and disconnected but in fact has been building for some time unseen.) But beyond all of this, we must ask the question: "Of what earthly use is the Lambeth Conference if, in struggling with the place of Gay and Lesbian persons in the Church in its future, we exclude the voices of gay persons from the conversation?" To fail to hear the witness of Gene Robinson, alongside the voice of Bishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria who is leading the opposition to the full inclusion of gay persons in the Church and who supports more repressive legislation against gays in his own country; is not only regrettable, it is unwise. For the larger context is this: some in the so-called "global south" (meaning churches located in the southern hemisphere) resent the historical hegemony of the Church of England as a historical colonizing Church. They are convinced that their larger numbers (of members) entitles them to a larger proportionate voice in the direction and governance of the Anglican Communion. Some have publicly advocated that the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury as the titular head of the communion be replaced with an elected head invested with more than mere moral persuasion. Further, they have suggested that future Conferences should be held in places other than Lambeth and that the pronouncements of the Conference should be binding on all Anglicans under the threat of excommunication. If all of this sounds rather, well, Roman Catholic and Popish, that we are told is just coincidence. That forces beyond anyone's control may lead to a realignment of denominations based less on historical accident and geography and more on spiritual type (pentecostal/charismatic; rationalist; sacramentalist, social activist etc.) may be unavoidable and even ultimately desirable when it emerges as natural evolution. But in an effort to appease the most conservative elements in the communion by victimizing by exclusion those who have historically been excluded, the Archbishop may well be accelerating the demise of his own authority and legacy. For those who may wish to seek to encourage Archbishop Williams to reconsider his decision to exclude Bishop Robinson from the 2008 Lambeth Conference or conversely, to affirm him in this decision; this is how to contact him: By fax, the number for Lambeth Palace is 011-44-20-7261-9836. For those wishing to write, first class postage to England is $.90 for a one ounce letter. The address is:
Copyright © 2007 St. Augustine by-the-Sea
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