From the Lambeth Conference Canterbury: July 21st, 2008

From www.forwardinfaith.com

FiF International News
Lambeth Conference - 1
Jul 21, 2008

The bishops of the Anglican Communion gathered in Canterbury last Wednesday, the 16th. But in a certain sense, the Lambeth Conference as such began today.

The bishops’ first three days together began with worship and Bible study at their main venue, the campus of the University of Kent. They were then bussed to the cathedral for a time in retreat, with addresses given by Archbishop Rowan Williams.

Today, the bishops gathered at the cathedral again, this time for the official opening Eucharist of the Conference. Both the setting of the service, the Missa Luba, and the Eucharistic Prayer were from the Congo; the preacher, who was chosen by the Archbishop, was Bp. Duleep de Chickera of Colombo in Sri Lanka.

In the afternoon they began their work in earnest, with a plenary session introducing the conference programme.

Indaba


Archbishop Phillip Aspinall
The official public spokesman of the Conference is Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, the Primate of Australia. He held the first of his daily press conferences in the Cathedral precincts, just after the opening service. Much of the conference was devoted to nuts and bolts, such as the time and location of briefings and the introduction of the media support staff. There is concern that there is only limited room for the press at those sessions which are open to it (one reporter asked what would have happened if the 200 bishops who had refused their invitations had changed their minds in response to the various appeals and decided to come), and the possibility of providing a closed-circuit feed to the media center is being investigated.

But the heart of the briefing introduced to the press the process which is at the heart of this conference, the process called indaba.

The Lambeth Conference has two stated aims: in the Archbishop’s words, “that we become more confident in our Anglican identity, by deepening our awareness of how we are responsible to and for each other; and second, that we grow in energy and enthusiasm for our task of leading the work of mission in our Church”.

Indaba is the means by which these aims will be pursued. It represents, according to Archbishop Aspinall, “a different way of working”. Past Conferences operated as a debating chamber, presenting, debating, and voting on a series of motions. Archbishop Thabo Makuba of South Africa spoke of indaba as the process the chief would use when her perceived that some concern – theft, for disharmony, for instance – was facing the village. The goal of indaba, he said, is to define what that concern is. It is hoped, Archbishop Aspinall later commented, that through this process bishops will “see what God has to teach us”, and be free to “move in their understanding and change their views”. With this in mind, bishops have been told that while they are free to talk publicly about what happens in their groups, they should not tie particular comments to particular persons.

Indaba does not avoid conflict, Archbishop Aspinall continued: it is “meant to engage conflict in a quite different way, in the hope that this method will be productive”. Some of the topics which the indaba groups (which brings together five of the Bible-study groups) will consider are general: Anglican identity, evangelism, ecumenism, the environment, engaging with other religions. Others, however, are directly related to the present crisis in the Communion: violence, gender and abuse, the Bible and the Church’s mission, human sexuality, and the Anglican Covenant and Windsor process.

Each of the indaba groups will send a reporter to a consultation which will draft, and submit to the gathering for discussion, a written reflection on the Conference. There will be no finished product or set of decisions to vote upon, Archbishop Aspinall noted: only an “open and transparent” summary of the Conference’s work to date.

The Anglican Covenant and the Windsor process will be the subject, not only of specific indaba sessions, but also of discussion in hearings and in (optional) self-select sessions. Once again, however, this will not produce formal reports and resolutions, but is rather a means of “inviting” the bishops “into the conversation”.

There will be some 40 people in each indaba group. Since each will meet for two hours each day, it would appear that leaves only some three minutes’ opportunity for each participant to speak. Archbishop Aspinall commented that much of their discussion will be pursued in sub-groups. But indaba is not simply about the group sessions, he commented: it is a process which it is hoped will pervade and draw together every aspect of the Conference, from its formal sessions to what are called its “fringe events”.

Asked if the Conference is an attempt to “save the Anglican Communion” from the risk of schism, Archbishop Aspinall replied that the Conference is “an ongoing part of the life” of the Communion. Every Conference, he noted, has had to address the “live issues” of its time, and none has ever solved all of them. In his opinion, there is “an overwhelming commitment to the life of the Communion” among the gathered bishops. That commitment has been fostered by the bishops’ retreat, he said, pointing in particular to the Archbishop’s affirmation in Saturday’s address that he is “confident that a way has been found to the Father...through the Son, by the Cross and Resurrection”. The retreat, Archbishop Aspinall opined, has drawn the bishops together for constructive engagement.

In welcoming ecumenical representatives on Saturday afternoon, the Archbishop had reminded them that they are participants in the Conference, not observers or guests, and he urged them to “provoke and strengthen”. Noting that the Salvation Army does not baptize, and the Armenians do not accept Chalcedon’s Christology, one reporter asked why the Bishop of New Hampshire could not participate in the Conference, to do likewise. That, Archbishop Aspinall replied, was a question best asked of the Archbishop of Canterbury when he meets the press on Monday afternoon.