Lambeth Report Canterbury: Friday, August 1st

From www.forwardinfaith.com

FiF International News
Lambeth Conference - 14
Aug 2, 2008

"Fostering our Common Life:
the Bishop, the Anglican Covenant, and the Windsor Process"

For the second time during the Conference, the bishops' indaba groups are meeting twice during the day today to discuss the topic "Fostering our Common Life: the Bishop, the Anglican Covenant, and the Windsor Process".

Archbp. Aspinall said that his indaba had broken into smaller groups to look at the St. Andrew's draft of the proposed Covenant. His small group agreed "in principle" with the text, but did offer some editorial suggestions. He saw this as a microcosm of the Conference's "commitment to living together as a Communion, and working things through as a Communion".

Covenant Design Group

Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, the chair of the Covenant Design Group (CDG), outlined the genesis of the draft. The Group had been commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in response to the suggestion made in the Windsor Report. It worked in the context of "some dispute and some fragmentation", in a Communion which has "no mechanism for solving our problems" except "holding meetings": "no legal framework, no magisterium that says, you've had your discussion, this is it".

The introduction to the draft, Archbp. Gomez stated, discusses the theology of communion, and of "autonomy in communion", on the basis of the Windsor Report. The first section seeks to describe Anglicans' inherited faith; the second talks about our common mission, and the third outlines "the consequences and commitments" that "flow out of working together".

The document asks the bishops, "Is this the faith we have been taught, and profess?" It is meant to help define "who we are as Anglicans", the archbishop said, for the sake both of our self-understanding and of our ecumenical relationships. In his view, "Anglicanism is Reformed Catholicism".

The CDG's has worked to renew "our commitment to journey forward together". The document is future-directed, Archbp. Gomez noted: it does not address the present issues.

The archbishop believes there is a "general consensus" within the Communion about the way forward, though there is still argument about the details. The CDG will meet in September to do more work on the text. The Provinces have been asked to forward their comments by March; the Group will meet in April to compose a third draft, which will then be submitted to the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting in May.

The "Soul" of the Covenant

Bishop Trevor Bawanga of Botswana spoke to the "soul" of the Covenant. He noted that there is consensus within his indaba group about the "need to uphold the Communion" and preserve "its rich heritage".

Bp. Trevor described the work in progress as a "covenant of friendship". Citing a story by Maya Angelou, he said it would help enable Anglicans from different cultures to "discover each other and become friends". It is not to be a covenant of enemies who need to be penalized, but one "of respect, of mutual reverence".

The Covenant, Bp. Trevor urged, "enhances the beauty of Anglicanism", its "capacity to absorb different viewpoints"; it is meant to be "something that will give life", and not destroy.

Is the Covenant Design Group Listening?

In his opinion, Archbp. Gomez said in response to a question, the bishops are serious about a Covenant: over a dozen Provinces have responded formally, verbal input has been received from a block of African Provinces, and individuals and groups have also submitted responses.

Is the CDG listening to the voices that are not at Lambeth, such as that of Archbp. Orombi?, the Archbp. Gomez was asked. The CDG dealt with the issue he raised in both drafts, he answered; and its work was the result of Communion-wide consultation, not driven by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Church of England.

The archbishop agreed with a reporter's observation that there has been some "waxing and waning" with regard to the historic Anglican formularies, but said that there has been no attempt to deny that they are at the heart of Anglicanism. Archbp. Aspinall noted that the language has been changed to take into account the different legal status of the various formularies in different Provinces.

Asked if a document can be built upon "a principle that is incorrect", the principle of preserving full autonomy while seeking full community, Archbp. Drexel Gomez said that in voluntarily entering the Covenant the Provinces recognize the common good, and "will do nothing to break up the common good". Archbp. Aspinall noted that "autonomy" means "self-rule": to adopt the covenant is an act of voluntary self-limitation.

Can the Communion Stay Together?

Can the Communion stay together during the six years it may take The Episcopal Church's General Convention to act on a Covenant?, Archbp. Gomez was asked. He responded that it will, noting that up until last May all the groups represented at GAFCON had responded positively to the principle of a Covenant. "We're not in a hurry", Bp. Trevor added, "we want to do a good job".

Asked what was said in the indabas about what would happen if TEC or some other Province refused to sign on to the Covenant, Archbp. Gomez said "that decision will have to be made by the Communion". But he had always felt the CDG needed to "make space for those who can't sign up yet". Archbp. Aspinall observed that "it will be difficult in every Province of the Communion", because autonomy is guarded jealously.

Asked what would happen when the Covenant is violated, the archbishop said that appendix "tries to set out the ways these things will be dealt with". The CDG has concentrated on setting the framework, so that present draft is quite preliminary; more work will be done at the September meeting. At this point, he said, the CDG has not directly addressed the issue of diminished status. Archbp. Aspinall added that people who entered the Covenant voluntarily would be likely to observe it.

The Windsor Continuation Group and the Covenant Design Group

Is there a disconnect between the Windsor Continuation Group's work, which looks to the present, and the CDG's work, which looks to the future? Archbp. Gomez said that while the WCG is dealing with present issues and recommending actions as the Communion moves towards a Covenant, it is not "pre-empting" it.

Responding to a question about another version of a covenant that is circulating here, Archbp. Gomez said that the CDG's draft is "formulated on a principle of mutuality and commitment": it is "not a legalistic document", he insisted, and it is "not a punitive document". The covenant, Archbp. Aspinall observed, "will address the issue of space" - space for different Provinces and different cultures to develop in their local context.


Archbishop Gomez said in response to another question that although he will retire at the end of this year, he plans to continue as chair of the CDG at least until May.

The Spouses

Alice Chung, the wife of Bp. Roger of Madagascar, reported on the spouses' session on "how God is equipping God's people for his church". The spouses heard about the church's efforts to care for women raped during the war in Congo and to gather and find homes for orphans in Burundi.

In her own Madagascar, Mrs. Chung continued, the church is creating income-generating projects which empower women by teaching them both basic skills, such as reading, and marketable skills, like embroidery. This effort, she said, drew on her own professional background as the former product development manager of a knitwear factory in Mauritius.

Global South Bishops

This afternoon Archbp. Mouneer Anis, speaking for himself and not as the presiding bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, met with the press. The bishop expressed his support for Archbishop Rowan Williams who, he said, is doing his best to preserve the unity of the Communion and resolve issues, and the many positives of the Lambeth Conference - not least the opportunity for the Global South bishops, of whom he is president, to meet alongside others in preparation for their gathering in 2009.

But at the same time, the bishop said, "it is not easy to be here". "Gay and lesbian activists" are "everywhere", he asserted, although when asked he could not say how many were present. And traditionalists, he said, "are the ones who are being blamed" for causing other issues to be left behind by pressing one issue.

The issue of sexuality, Bp. Anis said, is "a very superficial symptom of much deeper illness": "we are not united about the essentials of our faith". Some "friends", he observed, "find it difficult" to say that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

The church is being driven by the "morals of the culture", not the morals of the Bible, the bishop continued. If this is allowed "we would lose our distinctiveness as a church", meant to be light in darkness and salt to preserve society.

There can be no "faithful relationships", Bp. Anis contended, without faithfulness to God and to His Word, from which faithfulness to one another is derived. Fidelity to God requires fidelity to His purposes in creation.

Traditionalists, the bishop said, are compared to those who defended slavery. But slavery came not from God, but from human sin. The innovators' agenda leaves human beings in a different form of slavery: "slavery to lust, slavery to the desires of our flesh".

"American friends", the bishop asserted, "are rejecting and resisting the idea of the covenant" because they don't want anything that will "make them accountable to the Communion". The bishop commended the work of the WCG as "so faithful and so honest" in its assessment of the situation. "We are a dysfunctional family", and a Covenant is needed to prevent future crises.

Asked if individuals are healed by "good intentions" or by "positive interventions", Bp. Anis, said his work as a medical doctor had taught him that healing sometimes requires "unpleasant intervention". He was still waiting to see if there would be a "positive intervention" here, he said, but it seems more likely that it will occur at the meeting of the ACC.

Bp. Anis referred to a study of 200 homosexuals by Robert Spitzer which concluded that reparative therapy can be effective. But he also acknowledged both that this was not his area of medical competence, and that the study had failed to convince the American Psychiatric Association to restore homosexuality to its list of psychiatric disorders.

He had not attended GAFCON in part because of conflicts caused by its schedule change, the bishop said. But he was also concerned that it might divide the Global South, which he wishes to see "intact, growing closer, growing stronger". Those who did take part and those who didn't, he noted, are still working together, because they have "the same foundations". He saw nothing to the assertion that the Global South was being set against GAFCON.

Staying Away from Lambeth

Archbp. Orombi had said he could be heard more loudly by staying away from Lambeth. Bp. Anis responded that his absence and that of many others gave proof that "we are a wounded Communion". He had hope they would all be here - their voice would be "much more valued" - but "they still speak in their silence".

Asked about those who describe the innovators' attempts to press their agenda as "a new colonialism", Bp. Anis said, "I do agree", "they really do want to put this kind of life style upon us". The church, he said, had not blessed everything that came along in the first two millenia, and it should not do so now. "When you bless something", he said, "it grows". The church had kept silent in the face of divorce and cohabitation, for instance, and both have now become "a norm".

Bp. Anis suggested that a question about whether he had ever counseled an abused spouse to move out, to get the abuser's attention should be referred to GAFCON. But he took the opportunity to speak to what he described as the "confusion" of objections to the gay agenda and "homophobia". "We love, we welcome homosexuals as long as they are open to the will of God", he insisted; "all of us need the grace of God", and he would deny it to noone.

With reference to his statement at Uganda Christian University that Africa is the future of the Anglican Communion, Bp. Anis noted the recent work of Thomas C. Oden showing that for the first thousand years it was Africa that had shaped the Christian mind. If Africa is faithful to its heritage, he said, "we would be able to shape the Christian mind in the third millenium".