Diocese of Down & Dromore

It is great to get out of the campus from time to time, even just down to the centre of Canterbury for a walk or a meal. Sunday meant a visit to old friends of ours from our Cork days, Arthur and Clare Houston, who are ministering in Maidstone Kent.  It was lovely to join them in St Paul's Church, where I was invited to preach. I must confess, I had planned to have Sunday morning off, simply worshipping in a congregation, but Arthur hadn't got round to applying for a bishop in the official way, and it all worked out wonderfully well. Sunday's readings included that passage about Solomon asking for a wise and discerning heart to tell the difference between good and evil, the epistle was a reminder that the Holy Spirit prays for us in groans beyond words, and the Gospel was some small parables from Matthew's Gospel, not least the yeast in the dough having great power. Much to think about! But it was great to think about them in an ordinary parish context.

Listening to the US

But in case you should think this Lambeth lark is beginning to sound too much like a holiday, I have to admit that I have engaged in my own personal ‘listening process' with people from TEC (The Episcopal Church in the USA), from both ends of the conservative-liberal spectrum. It has been fascinating, and hot and heavy at times, but very open and honest. I have personally become convinced of several things (but these are subjective observations):

• The American liberals really do believe that relating to their culture is adequate reason to go ahead with the direction they have taken. The fact that people from other cultures, in countries like Sudan, Congo, Burma, India and others have their ministry undermined by the Episcopal Church's decision has not registered on the radar up to now. Perhaps the conference will help in this.

• The American bishops are being helped to keep ‘on message' by the Episcopal Church communications people. The unfortunate thing for them is that others now know this, and have read a document which keeps them ‘on message' on the internet! So when we hear ‘deepening of our communion', ‘unity in diversity', ‘inclusiveness' and phrases like that, we know what it means.

• The voice of others in TEC appears to be subsumed by the prevalent liberal agenda. There are many bishops in TEC who are middle of the road, charismatic, anglo-catholic or evangelical, but many of them do not seem to find it easy to make their voices heard.

• The apologies and sadness expressed to the communion are often expressed with carefully-chosen words , such as ‘We are so sorry you have been hurt'. When I asked one bishop who gave such an apology if he felt they had been wrong to consecrate Gene Robinson as bishop, he answered, ‘Well, perhaps the timing could have been better'. An expression of sadness that people have been hurt is not the same as an apology for what was done.

• There seems to be no real intention in dioceses which allow or even promote rites of same sex blessing, to step back - or, if there is, I have come across no one who believes it , liberal or conservative. The only intention is to ensure that they are not considered ‘authorized'.

• There is often an attempt to make the question of sexuality a self-evident ‘second level issue', by phrases like ‘Why can't we get on with the important things?' even by people who should know that the issue of determining what is adiaphora (a second-level issue) lies at the heart of the problem. For many at the liberal end of the spectrum, this is actually not a second-level issue, but a key issue of justice.

The other factor which must be remembered at this Lambeth, is that the absent bishops skews the balance even more than usual. TEC, if my mathematics are correct, represents 3-4% of the Anglicans in the world, but around 18% of the bishops present at Lambeth. People are becoming increasingly aware of this, especially when they go to important meetings dominated by American voices.

Windsor and Covenant

During the coming week, reports from two important groups will dominate much of the Conference, and I will be making it a priority to keep up to date with them. They are the Windsor Continuation Group, chaired by Bishop Clive Handford (former primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East), and the Covenant Design Group, chaired by  Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies. People have been taking about issues of sexuality as ‘the elephant in the room', and the importance of talking about these issues. That is half-true. They are important issues, but the last Lambeth Conference in the famous  Resolution 1:10 has made the position of the Anglican Communion crystal-clear, and my understanding is that the Archbishop of Canterbury has no intention of us going over that ground again. Resolution 1.10 is the Anglican view, ratified by all the Instruments of Communion. The problem is not where the communion stands on the issue - the problem is when provinces, or dioceses refuse to implement this resolution, and connected issues of alternative oversight. The issues which lie at the heart of our concerns next week, therefore, are the following through of the excellent Windsor Report (the work of the Lambeth Commission chaired by our very own Archbishop Robin Eames), and the working through of how best to bring about a Covenant which will be agreed by the provinces. That task also has an important Irish voice in Archbishop John Neill. I am personally committed to work as hard as possible to make all this work, and will be involving myself in sessions about these issues, because I think we all know that we cannot leave this Conference with the situation remaining the same: and we cannot go on indefinitely as a communion without having settled a way forward.

 

+Harold

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