[Ed. Note: the Archbishop is quoted below as saying, “We don’t want at the Lambeth Conference to be creating a lot of new rules but we do obviously need to strengthen our relationships..." And that is precisely why the Global South Bishops and Archbishops are not coming. The Covenant's latest form is a pro-forma 'can't we all just get along?' document, that will not build adherence to any standard doctrinal statements. I ask for your prayers that Lambeth will not be irrelevant before it even begins. Cheryl M. Wetzel]
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3803063.ece
April 23rd, 2008
By Ruth Gledhill for Timesonline
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has issued a plea for prayers to be said all over the world to prevent this summer’s meeting of hundreds of Anglican bi shops from being “besieged by problems”.
Dr Williams, whose communion of 75 million Anglicans is facing a rift over the issues of gay ordinations and same-sex blessings, says in an online broadcast that the three-week Lambeth Conference in Canterbury in July is intended to equip bishops for their “mission”.
In a video message to the entire church posted on YouTube, Dr Williams says his aim in planning the conference has been to make it essentially a “spiritual encounter”. He says this the conference should not be “a time when we are being besieged by problems that need to be solved and statements that need to be finalised, but a time when people feel that they are growing in their ministry.”
Instead of a series of resolutions and large meetings, as has happened at previous conferences, bishops will spend much of their time closeted in small, private groups.
Dr Williams says: “We have given these the African name of indaba groups, groups where in traditional African culture, people get together to sort out the problems that affect them all.”
Of the 800-plus bishops invited, about a quarter have declined to attend because of the row over the consecration of the openly-gay Bishop of New Hampshire, the Right Rev Gene Robinson, in the US in 2003. The refuseniks include almost the entire episcopate from three separate African provinces.
More than 200 bishops, including two from the Church of England, will instead be attending a “rival” Lambeth Conference in Israel and Jordan organised by conservative evangelicals in June.
Some bishops are expected to attend both meetings.
One African bishop, the Dr Eliud Wabukala, of Bungoma in Western Kenya, told a congregation in his diocese that he was boycotting Lambeth and attending the Global Anglican Futures conference instead because he did not believe he should go to a place where “men marry men.”
Although Bishop Robinson has not been invited, he is expected to be in England during the conference, attending and speaking at fringe meetings.
In his message, Dr Williams says: “We want to see this year’s conference as an occasion when Bishops learn how to be better Bishops. And because of what we believe about the Church overall, we believe that Bishops learn to be better Bishops when they are learning from one another.”
He continues: “At the heart of the whole Anglican Communion is relationship. We have never been a body that is bound together by firm and precise rules and that is often, as it is at the moment, a matter of some real concern and some confusion in our life as a communion.”
He says: “We don’t want at the Lambeth Conference to be creating a lot of new rules but we do obviously need to strengthen our relationships and we need to put those relationships on another footing, slightly firmer footing, where we have promised to one another that this is how we will conduct our life together.”
One item that is on the agenda is the proposal for a covenant or agreement between the 38 different Anglican provinces worldwide that would help prevent such disputes in the future.
