THE Sydney diocesan standing committee has endorsed the decision by its Archbishop, Dr Peter Jensen, and its five regional bishops not to attend the Lambeth Conference.
On Monday, at its first meeting since Dr Jensen announced the decision, the standing committee passed a resolution stating it “wholeheartedly supports the Archbishop and his bishops in their decisions relating to Lambeth and GAFCON, recognising the cost to them of such decisions”.
Dr Jensen made a long statement to the committee, in which he outlined five reasons for the decision.
First, while he remained committed to the Anglican Communion, he did not believe that its good health would be advanced by a conference “which seems to give credibility and influence to those who have introduced false teaching and continue to commend it”.
Second, the Sydney bishops could not have deep fellowship with the ones responsible for the innovations concerning homosexuality.
Third, the Anglican Communion had been irreversibly changed by these developments, and this Lambeth Conference could not turn the clock back.
He said: “The best way of exerting influence is by not attending”; “absence is a decisive, though painful way of casting a vote, a way which is sometimes necessary when the issues are of great significance.”
Fourth, “We need to have pastoral care for those who have been hurt. . . a number of the foremost leaders from Africa and South America, standing on conscience, have declared that they cannot attend Lambeth. . . ”
Fifth, “We have a duty of pastoral care to the Anglican Christians in North America and elsewhere who have made their protest against the local innovations. . . Faced with the terrible choice between unity and truth, they have chosen to live by the truth. Should we not be witnesses that their choice is right?”
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