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The Communion and its difficulties: further reflections on and after the Lambeth Conference
From Mr Kenneth Barber Bay Trees, Mill Lane Lower Slaughter Cheltenham, Glos GL54 2HX From the Revd Professor Richard Burridge Sir, — I am grateful for your reflections on the Lambeth Conference (8 August), although it was Pat Ashworth’s piece “Shut out from La Dolce Vita” which particularly caught my attention. To a certain extent, I shared her frustrations about being excluded from places to eat, and from the bishops’ self-select seminars. As a leader of some of those seminars, I ate all the time in Dolche Vita (sic), even though it was a 15-minute walk from where I was staying; I couldn’t eat with her in the Tex-Mex restaurant close by in Darwin. The positive side of this, though, was that such staff members and seminar and Bible-study leaders could talk and plan together away from the constant representations from the various lobby groups and members of the press — and also from the bishops, who were similarly not allowed in. I, too, would have liked to hear many of the other self-select sessions, but if they had been open to people other than the bishops, they would have been overwhelmed. The sessions I led on the Bible and homosexuality, biblical interpretation, the Old and New Testaments, and so forth, had more bishops attending than the rooms easily allowed for. I was deeply impressed by the willingness of bishops from all parts of the world, and various sides of the debates, to talk, study, and debate together, and to listen to each other within the confidentiality of these groups. Your leader suggests that, had the media had the chance to participate, “the predictable stories of split and schism might have been tempered.” Surely the converse would have been more likely. The Lambeth Conference was for bishops to confer, share their experiences, and pray together. When they did so, as several bishops said to me, their perceptions of each other were altered, if not necessarily their positions. This could have happened only out of the glare of publicity. Archbishop Williams and the Conference-planning and Bible-study teams are to be congratulated on achieving a Conference where real listening could take place through the indaba process, leading to the Reflection document produced — which I would commend to your readers. RICHARD A. BURRIDGE King’s College, London Strand, London WC2R 2LS From Canon Colin Craston Sir, — As GAFCON leaders are reported to be meeting this month to react to the Lambeth Conference, it is surely timely to remind them that they do not speak for or represent all Evangelicals. Certainly, I disagree with them on several issues, though I have been glad to belong to that tradition all my life. I do not follow their simplistic use of scripture. I do not accept their understanding of what constitutes the basis of being in communion — agreement with “our interpretation of truth”. I do not support their attacks on the Archbishop of Canterbury, as expressed recently by Bishop Greg Venables. I believe their obsession with homosexuality is distorting the Anglican witness. Let me be clear. I am undoubtedly heterosexual in orientation. Since I joined the Navy in 1941, I have had a deep emotional aversion to homosexual practices. But many years ago I realised that emotional prejudices can distort our interpretation and application of scripture. We can all go to scripture to confirm preconceived attitudes. As a result of further study of scripture, I came to the convictions I expressed in my book Evangelical and Evolving (2006) — ideas and questions similar to those of Archbishop Williams in the leaked correspondence from some years ago. I was much helped by the writings of that great British theologian P. T. Forsyth. While he maintained that, in expounding the work of God in saving grace through the death and resurrection of Christ, the apostles’ exposition “partook of the finality of revelation”, in matters more peripheral, however, they reflected the culture and understanding of their time. He specifically mentions their anthropology and their attribution of human physical death to the Fall. In reading scripture today, we must bear in mind truth discovered about the universe and human nature and not known in earlier ages. Could St Paul and others have known there was such a thing as genetically controlled homosexual orientation, or that Christian believers might be so conditioned? Much is made of the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10. Clause (f) recognised that the debate was not finalised then. COLIN R. CRASTON 12 Lever Park Avenue Horwich, Bolton BL6 7LE From the Revd Dr Nicholas Cranfield Sir, — Thank you for publishing in part the final reflections from the Lambeth Conference. These suggest the breadth and wisdom of those who did journey to Canterbury, but I wonder what the status of the document is when it claims to be “that of a narrative”. In particular, the bishops have repeated an acknowledged claim to the Catholicity of the Anglican Communion when (paragraph 118) stating, “Bishops cannot be a symbol of unity when their consecration itself divides the Church.” This must surely give pause to those who would now seek to introduce women into the episcopate of the Church of England without first ensuring adequately against the likely division such a move would provoke. NICHOLAS CRANFIELD 10 Duke Humphrey Road London SE3 0TY From the Revd Dr Marcus Braybrooke Sir, — I am disappointed that the section on world religions, even in the full version of the Lambeth Reflections, speaks only of our common humanity, which surely applies to all people, whether they are religious or not. It fails to acknowledge that other religions are both a channel of God’s grace and a human response to it. Lambeth 1988 recognised that dialogue should go beyond understanding the other to “mutual sharing”, in which both partners to the dialogue are affected and changed. Without this expectation that our experience of other faith traditions will enlarge our appreciation of the boundless compassion of God and enrich our own spiritual life, dialogue is like “salt that has lost its savour”. MARCUS BRAYBROOKE President of the World Congress of Faiths 17 Courtiers Green Clifton Hampden Abingdon OX14 3EN From Mr A. Melling, JP Sir, — The prospect of a new “Anglican Global Relief and Development Agency” is dreadful. What happened to the idea that the Churches should not do separately what they could do together? The Anglican Communion should reinforce its commitment to Christian Aid and its international parent, not set up a rival agency. ANDREW MELLING 39 Salisbury Road, Bexley Kent DA5 3QE |
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