The Rectory July 2008

Dear Friends

July 2008 is the month of the Lambeth Conference, the ten-yearly gathering of Anglican bishops from across the globe. It will be rather smaller than its predecessors of the last few decades because, as I'm sure many of you are aware, the event is mired in controversy. Bishops from several provinces have decided to absent themselves, and have convened a separate meeting, in protest at the refusal of several western provinces to adopt an uncompromising stance on gay clergy and bishops. The press are gleefully proclaiming the end of the Anglican Communion, while the Archbishop of Canterbury is doing all in his, admittedly limited, power, to conciliate as many as he can. His is perhaps the most unenviable position in public life. It carries enormous status but very little real authority, the effect of which is to limit the role to that of a bridge between factions, quite unable to seize the initiative and drive anything forward. Furthermore, the press and public at large tend to assume that status implies authority, and as a consequence are usually disappointed by what they interpret as weak and indecisive leadership. At the time Rowan Williams was appointed it seemed apparent that he had done nothing to court the appointment, and more than likely did not particularly want it. I suspect he was under no illusion as to what would be involved, and I admire him for his willingness, however reluctant, to accept this very heavy burden.

To put our current problems into an historical perspective, the Lambeth Conference is no stranger to controversy, the very first meeting in 1867 being convened in response to a similarly challenging situation. John Colenso, Bishop of Natal in South Africa had stirred up controversy by denying Moses' authorship of the first five books of the Old Testament (the Pentateuch) and by his lenient attitude to polygamists amongst native African converts to Christianity. He argued that 'the price of conversion to Christianity should never be the dissolution of the family, and perhaps the destitution of wives and children'. The controversy inspired Samuel John Stone to write the famous hymn The Church's one foundation (sung at the 1867 Conference) and it escalated to include other aspects of Colenso's teaching. Yet, whilst his attitude to the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist may be judged to have lacked any sense of awe and wonder, there are few today who would be outraged by his critique of the Pentateuch, and his approach to the problem of Polygamy has a curiously contemporary ring to it. In some parts of Africa polygamy was still practised amongst Christians until fairly recently, and with the toleration of the Church authorities. Such arrangements are, of course, far from ideal, yet as Colenso argued, the consequences of immediately forbidding the practice, could be much worse.

The Colenso controversy revealed Anglicans to be engaging seriously with the different cultures in which they were proclaiming the gospel. This involved making difficult decisions about what was irreconcilable with the faith, what could be accommodated, and what needed to be tolerated at least for a time. The diversity of potential outcomes prompted a future Lambeth Conference (1888) to attempt a definition of the essentials of the Christian faith for the churches of the Anglican Communion. The Lambeth Quadrilateral declared that Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation, that the Catholic Creeds are the accepted statements of Christian orthodoxy, that the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist are essential to Christian faith and worship, and that the historic episcopate - leadership of the Church by Bishops - is the primary mark of the unity of God's people. The Colenso affair had forced Anglicans to define the ground of their mutual belonging, yet even in the 19th C it was realised that the collegiate character of the Communion would not withstand a definition of faith and practice tight and detailed in every way. Those who would have it so today will sustain a dialogue with nobody other than the mirror image of themselves. My hope for the 2008 Lambeth Conference is that like some previous conferences it will surprise us, both with the quality of its dialogue and the extent of the participants' commitment to one another in Christ, a commitment transcending current ethical controversies and traditional differences of churchmanship.

Grace and Peace to you.

Charles Booth