2 October 2014 A.D. Lambeth 2018 Cancellation Augurs & Betokens—the De Facto—Split? Shakeout & Shakedown Continues Apace?
2 October 2014 A.D. Lambeth
2018 Cancellation Augurs & Betokens—the De Facto—Split? Shakeout & Shakedown Continues Apace?
The article below is dated by 1 year, but the issue is still alive and pending. Ms. Schori indicates that TEC isn't even budgeting for Lambeth 2018. Mike Curry will be installed 1 Nov 2015 and, given his style, we predict he'll want to show up. Stay tuned.
Walton, Jeff. “Lambeth
Conference Postponement Spells More Uncertainty for Anglicans.” Daily
Caller. 2 Oct 2014. http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/02/lambeth-conference-postponement-spells-more-uncertainty-for-anglicans/. Accessed 2 Oct 2014.
Lambeth Conference Postponement Spells More Uncertainty
For Anglicans
Turmoil that has rocked the worldwide Anglican Communion for the
past decade isn’t about to settle down, if recent
comments by Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine
Jefferts Schori are to be believed. The head of the U.S.-based church told her
denomination’s recent House of Bishops meeting that money was not being
budgeted for an upcoming international bishops’ gathering in 2018 because it
was unlikely to occur.
Although Jefferts Schori’s comments were made public on September
23, the news did not become widely known until Florida Episcopal priest and
journalist George Conger broke the
news on September 30, after a week of attempting to
confirm with Anglican Communion officials.
An outright cancellation would be unprecedented. The worldwide
family of churches has been riven in recent years by a dispute over the role
and authority of scripture, often surfacing in disagreements around
homosexuality.
Jefferts Schori said that Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby “is
not going to call a Lambeth [conference] until he is reasonably certain that
the vast majority of bishops would attend.”
The likelihood of a “vast majority” of bishops attending in the near
future is slim.
Hundreds of bishops effectively boycotted the last conference in
2008, upset that U.S. and Canadian bishops who consecrated partnered gay bishop
Gene Robinson of New Hampshire were still invited to the gathering by
then-Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Both Williams and Robinson have
since retired, but churches within Anglicanism continue to pull in opposing
directions.
Traditionalists have gravitated to another gathering, the Global
Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) that met in Jerusalem in 2008 and again in
Nairobi in 2013. GAFCON is chaired by Archbishop of Kenya Eliud Wabukala, a
conservative who rejects the liberal direction of many churches in the global
north. The churches of Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda constitute a majority of
worldwide Anglicans, and they have been joined by several likeminded churches
in South America, Australia, and Asia, as well as other parts of Africa. GAFCON
support was crucial for the formation of the Anglican Church in North America,
a traditionalist group that wishes to continue on as part of the wider Anglican
Communion, but not as part of the liberal Episcopal Church.
A spokesman for Welby has declined to comment on the reported
cancellation, but financial pressures within the Church of England also do not
point to an upcoming gathering. The 2008 conference overstretched the church’s
resources and a discussion format based on an African concept of “Indaba”
prevented any formal statements or resolutions and was widely derided.
Any upcoming Lambeth Conference “needs to be preceded by a primates
meeting at which a vast majority of primates are present,” stated Jefferts
Schori. The Episcopal Church official noted that Welby “continues his
visits around the [Anglican] communion to those primates it’s unlikely that he
will call such a meeting at all until at least a year from now or probably 18
months from now. Therefore I think we are looking at 2019, more likely 2020,
before a Lambeth Conference.”
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