LAMBETH 2008
Thoughts on Lambeth from Lydia Agnew Speller
The Lambeth Conference is a global gathering of Anglican Bihops. Over 800 bishops were invited. It officially begins on July 16 lasts until August 3. The formal "programme" seems to start on July 21, preceded by a three day retreat for bishops. The conference meets in Canterbury, because it is convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury but there are not sufficient facilities at the Cathedral and so it meets on the campus of the University of Kent just outside Canterbury. The University of Kent is a modern university, having about as much old world charm as UMSL but some of the worship happens at Canterbury Cathedral which survived the intense bombing of Canterbury during WW2. The aims of the conference are to develop community among the bishops and an appreciation of our unity in diversity. In the last 50 years, as Anglicans have attempted to clarify relationships among Anglican provinces, the Lambeth Conference has been called one of four "Instruments of Communion." There is a parallel conference for bishop's spouses.The bishops meet in Lambeth roughly every ten years. There was a longer gap between the first and second conferences and the two World Wars caused longer gaps between conferences. This is the fourteenth Lambeth Conference.
How did this all start?
The first Lambeth Conference was held in 1867. Archbishop Longley invited bishops from throughout the Commonwealth and from the United States to Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop's London Residence and headquarters, which gives the Conference its name.Seventy-six bishops were in attendance.
They met at least in part because they were living in an era when global travel and communications began to seem more efficient than ever before: steam powered ships and railways made travel easier and steam powered ocean going vessels were under development, safer and more reliable. Telegraphy made global communications seem an attainable goal. The spread of the British Empire had made the world seem smaller. Since Anglicanism in 1867 had the beginnings of a global identity it made sense to hold a conference of bishops from all over the world to celebrate and appreciate the ways in which Anglicanism was taking root in very different parts of the world from England's green and pleasant land. As far as I am aware, however, none of the indigenous peoples of Africa, Asia, Australia or New Zealand were represented among the 26 colonial bishops who attended. White bishops, usually British born, were bishops even in places where the worshippers were Maori or Zulu or Inuit.
Even at that early date, there were tensions within the communion about how the churches in various parts of the world should relate to one another in the event of disagreement, what mechanisms are appropriate for resolving conflicts and how Anglicans understand the bible.
The person around whom debates about biblical and ecclesiastical authority in Anglicanism outside England were focused for many was Bishop Colenso, a Cornish born bishop of Natal. He was fascinated by the liberal theologian F.D. Maurice and by historical critical study of the bible. His first career was as a mathematician and in a book on the Pentateuch, he used mathematics to undermine a literal understanding of scripture at a time when geologists were coming to believe that the earth is far older than a literal understanding of Genesis would suggest. In England and elsewhere, people were shocked and appalled that a bishop of the church would reject a literal reading of the bible in this way. But how can such a bishop be disciplined? Bishop Gray of Cape Town organized a South African synod of bishops to depose Bishop Colenso as a heretic and to replace him with another bishop whose see was in another town. But English supporters of Colenso appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (a kind of English Supreme Court -- remember South Africa was a colony and England has no separation of church and state) to undo the removal. While historians differ about whether or not resolving "the Colenso affair" was the chief motive for the first Lambeth gathering, there was also a request for a council from Bp. Hopkins of Vermont and from Canadian bishops. Bishop Gray had also disciplined another priest whose dismissal was overturned by the Privy Council. So the problem colonial bishops had was, are they self-governing churches in self-governing colonies or are they subject to the Church of England? The first Lambeth Conference met against a backdrop of theological disputes in England, calls for synodical government, including lay and clergy involvement in the decisions of the church and at a time when the relationship of colonial churches to the Archbishop of Canterbury and structures of the Church of England was unclear.
In many ways, these issues which swirled around the first Lambeth conference are with us still. If a bishop in one province affronts other bishops, what mechanism exists for keeping that bishop in line or for removing him or her? When one person's contemporary reading of the good news is another persons heresy or even apostasy, who gets to be the arbiter? Each province adapts Anglicanism locally but who gets to decide when a province has gone too far? How can we tell when Christians are agreeing to disagree about inessentials and when they are straining the bonds of affection among the provinces?
You can read the resolutions of the first and subsequent Lambeth Conferences on the archives of the Lambeth Conference, which may be found here.
