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[Back to index of September 2008 articles] Lambeth Conference 2008: Bishops' Discussions Were Wide-Ranging By Jim Naughton
The bishops at the Lambeth Conference didn’t talk exclusively or even primarily about sex. The rest of their conversations just didn’t receive as much attention. Among the topics to which they devoted prayer, study and conversation were: evangelism, ecumenism, interfaith relationships, domestic violence, political advocacy and safeguarding the environment. Their spouses explored complementary themes at a separate conference. Some conference highlights included: * U.S. author and evangelist Brian McLaren’s funny, insightful global overview of the challenges and opportunities for evangelism in pre-modern, modern and post-modern societies (including insights that will be familiar to those who attended his presentation at the diocesan Evangelism Conference in June—now available at www.edow.org) * A moving lecture on what the loss of religious faith means to a secularizing world by Jonathan Sachs, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth. * An unsettling joint session of the two conferences in which men—seated on one side of the aisle under the big blue circus tent that was the conference’s main venue—and women, seated on the other, explored the incidents and effects of domestic violence in their lives by studying the story of the rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13. * Extensive conversations about the many valid methods that members of the Anglican Communion use to plumb the meaning of Scripture. * The screening at a Lambeth Fringe event of a 20-minute video featuring the voices of gay Anglicans in African churches that do not accept them. Eschewing the parliamentary-style legislative sessions of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, the 2008 Lambeth design team built the gathering around eight-member Bible study groups and 40-member indaba groups in which bishops had the opportunity to get to know one another more deeply. (The design team included the Rev. Ian Douglas, a professor at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., who preached at this diocese’s most recent convention.) Aside from conversations about sexual orientation, the event that received the greatest attention was the Walk of Witness, in which 1,500 bishops, their spouses, supporters and guests walked through central London to call attention to the Millennium Development Goals and to urge global leaders to increase their efforts to halve world poverty by 2015. Prime Minister Gordon Brown met the marchers and called the walk “one of the greatest public demonstrations of faith this great city has ever seen.” In addition to the MDGs, the conference solidified Anglican Communion support for aggressive action to slow the pace of global warming. The bishops devoted a full section of their final reflections to the environment. “Safeguarding creation is a spiritual issue,” the document says. “Climate change is posing questions freshly for us about our attitudes toward creation, technology, sustainability for a future and justice for all people. This is a discipleship issue, not something we might possibly do. When others see that we Anglicans take the issue of environment seriously, they may be drawn to work alongside us, and in so doing they may see the Good News of Jesus Christ proclaimed in action.” There were light moments, as well. At the opening Eucharist at Canterbury Cathedral, after the bishops had processed from the church, the English and Asian press were eager to get a photograph of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. But she was deep in conversation with a fellow primate, and wouldn’t turn away no matter how frequently they called her name. Then a sudden breeze swept the other primate’s biretta off of his head and directly toward the photographers. As both bishops bolted, laughing, to retrieve it, shutters clattered away. Links: Brian McLaren’s EDOW presentation Reflections from the Indaba groups at the Lambeth Conference The Tamar Campaign Voices of Witness—Africa [Back to index of September 2008 articles]
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