In March it was announced that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and global restrictions on travel and mass gatherings, the Lambeth Conference of 2020 would need to be rescheduled to the British summer of 2021.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has now taken the important decision to reschedule the Lambeth Conference by a further year to the British summer of 2022. The conference will meet in 2022 in Canterbury. In the above filmed message to the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop has also announced that a wider programme will be developed before and after the event delivered virtually and through other meetings.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Archbishop of Canterbury and conference planning teams have been monitoring the situation, following relevant advice from public and global health authorities as it becomes available. They have also undertaken ongoing consultation with Primates, bishops and spouses – about the impact of COVID-19 in their countries.
As with most large scale events and conferences of this nature – planning for events in such an unstable climate is difficult. As an international gathering (the Lambeth Conference invites bishops and spouses from over 165 countries) there are a significant number of uncertainties that make preparations for a 2021 meeting challenging.
Whilst some lock down measures are starting to ease in some countries, social distancing measures, travel restrictions and quarantine measures could impede logistics and delegates’ travel planning for the foreseeable future. There are also the risks of a potential second wave of the virus and the reality that there are different phases in how the pandemic is spreading around the world – with no vaccine yet available.
Prioritising the health and safety of our event attendees
The safety and health of conference delegates is of utmost priority to the Lambeth Conference Company. In addition, Bishops and spouses attending the conference have an important leadership role in their dioceses. As well as providing pastoral support to their churches and congregations, many are also involved in coordinating volunteering and bolstering support services, as churches of the Anglican Communion play their part in responding to the COVID-19 crisis around the world.
In consideration of all these factors –the decision has been taken to postpone until the British summer of 2022. Whilst the challenges of the pandemic will be ongoing for many years to come, it is hoped that by holding the event in 2022, restrictions on large events and travel may have eased making conditions more favourable for this important gathering to occur.
Between now and the conference, the Lambeth Conference organising teams will work to consult with the bishops and spouses of the Anglian Communion to ensure that the experiences of COVID-19 in their countries – and wider issues of church and global concern – are built in to scoping the priorities and outcomes of the conference programme.
Alongside this, the conference team will be sharing different resources with bishops and spouses, to help them with their thinking and preparations for the event. These may include Bible resources, group discussion tools and special papers on matters relevant to the Anglican Communion. These will be available through a new Lambeth Conference App and online resource hub on the conference web site launching in the months ahead.
The more important issue is, why should faithful Anglicans permit their bishops to attend a gathering where the Archbishop of Canterbury encourages open heresy and apostasy?
Bishops from TEC and ACoC should be excluded from the Lambeth Conference, until they repent. If the ABC fails to show leadership in this, why should bishops from other provinces come to his conference?
That’s a perfectly reasonable point. However, as has been said on Anglican Unscripted, if Global South (and all like-minded) bishops turned up in full force and used their numbers to require the conference to accept a return to orthodoxy, a great deal of good would ensue.
In that sense it could be said that there is a responsibility on the majority orthodox part of the Anglican Communion finally to get its act together and save the Communion from either a wretched long term stalemate or a final and damaging split.
You might look at it this way: we Western Christians took the gospel to the global south areas; they’d be offering us a gracious return gift by helping to save us from the folly of our own backsliding. If it’s that they don’t want to face the inevitable nastiness involved, it could be said that our early missionaries were by no means received with universal joy. But they still went!
The problem with this idea is the structure of the Lambeth Conference and how many will be invited and have votes. Even if it were restricted to only diocesan bishops, not assisting bishops, in the Western churches the ratio of bishops to congregants is much larger, so the numbers of believing bishops might not be enough to turn the tide.
I’m not sure if the numbers are as evenly split as that. In any case, if they want to restore the Anglican Communion to faithfulness, they have no choice but to fight for it even if the numbers are tight. They need to organise themselves properly; then go to the conference and force Welby to choose – there and then – which way he intends to jump. He’s had his own way for far too long. Sometimes there’s no avoiding a public showdown, particularly if you’re dealing with someone you can’t trust.
It’s all about getting yourselves organised and sorting out what you are going to do before the event. Once there it’s all about remaining united and sticking to what you have decided to do. Welby is not the problem: he only gets away with his trickery because people let him do it. It’s lack of resolve on the part of the global south and like-minded bishops which is the problem.
We need TJ McMahon here to give us the numbers. My impression is that the numbers are not “tight.” The conference is designed to swamp conservative voices, even if they all stick together.
Katherine, Thank you for the trust in my numbers. Although for the moment, I can’t find the specifics. (I recall spending some adding up bishops for a comment last year, but did not come up in a search for Lambeth conference). Not sure how much those numbers will mean in the current situation with virus disruptions, and the CoE going ahead with their Living in Love and Faith project pre- rather than post Lambeth. I suspect the outcome of that will have more impact on Lambeth attendance than anything else. If it allows gay marriage and gay bishops, a much larger contingent of the GS will stay away. If the LLF prohibits gay marriage, the CoE will be in a state of revolt and the conference will likely be cancelled altogether. If it produces the usual Welby-esque complete muddle (orthodox phrasing and prayer book references but allowing all manner of heresies under the guise of “mutual flourishing”) then would not surprise me if both Gafcon and TEC (and Canada and Brazil, etc) stay home.
The conference is in some ways specifically designed to violate the canons of the Churches in Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda- and to assure they will not attend. But even if they did, with CoE and TEC sending a total of over 500 bishops and spouses, and with Trinity Wall Street picking up the full tab of EVERY revisionist bishop (with spouse) living outside of wealthy provinces, it is likely that even if all the bishops of Gafcon were to attend, their numbers would be insufficient to make headway- at best a slight majority. With no votes, and all decisions being made in advance by the facilitator teams the outcome is not in doubt.
At this point, though, it is difficult to say how many diocesans or suffragans TEC will be able to muster. Of those, how many will be willing to breathe airplane air, and stay in less than spacious quarters in university housing? In the age of Covid-19, how many TEC or CoE parishes (or dioceses) with an average age of 65 will be going concerns by 2022? Will there still be a diocese of Northern Michigan (ASA under 500 pre-virus)? How many dioceses will merge or adopt the “two diocese- one bishop” approach?
At any rate, my hope would be that unless Welby puts forward an orthodox agenda, with voting, diocesans only (no spouses and suffragans or facilitators having votes), there is no point in attending anyway. As advertised, Lambeth is the functional equivalent of a 5 CEU course in gender studies from a local community college.
Don,
I say the following with all respect due to a brother in Christ, but I am sure that my frustration comes through loud and clear. This is the umpteenth time we’ve been down this road, and I do not see any reason to think the outcome will be different this time.
The issue is NOT with the Global South. They have been quite clear and consistent. The decision was reached in 1998. The ABoC and his minions failed to carry it out. It was reached again in 2003. The ABoC and his minions failed to carry it out. It was reached again in 2007. The ABoC and his minions failed to carry it out. It was reached again in 2016. The ABoC and his minions failed to carry it out (beyond removing somebody from some commission that doesn’t actually do anything). According to all those decisions, TEC is not invited to Lambeth, and it should be reduced to “observer” status, if not completely removed, from all Anglican governance. But TEC pays all the bills, and the ABoC is all on board with the Living in Love and Faith farce, and the racist “ruling class” mentality of Communion allows the provinces with a white majority to ignore any decision where the majority in favor is African or Asian.
So WHY ON EARTH should the Global South expect the ABoC to carry through on any decision they might take in 2022? Not that there will be any decisions. The next Lambeth conference, whenever it happens, is specifically designed to reach no decision other than that gay marriage, and anything else to do with sex and marriage, is a “second order” issue. No plenary sessions. No excommunications. No throwing out this or that group of bishops. TEC is paying ALL the bills. Welby can’t throw them out, because he cannot pay for the conference if they are not there. At this point, I am confident in predicting that ALL the gay spouses will be there- the University of Kent won’t let him use the campus otherwise.
Frankly, at this point, after 15 year, I am tired of arguing these same points over and over.
The Global South cannot charge in to England or the USA to save the supposed orthodox in TEC or CoE. They need to save themselves. Take over TEC or CoE, if you can- and restore them to orthodoxy. If not (and I don’t see it as practical in either case), it means giving up that nice building, and that parish where your grandparents attended or the one you were married in, and forming an ACNA or AMiE or a Continuing Anglo Catholic parish. Just DO IT. Stop waiting. Judging from my own experience, you will lose some friends, people will call you a “homophobe” and worse, and your job may be in the balance. But if you leave for a GS or Gafcon recognized orthodox group, you can remain Anglican under orthodox leadership. I have no other advice.
Right on the money, Tj
” if they want to restore the Anglican Communion to faithfulness, they have no choice but to fight for it even if the numbers are tight.”
They are fighting for it. That is what the boycott is all about.
“They need to organise themselves properly; then go to the conference and force Welby to choose – there and then – which way he intends to jump”
Really, and how will they do that? Anything they do at a conference, Welby will agree to and then turn against them. Just as ++Carey and ++Williams did after Lambeth 1998. This would just play into the ABC’s hands.
TEC and ACoC were already sanctioned by the orthodox. The sanctions were ignored by Welby and the rest of the Canterbury crowd within weeks. The orthodox aren’t allowed to set the agenda. At one of the primate meetings, one whole day was devoted to bringing the new primates up to date on the issues.
As I’ve replied to Katherine below, he only gets away with it because people don’t call him to account. He needs to realise that he’ll be the archbishop who presided over the breakup of the communion. At the moment he doesn’t think that’s going to happen. Therein lies the problem.
The only way to signal to him (and others) that the Communion will break up is to boycott the main meetings.
Attending those meetings sends the opposite message.
“turned up in full force and used their numbers to require the conference to accept a return to orthodoxy,”
They already did that in 1998, remember? The Archbishops of Canterbury then worked to nullify any practical good coming out of it.
The ABC would just use the presence of the Global South to say that the whole Anglican world is behind whatever he does in between Lambeth Conferences.
The boycott is far better, in my opinion – it reminds everyone in the Anglican world that there is a huge split in the Communion.
No loss.
I am curious to see what impact this will have on the issue of whether to invite the spouses and civil partners of bishops from TEC, ACoC, CofE (one is publicly domestically partnered and three are confirmed in civil partnerships but are not publicly out according to The Church Times), and CinW. Will Archbishop Welby invite them in 2022 or will only the bishops be invited as he originally intended? Time will tell.
Is it too early to know if single use water bottles will be allowed?
Planning to corner the market on Perrier before the conference?