The prospect of an international conference of Anglican bishops and other leaders, the Global Anglican Future Conference, immediately prior to the Lambeth Conference is disturbing simply because whatever rhetoric dresses up that conference, it is a counter-conference to the Lambeth Conference. It is a one-dimensional conference designed to bolster the conservative voice within the Anglican Communion.
GAFCON is being organized because its proponents are dissatisfied with the breadth of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitation list to Lambeth. It is therefore a theologically political conference. It will cause embarrassment whether intended or not to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the rest of the Anglican Communion.
Dr. Peter Jensen, the Archbishop of Sydney, is one of the conservative leaders who are promoting this conference. It needs to be understood that Dr. Jensen is an organizer of this conference in his own personal capacity or possibly in his capacity as the Bishop of the Diocese of Sydney. It must be seen that Dr. Jensen has no authorization to do this as the Metropolitan of the Anglican Province of New South Wales. I am not suggesting that Dr. Jensen would act in this way as the Metropolitan of New South Wales but public perception might not be discriminating in this regard.
As the Bishop of Newcastle I wish to dissociate myself from any movement such as GAFCON that might damage or lessen the moral authority of the 2008 Lambeth Conference.
The first Lambeth Conference in 1867 was called to consult on a matter of then great controversy. As then so now, it is imperative that Communion-wide respectful conversation mark those who hold seriously differing theological views. Part of the genius of Anglicanism has been to contain differing perspectives within the fellowship of the one church. Unlike contemporary churches whose abilities to contain differences are very fragile, Anglicanism has been marked by respectful thoughtful theological exploration and a recognition that on many vital issues there is no one definitive viewpoint.
Anglicanism has long welcomed scholarship that has deepened awareness of the Holy Scriptures and offered a dialogue with other disciplines within human inquiry. Anglicanism tends not to be dogmatic but open to exploration and critical analysis. Thus successive Lambeth Conferences have passed resolutions that have affirmed this Anglican regard for and preference for serious intellectual inquiry and robust critique of beliefs.
For instance as long ago as 1958 the Lambeth Conference resolved:
Resolution 4
The Bible
The Conference gratefully acknowledges our debt to the host of devoted scholars who, worshipping the God of Truth, have enriched and deepened our understanding of the Bible, not least by facing with intellectual integrity the questions raised by modern knowledge and modern criticism. It also acknowledges the Church's debt to the men and women in our universities, colleges, and schools who by their teaching and example inspire new generations to love the Scriptures.
And the 1968 Lambeth Conference resolved:
Resolution 3
Faith in the Living God
The Conference recommends that theologians be encouraged to continue to explore fresh ways of understanding God's revelation of himself in Christ, expressed in language that makes sense in our time. It believes that this requires of the theologian respect for tradition and, of the Church, respect for freedom of inquiry.
Successive Lambeth Conferences have consistently welcomed inter-disciplinary scholarship in both exploring the Holy Scriptures and in reflecting upon contentious contemporary issues, especially that of human sexuality.
The proponents of the Global South nexus seem to be moving away from mainstream Anglicanism into both forensic theology and ecclesiology. By forensic I mean theology and a doctrine of the church that are nuanced towards precision bordering on legalism. The narrow template of Biblicism (believing that the text is self-interpreting) is applied relentlessly to a contentious moral issue by the Global South alliance.
The key New Testament understanding of unconditional acceptance so evident in the encounters with Jesus in the gospels seems to be missing from the Global South’s position. Grace is to characterize the faithful Christian.
However, if sections of the Anglican Communion bunker down with self-declared orthodoxy and refuse to meet with those of a differing view-point, what has become of the heart of the Gospel – God’s gracious unconditional gift of communion?
The classic Anglican approach has welcomed rigorous historical and critical inquiry as a method for searching for truth and for mining what is profound in Holy Scripture. Indeed, without the analytic critical perspective provided by historical-critical studies and by the social sciences the rich texture of biblical knowledge currently available to the Church would not have become available.
As with all intellectual pursuit debate with opponents, even theoretical opponents, has been the accepted method of searching for the truth. Such debate occurs within the New Testament.
Debate, conversation, hospitality, seeking consensus are all marks of the biblical method for the resolution of issues. Such debate is with those who do not agree with us as much as with those who do.
In Australia we have just emerged from the frustration and debilitation of wedge politics. The recent Federal election shifted Australian political life right out of that divisive mentality into a hopeful new sense of vision and cohesion.
This is not the time in Australia or indeed in the volatile world for sectors of the Anglican Communion to be engaging in wedge theology and wedge ecclesiology. It seems as if the Western leaders of the Global South alignment who ought to be better schooled historically are out of step with the times in adopting the strategy of division and exclusion. Australian politics has risen above this corrosive strategy.
The Church is bidden to be both salt and light. Yet if Anglicans cannot solve their problems around a table with all involved in the resolution, what can the Church say to the nations of the world, especially to those nations in Africa in turmoil?
The pursuit of the homosexual agenda by the Global South alignment tends to ignore the secondary requirements of the 1998 Lambeth Conference 1.10 resolution of listening respectfully and carefully to Gay and Lesbian Christians. This disregard is itself evidence of an insensitive forensic approach to theology and Biblical studies that discounts the compassion that so motivated Jesus in his ministry and teaching.
Catholic Anglicans in Australia – those who seek to research and theologize by the parameters of classic Anglicanism - are dismayed by the rigidity of the Global South’s methodology and by its constant return to the issue of homosexuality. However, the issue of the interpretation of Holy Scripture is a substantial issue that does require respectful and thoughtful dialogue given that Anglicanism historically has embraced a spectrum of interpretations of the Bible.
Of further concern is the lack of consultation by the leaders of the Global South with the Bishop in Jerusalem despite the fact that the proposed Global Anglican Future Conference is to be held in his Diocese. This imperious decision of location may be indicative of the impositional mind-set of the Global South leaders, a departure from the courtesies of classic Anglicanism.
In the end theology is not a matter for a police-state approach – the tortuous history of the Mediaeval Church reminds us too graphically that this is surely not the case. Rather, theology is a conversation not so much with perceived adversaries as with others who with integrity seek the truth as it is found in Jesus. The fact that there may be differences of insight is congruent with the four gospels themselves.
Anglicanism is a relational communion. This is still a stand-out approach in a world that increasingly seeks solutions by coercion. We have something very precious and life-giving to model to the world by our communion being nourished by ‘bonds of affection’.
Once again the Archbishop of Canterbury has offered wisdom to the entire Anglican Communion by indicating that to refuse his invitation to the Lambeth Conference is a failure to accept death and resurrection, the very foundation and continuing principle of Christian experience.
We all need the grace to behave with the recognition that on this side of Heaven none of us are totally theologically squeaky clean!
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