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One rash action doesn’t deserve another
With Lambeth in view, Robert Jeffery reads books that the bishops should take on board
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| The Anglican Covenant: Unity and diversity in the Anglican Communion Mark Chapman, editor
Mowbray £14.99 (978-0-567-03253-9) reviewed with
The Identity of Anglicanism: Essentials of Anglican ecclesiology Paul Avis
T. & T. Clark £18.99 pbk (978-0-56703-204-1) and
A Fallible Church: Lambeth essays Kenneth Stevenson, editor Darton, Longman & Todd £10.95 (978-0232-52730-8) Church Times Bookshop £9.85 JUST BEFORE the 1988 Lambeth Conference, a wise but perhaps cynical clergyman said to me: “The Lambeth Conference is a teach-in for bishops who have stopped reading books. They come to Lambeth, go to Wipples and get kitted out with the latest episcopal gear, and then go home and retire.” These three books pose the question, what should the bishops read before coming to Lambeth this year? Much that has happened since the ill-fated 1998 Conference at least requires that the bishops learn some history — if they are to decide where they are going, they need to realise where they have come from. All three of these books help in that process. In The Anglican Covenant, Mark Chapman (whose Anglicanism: A short introduction ought to be in every bishop’s pocket) has two essays: one that provides the recent background, and one that takes us back to the Council of Constance (something that Paul Avis does also). Chapman warns that a new covenant might take us too far. This view is echoed in John Barton’s essay on the biblical background to covenant, and in Kenneth Wilson’s essay on the covenant in Methodism. Similar historical material is given by Charlotte Methuen, and draws attention to the Bonn Agreement with the Old Catholics. An excellent essay by William Franklin on the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1886 reminds us that this has been a sound basis for inter-Anglican relations. Father McPartlan (Roman Catholic) draws attention to Anglican-RC and Anglican-Orthodox relations, but draws us too near a concept of primacy. Andrew Goddard, from an Evangelical perspective, commends the idea of a new Anglican covenant. Paul Avis’s book is a collection of previously published essays that have been revised and brought up to date. As ever, he gives us good historical perspectives. The outstanding essay is one on “The Identity of the Anglican Com-munion”, which warns: “One rash action does not deserve another.” The essays in A Fallible Church plead for a better historical perspective, and provide insights into what is actually going on in relations between Anglican provinces. John Gladwin says that the pastoral care of polygamists in Kenya led to a refutation of many Lambeth resolutions. The links between Portsmouth and West Africa reveal a similar growth in mutual understanding. The Bishop of Salisbury describes the moving links between his diocese and the Church of the Sudan, but notes that, faced with the homosexual issue, the Sudan Synod decided to move to more important next business. The Bishop of Liverpool describes how a threefold link with Akure and Virginia has led him to reconsider his own attitude to homosexuality. In Part 2, Norman Doe describes the vast amount of work that has been done in relation to canon law. The Anglican Communion has no legal entity, but, as he shows, the provinces share common ground. Nowhere is there an over-arching procedure for erring bishops or provinces. The part played by the Church in the Rwanda massacres was not a noble one, and was much more serious than its actions in New Hampshire. It is also clear that the role and function of a bishop differ from province to province. Tighter control will make it all more difficult; and Mark Chapman adds to this by calling for more humility in the Churches. An excellent essay by the Bishop of Norwich looks at the history of the Lambeth Conference since 1867. For most of the Conferences, except the one in 1998, a collection of previous Lambeth resolutions was put together to guide the participants. Many of our present problems, he says, lie in the way the 1998 Conference was set up, and the unfounded impression given that resolutions carried authority. There was clearly a considerable cultural insensitivity, and a failure to listen by many. The final essay, by Kenneth Stevenson, urges us to live together in our differences. Impaired communion began at the Last Supper. The unlike-minded need to hang together, not to separate. In the whole process, Anglicans are turning away from the world and in on themselves. These essays keep returning to the need to understand the “provisionality” of all our structures. We cannot be fundamentalist about them, and we do not need to draw on modern management models. There is ongoing reference to “the four instruments of unity” (the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates’ Meeting, the ACC, and the Lambeth Conference). It is as if these instruments are set in stone. People do not seem to realise that the Anglican Consultative Council was set up in 1968 to replace the Lambeth Conference, as being a more representative body. Various alternatives, such as regional gatherings, were discussed at the ACC, and it was not until 1976 that it was decided to hold another. The Primates’ Meeting was set up at the 1978 Conference. It is not self-evident that the Archbishop of Canterbury should be required to chair these meetings. The Lambeth Quadrilateral is a much better instrument of unity — not least because (in Oliver Tomkins’s words) it develops Anglican self-awareness, and fosters visible unity with other Christians. A covenant could be meaningful only in this context. The current debates are turning Anglicanism into a ghetto. The resolutions of Lambeth have never been more than an indication of the mind of the bishops at any one time. Nor is it clear, if the Conference is to continue, that it should be in England: this puts the host nation at an excessive advantage. It is worth noting that the main themes of the first Lambeth Conference, concerning Bishop Colenso of Natal, were sex (polygamy), indigenisation, and hermeneutics. None of these matters was resolved. They have still not been. The Anglican Communion is a fallible and human institution, and so it should be. It is through its very frailty, its living with and not resolving ethical problems, and its being a broken people that it can commend to the world an incarnate God. We do not have all the answers and we never will; nor do we want any group bidding for power. To create a legal framework would be a great mistake, and would trap us in a cultural time-zone. The Very Revd Robert Jeffery is Dean Emeritus of Worcester.To order these books, email the details to Church Times Bookshop |
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