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A Wisdom for Anglican Life: Lambeth 1998 to Lambeth 2008 and Beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

David F. Ford
David F. Ford
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Abstract

This keynote paper was delivered at the Society for the Study of Anglicanism which gathered at the AAR Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in November 2005. On the basis of many years of observation and participation in the life of the Anglican Communion, I attempt to offer in this article a ‘Wisdom for Anglican Life’ — a wisdom which takes seriously the unity and koinonia of the Church as rooted in the cross of Jesus Christ and the love of God. Such wisdom is rooted in the faithful worship of the Church but also engages seriously with the struggles of the world. It counsels gentleness, kindness, forgiveness and above all patience in matters of dispute, and embraces the thoughtful but rigorous communal study of Scripture. This article ultimately suggests that a pressing task facing the Communion today is to learn afresh how to be Anglican Christians in the twenty-first century.

Keywords

Anglican CommunionkoinonialoveScriptureunitywisdom
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , December 2006 , pp. 137 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) and The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2006

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References

1. During this period the main events at which I was present were: the Lambeth Conference 1998 (as part of the group that produced the opening and closing Plenary Sessions of the Conference and in between them tracked the Conference by observing its main Sections and being present at the lunchtime meetings of the group steering the Conference); the Primates' Meetings in Porto (2000), in Kanuga (2001), and in Canterbury (2002) (as leader of the daily Bible Studies and member of the drafting group for the communiqués/pastoral letters issued by the meetings); and the Primates'Meeting in Gramado, Brazil Meeting in Gramado, Brazil (2003) (as one of the theological respondents to the meeting and member of the drafting group for the pastoral letter issued by it).

2. The Lambeth Commission on Communion, The Windsor Report 2004 (London: Anglican Communion Office, 2004), pp. 75–76Google Scholar, emphasis added.

3. What follows about Porto and Kanuga is largely taken from a submission made by the author to the Lambeth Commission on Communion that produced the Windsor Report.

4. For a discussion of the importance of kindness in relation to current difficulties in the Anglican Communion see Sykes, Stephen, ‘The Basis of Anglican Fellowship: Some Challenges for Today’, Journal of Anglican Studies 1.2 (2003), pp. 10–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Referring to Eph. 4.31–32 he writes that ‘The Church, at its heart, has a divinely bestowed mission of embodying kindness’ (p. 15).Google Scholar

5. Douglas, Ian T. and Zahl, Paul F.M., in Understanding the Windsor Report: Two Leaders in the American Church Speak across the Divide (New York: Church Publishing, 2005)Google Scholar, conclude their dialogue from different sides of the debate about the Windsor Report in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA) by agreeing that ‘a little tenderness’ is vital for the healing of the Anglican Communion (Zahl, , p. 120Google Scholar; Douglas, , p. 121).Google Scholar

6. The acute nature of what one might call ‘moral suffering’ — seeing what one discerns to be the morality required by God being flouted in the Church — needs to be recognized.

7. Pickard, Stephen, ‘Innovation and Undecidability: Some Implications for the Koinonia of the Anglican Church’, Journal of Anglican Studies 2.2 (2004), pp. 87–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Pickard, , ‘Innovation and Undecidability’, p. 102.Google Scholar

9. Looking through church history one might name, for example, conditions for Gentile admission to the Church, the date of Easter, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the importance of bishops, double predestination, slavery, marriage, polygamy, divorce, or the ordination of women.

10. Pickard, , ‘Innovation and Undecidability’, p. 103.Google Scholar

11. Pickard, , ‘Innovation and Undecidability’, p. 101.Google Scholar

12. Pickard, , ‘Innovation and Undecidability’, p. 103.Google Scholar

13. Pickard, , ‘Innovation and Undecidability’, p. 104.Google Scholar

14. The Primates of the Anglican Communion, ‘A Pastoral Letter and Call to Prayer’, dated 8 03, 2001Google Scholar, from the meeting of the primates in Kanuga, North Carolina. This can be found online at http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/acnsarchive/acns2400/acns2410.html

15. Williams, Rowan, ‘Archbishop of Canterbury's Presidential Address at ACC-13’, 20 06 2005.Google Scholar This can be found online at http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/39/75/acns3991.cfm

16. Williams, , ‘Presidential Address’, Section II.Google Scholar

17. Williams, , ‘Presidential Address’, Section II:Google Scholar ‘And where there is a strong scriptural presumption against change, a long consensus of teaching in Christian history, and a widespread ecumenical agreement, it may well be thought that change would need an exceptionally strong critical mass to justify it. That, I think, is where the Communion as a whole stands. That is why actions by some provinces have caused outrage and hurt. To invite, as does the Windsor document, those provinces to reconsider is not to say that there are no issues to be resolved, no prejudice to be repented of (because there unquestionably is much of this); it is not to reject the idea of an “inclusive” Church or to canonise an unintelligent reading of the Bible. It is to say that actions taken in sensitive matters against the mind of the Church cannot go unchallenged while the Church's overall discernment is as it is without injuring the delicate fabric of relations within the Church and so compromising its character.’

18. Williams, , ‘Presidential Address’, Section III.Google Scholar

19. Williams, , ‘Presidential Address’, Section III.Google Scholar

20. Williams, , ‘Presidential Address’, Section III.Google Scholar

21. Williams, , ‘Presidential Address’, Section IIIGoogle Scholar, quoted above.

22. What follows has considerable overlap with my submission to the Commission that produced the Windsor Report and with sections of an address first delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary, published as ‘Reading Scripture with Intensity: Academic, Ecclesial, Interfaith, and Divine’, The Princeton Seminary Bulletin XXVI.I (NS) (2005), pp. 22–35.Google Scholar

23. For some sharp criticisms of the Report for its alleged tendency towards centralization, hierarchy and ‘prelacy’ see Douglas, and Zahl, , Understanding the Windsor ReportGoogle Scholar, especially ch. 3. Douglas and Zahl, for all their differences on other matters, agree on this; they also show some awareness that it might be as much an expression of their particular American form of democratic culture as of what would be shared in all provinces.

24. Douglas, and Zahl, , Understanding the Windsor Report, pp. 94–95.Google Scholar

25. This group, made up of over fifty bishops, ranging from Bishop Jack Spong to conservative Nigerians, spent over two weeks considering human sexuality. They began extremely polarized but ended by agreeing a common statement that was no empty compromise. As observed by Dr Tim Jenkins, a social anthropologist, the ingredients in this achievement included shared worship, small group Bible study, thorough preparation by resource people, a commitment to respectful conversation, a really able secretariat of three bishops (who produced a draft proposal each day, circulated it, registered and coped with criticisms and disagreements, and redrafted it overnight), all enabling a process of coming to a common mind. This process was one in which no one was expected to give up a convinced position (especially on the way Scripture was to be understood) and so bishops had to allow a certain discretion and integrity to each other, while at the same time they took into account and took responsibility for the effects of their own position on other participants and dioceses, offering to each other an imaginative understanding and compassion.

26. The Lambeth Commission on Communion that produced the Windsor Report seems to have had a similar experience of very diverse members coming through an intensive, patient process of deliberation in the setting of shared life and worship so as to be able to agree unanimously on a substantial document.

27. For more information, see www.episcopalfoundation.org, and also the Global Anglicanism Project publication, The Vitality and Promise of Being Anglican (New York: Episcopal Church Foundation, 2005).Google Scholar

28. This description draws on my address ‘Reading Scripture with Intensity’.

29. Part of sensitivity to history is exploring why a particular issue regarding Scripture has become so ‘hot’ at a particular time. What are the conditions for it becoming the focus of attention? In whose interest is it that this be at the centre of attention? Should this centrality be affirmed or challenged? If its importance is granted, is it so important as to be church-dividing? One example worth reflecting upon is that of predestination to salvation and damnation. This has been deeply divisive, especially among Protestants, and has split Churches, local communities and families. There is a great deal of Scripture relevant to it and no single interpretation has been generally agreed. Why at some periods has it been ‘hot’ enough to divide the Church whereas at others, without being resolved, it has not been central? Are there lessons to be learnt from the ways in which this issue has at times been taken off the boil and enabled not to be church-dividing even while also not having been given a clear, decisive answer?

30. If indeed that is the right pattern to follow again–the division of Lambeth 1998 into four sections with subsections was a mixed success.

31. I am grateful to Roger Herft, Archbishop of Perth, for a long letter making a strong case for this focus and outlining some of the possibilities.

32. He had attended as Archbishop of Wales since Porto in 2000, and had been on the drafting group of the Porto communiqué quoted in the Windsor Report.

33. L'Arche is a federation of about 130 residential communities around the world. The basic pattern is that of a household in which people with learning disabilities live together with assistants, some of whom are there for a year or two while others are committed in a long-term covenant relationship with L'Arche. It began in 1964 when Jean Vanier, helped by a Dominican priest, Père Thomas Philippe, invited Raphael Simi and Philippe Seux to leave the large institution in which they were living and make a home with him in a village near Compiègne.

34. Vanier, Jean, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2004).Google Scholar

35. Vanier, , Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus, pp. 297–300.Google Scholar