‘Holding together in diversity’ – Archbishop Justin on the ACC meeting in Lusaka

Apr 30, 2016 by Jill

from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s website:

Having come back from Lusaka on 20 April, after 16 days in Zambia and Zimbabwe, once again the experience of a big Anglican Communion meeting has had an impact on my thinking about the Communion.

As usual, the impact is largely positive. Any time the Communion gets together, especially the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) which has representatives from most Provinces who are bishops, priests and laity, I am more and more struck that we hold together, more or less, despite our diversity, because of the work of God among us. God is at work in the Anglican Communion, and my awareness of that has grown a lot in the last month. There are plenty of problems, I’ll come to those in a moment, but the central news is that if God, by his Spirit, is working among us, that the future is one of hope, of purpose and of blessing in our call to fulfil the mission of God in the world.

The challenges in Lusaka flowed from issues that we have been facing for many years, especially those around human sexuality, and most recently the decision of the Episcopal Church (TEC) to change its canon on marriage in order to accept same-sex marriage in its churches. It should be noted that at the same time they also decided to make provision for those who disagreed, and no diocese could be compelled to accept this change, nor can an individual priest.

Read here