Post-truth: Post-Lambeth
by Lee Gatiss, English Churchman:
An address given to the Church Society annual general meeting offered at the Junior Anglican Evangelical Conference. For more information visit: www.churchsociety.org
Over the summer, I have been finishing off two books for publication. In Living in Mercy and Grace, I am one of a number of contributors looking at “life and ministry in hard times.” My contribution is to look at Titus chapter 3, and what it says about how to handle division in the church as good Christians. In the other book — a new expanded edition of my practical biblical theology of how to handle heresy, called Fight Valiantly: Contending for the Faith against False Teaching in the Church — I have been adding further reflections on church discipline, racism, spiritual abuse, and other matters which have become even more urgent since it was first published.
As I was working on finishing these books off for publication, the news was vying for my attention, because it showed how relevant these subjects are.
In August 2022, Archbishop Justin Welby told the assembled bishops of the Anglican Communion at the Lambeth Conference that, “I neither have, nor do I seek, the authority to discipline or exclude a church of the Anglican Communion. I will not do so. I may comment in public on occasions, but that is all.”
I was astonished by this. Because it is simply not true. What he was saying was that he was unwilling to use the power and authority he has, to discipline certain people (the more liberal Provinces of the Communion in this case). For example, he has power to say with whom he is or is not in communion (a significant matter in Anglican polity). He has power over invitations to the Lambeth conference itself, and other such gatherings. He did indeed exercise that power: he did not invite every bishop around the world who self-identifies as Anglican, but only recognised and invited some of them, in certain Provinces, and not others. “Commenting” or even preaching in public at such significant gatherings, as Archbishop of Canterbury (in a big mitre and all that archiepiscopal regalia!),
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
