A year on from the Lambeth Conference
by Susie Leafe, Christian Today:
This time, last year the University of Kent’s campus was awash with bishops and their spouses – they gathered round picnic benches to study the Bible and sang as they sat under the trees. The formal proceedings took place in a huge marquee surrounded by a courtyard and a large resources area.
The long-awaited 15th Lambeth Conference had finally arrived. Due to take place in 2018, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, first delayed the conference in the hope that tensions in the Anglican Communion might lessen, and was then forced to postpone the 2020 event due to Covid-19.
Four years late and with only two-thirds of the bishops in attendance, the Archbishop of Canterbury opened the conference. He explained that his prayer for the event was simple: “That everyone here, whoever you are, wherever you have come from, observer, steward, ecumenical guest, bishop, bishop’s spouse – whoever – whatever hopes and fears you may bring with you, that you leave with your heart full of desire for friendship with Jesus Christ.”
In his video marking the first anniversary since the gathering, Welby looked back and remarked that those gathered at the Lambeth Conference had “offered and received hospitality from one another”.
Christians meeting to offer one another hospitality and encourage one another to love the Lord Jesus is a good thing – something that happens every day around the world – but surely one would hope that the legacy of the Lambeth Conference would be greater than that. It is, after all, one of four ‘Instruments of Communion’ that Anglicans have historically relied upon to maintain unity, and it is likely to have cost well over £5m.
Despite a third of the bishops boycotting the event, there were more than 600 bishops present from about 165 countries. So much could have been achieved, but the organisers of the Lambeth Conference could not risk public dissent so there were no resolutions and no votes (some may remember how the ‘non-voting machines’ disappeared very quickly). Instead, in a process reminiscent of the Delphi Method, the agenda was set, and the final words of the ‘Calls’ were chosen by carefully selected ‘drafting groups’.
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