The End of (the) Communion? (i) What has been said?
by Andrew Goddard, Psephizo:
On Tuesday at the Lambeth Conference there were a number of significant developments in relation to the questions of sexuality and ecclesiology. The Global South, headed by Archbishop Justin Badi of South Sudan, issued a resolution in relation to Lambeth I.10 with a covering explanatory letter. Archbishop Justin Welby also issued a letter to the bishops and then spoke, providing more details, at the beginning of the session on the controversial Call on Human Dignity. His speech clearly had a major impact on the gathering which gave him a standing ovation. From within the Church of England Bishop Jill Duff wrote that “As he spoke, it felt like there was a heaviness of the presence of the Spirit of God in the room” and Bishop Sophie Jelley tweeted,
From Canada, Bishop Jenny Andison, a conservative bishop, was reported as saying, “He shared the pain and the agony on both sides of the issue, all across the Communion. He helped us see each other. People experienced being felt and heard by our chief pastor of the Anglican Communion, and I think that was a gift.”
There is, however, a degree of confusion about what exactly has been said, what it means, and what its implications are for the Communion and then for the Living in Love and Faith process in the Church of England. A significant number of people read it as marking a major shift in the Communion’s previous position into a more “inclusive” stance effectively authorising a range of views. Presiding Bishop of the American church, Bishop Michael Curry, gave voice to this in a video where he highlighted the Call they were discussing and summarised its content in these words:
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