Anglican Mainstream

 From Ruth Gledhill:  View from Fleet Street, CEN

When Gafcon (the Global Anglican Future Conference) was first announced, I was utterly dismayed.

Never mind the theology. How on earth were we going to cover it? For religion correspondents the Olympics are coming four years early. Our task is Herculean. The events we must race between, holding high our flaming batons of "truth" and "justice", included Lambeth, General Synod, Methodist Conference, the usual Roman Catholic conferences that happen around this time, alongwith various wars around the globe involving Islam.

Not only did Gafcon land slap bang in the middle of all the Christian ecclesiological war fare, it also landed like some unexploded hand grenade in the middle of one of these very real Islamic conflict zones. Did these people not have children? Were no women involved? Will I ever see my son this summer? That’s why I’ve disappeared off skiing a record three times this spring, to escape into the mountains while I can. I wanted, no needed, some of the mountain-top fresh air that is in such short supply in the under-air conditioned Times office at Wapping, along with some ‘quality time’ with my family before the internecine Anglican wars that dominate my professional life separated me from them for weeks at a time.

So those are the entirely subjective reasons why I was appalled by the sudden appearance of Gafcon on the diary. Obviously, they can be ignored completely. I just wanted to let of f steam a little (the steam cooked up by our soporifically stuffy office.) Looking at it in a more objective fashion arouses a different response. When I interviewed the Archbishop of Nigeria, Dr Peter Akinola, last year we discussed in some depth whether he would be bringing his bishops to Lambeth. He indicated not.

The reason he gave was the failure to invite Martyn Minns, one of Dr Akinola’s bishops, albeit in the US. To the bishops in Nigeria, this failure to recognise the validity of Bishop Minns was an insult to the judgement of the Primate in consecrating him and to the episcopal integrity of the entire house of bishops. He felt exactly the same about it as do the US bishops about the failure to invite Gene Robinson, although that will not of course prevent them from attending Lambeth. And Bishop Gene will be at Lambeth, although not in any official capacity.

It is to Dr Williams’ credit that he did not invite the disgraceful ex-Bishop Kunonga of Zimbabwe. But for an Archbishop whose past writings indicate that he is dedicated to an inclusive, united Church and Gospel, it is incredible to me that he invited neither Bishop Gene nor the conservative bishops whose consecrations are deemed to be"unorthodox" or irregular in some way.

I understand that conversations are taking place now about the possibility of inviting some or all of the conservative bishops, or Bishop Minns at least. That could perhaps also open the door to some kind of official invitation to Bishop Gene, allowing the organisers of Lambeth a little more control over what I understand is going to be a spectacular series of staged events which will delight our news editors and give us even more to write about over the summer.

But to issue the invitations now would, sadly, be pointless. It might have made a difference months ago, but now it is too little, and too late. Gafcon will take place, and it will be a humbling triumph of prayer and fellowship, with between 200 and 300 bishops who still believe in an Anglican future of some kind, and the laity determined to help make that future a reality.

Lambeth will also take place, denuded of so many of the black faces that make the Communion such a joy for Archbishops to travel around when things get too hot at home. The Anglican Communion has for decades, even before it went by the name, been an integral part of a peaceful Commonwealth treasured by our Queen and so many in the country she heads.  At a time when the Christian fellowship offered by the Commonwealth and Communion is needed in our world more than ever, the danger is that Lambeth will display a disintegrating Anglican Church that has lost its effectiveness and has become a symbol of schism. We should all be ashamed of ourselves, and I include myself in that.

I might not be able to go, but somehow, I’ll try and ensure that The Times covers Gafcon. There must be a future for what Anglicanism once represented.

Ruth Gledhill 

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