Anglican Mainstream

By George Conger, CEN

Canterbury: The Archbishop of Canterbury has failed as leader of the Anglican Communion and is presiding over its dissolution, the Archbishop of Uganda has charged in a letter published in The Times on Aug 1.

While Archbishop Henry Orombi’s comments have so far been the sharpest words uttered in criticism of Dr. Rowan Williams, in the closing days of the Lambeth Conference a rising tide of voices has begun to speak out against his leadership and his judgment, putting pressure on the Archbishop of Canterbury to lead or stand aside.

While a blow up is not expected on the final day of the July 16 to Aug 3 gathering of bishops in Canterbury, the prospects for a united Anglican Communion appear less likely now than at the start of the conference. “This has so far been a wasted opportunity,” one senior Church of England bishop told ReligiousIntelligence.com, while the Church of Ireland’s Bishop Harold Miller of Down and Dromore said, “our situation is that we either face the storm here, addressing the difficulties in the next two days or find the storm ahead when we have returned home. I don’t think the difficulties will go away.”

The majority of bishops questioned by ReligiousIntelligence.com have lauded Dr Williams’ personal integrity and have awarded him high marks for his retreat lectures. However they have questioned the wisdom of his decision to focus on “process” rather than “substance” at the 14th Lambeth Conference.

“I hoped we would be able to talk about the very serious things” at Lambeth, Bishop Gregory Venables of Argentina said. “We tried to but were unable to.”

Bishop Venables said the “indaba” or small group sessions of bishops had “helped, but there wasn’t enough trust” among the bishops to make it work. The “level of conflict, fear, mistrust, [and] frustration hasn’t allowed it.” Mistrust has also characterized the management of the conference with bishops complaining of poor internal communications, while relations with the press have been strained.

The mood of the conference in its closing hours is grim. No winners have stepped forward as American and Canadian liberals are angered that social justice issues are being subordinated to satisfy Dr Williams’ short-term political goals, while conservatives see the refusal to confront the divisions over doctrine and discipline as a licence to the left from Dr Williams to carry on as before.

There appeared to be no one in charge of the conference, Canadian Archbishop Fred Hiltz said, leaving him concerned his church was not being heard. “The frustration that I have and I think other Canadians have is that I asked point blank in the second session around the Windsor Continuation Group for Canada to be heard in this conference,” he told the Anglican Journal.

”If you’re going to have a hearing, you sit and listen and you allow a church, a province to tell its story,” he said. However, his request to the conference for a fair hearing had been ignored. “Nobody makes a response to it,” he said.

The exclusion of Gene Robinson from the conference continues to rankle some bishops as does the presence of supporters of Gene Robinson on the campus. The Presiding Bishop of the Middle East, Dr Mouneer Anis complained that everywhere he went he was confronted with supporters of the New Hampshire bishops and the “gay agenda”.

The greatest complaint however is that the conference has been designed to prevent any sort of decision. On Aug 3, Archbishop Paul Kwong of Hong Kong said he was disappointed with “beating around the bush.” We are “spending a lot of time listening, but no action,” he said.

Archbishop Kwong valued the discussions taking place at Lambeth saying “let every single voice be heard. But we need action, something concrete.”

Senior Church of England bishops have also voiced concerns over the management and agenda of the conference to ReligiousIntelligence.com. Dr Williams did not consult his senior colleagues in the House of Bishops of the Church of England until three weeks before the opening session of the Conference, with one of the church’s senior bishops “asking what have we accomplished here?”

Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishop of Winchester, said Dr Williams appeared not to be aware of the urgency of action. The Lambeth Conference should “do something rather than live down to the worst expectations of the bishops who stayed away,” he said.

Attempts to buy time appeared to have failed. “We need to negotiate a separation in the Communion sooner rather than later, to leave the strongest possibility of remaining in some kind of fellowship,” Bishop Scott-Joynt said.

The Bishop of Exeter, the Rt Rev Michael Langrish said steps must be taken immediately to preserve the Communion. “A major question is how we move towards that point — the highest degree of fellowship whilst allowing for an orderly separation,” he told the Telegraph.

At the close of the 1998 conference the Anglican Consultative Conference showed a surplus of approximately £1 million. The 2008 conference is almost £2 million in debt, and the American church has stated it will not “bail out” Lambeth, leaving the Church Commissioners to foot the bill.

In his letter to the Times, Archbishop Orombi said Dr Williams’ decision to ignore the counsel of the Windsor Report and Primates Meeting and invite certain American and Canadian bishops to Lambeth had “stunned” the African church and was a “further betrayal.”

While there were accounted to be four instruments of unity in the Anglican Communion: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates Meeting, “but de facto, there is only one – the Archbishop of Canterbury.” These instruments had “utterly failed” the church.

“The peculiar thing is that this one man, who is at the centre of the communion’s structures, is not even elected by his peers,” the Ugandan archbishop said, noting “even the Pope is elected by his peers, but what Anglicans have is a man appointed by a secular government.”

“Over the past five years, we have come to see this as a remnant of British colonialism, and it is not serving us well. The spiritual leadership of a global communion of independent and autonomous provinces should not be reduced to one man appointed by a secular government,” Archbishop Orombi said.

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