The bishops of the US diocese of Bethlehem and the Sudanese diocese of Kajo-Keji have issued a statement reiterating their intention to continue working together in mission and evangelism in spite of concerns raised as a result of the Archbishop of Sudan’s statement at Lambeth criticizing the Episcopal Church in the US.
The Washington Window’s coverage of the Lambeth Conference is now online. The main story begins: “The bishops of the Lambeth Conference walked a novel route to a familiar destination.” While the sidebar commences: “The bishops at the Lambeth Conference didn’t talk exclusively or even primarily about sex. The rest of their conversations just didn’t receive as much attention.”
“The evangelical side of Anglicanism is leading us more and more toward a form of Christianity which is simply another variant of fundamentalist Islam. This is most evident in the insistence on treating the scriptures as the centre of faith rather than the living Lord Jesus Christ …. and on the inability to articulate Christian moral positions that may be distinctly different from the taboos of Islamic and animist culture.
Bishop Iker of Fort Worth would like the members of convention to pray and study before they vote to take the diocese out of the Episcopal Church. He wants the diocese to use materials developed by the founding CANA congregations which make the case for separation in the guise of Bible study and reflection.
Remaining in a familiar building or continuing a cherished worship style does not feel risky even though there may be good reason to believe that doing so may limit our potential to attract new members. Moving to a new location or changing our worship style, by contrast, feels extremely risky because it involves the immediate loss of something we have now.
What holds Anglicans together, I learned in confirmation class, is not set doctrine but common worship, though of course we are always in conversation about doctrine and tradition. That has been what I’ve understood about being Anglican, and that’s been my experience at worship. So some of what’s coming out of Lambeth about being “more like a church” seems so befuddling.
Christ, no one on earth really wants the pain and horror of war.
We do not want to kill or be killed, to hurt or be hurt.
But we all see injustice,
and sometimes it makes us angry
and we see no other way to right the wrong
except by war.