For the Cafe's analysis of the St. Andrew's Draft of the proposed Anglican covenant, see these articles by Tobias Haller, Marshall Scott, Nicholas Knisely (2), Sally Johnson and Mark Harris--all of whom are members of the Episcopal Church's House of Deputies. The Episcopal Church has also published a study guide.
Jim Mathes, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, had a meeting over breakfast with Bishop Gregory Venables, Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone. After an apology was offered on the part of Bishop Venables, both bishops have committed themselves to trying to find a way to resolve the tensions over "incursions" in the Diocese of San Diego.
First draft of the Lambeth reflection on the bishop and human sexuality:
THE CONTEXT OF OUR TALKS
We met in a spirit of generosity and prayerful humility which enabled us to listen patiently to each other. Apologies have been expressed in the Indaba groups by some of the Episcopal church who had no idea that their action in the consecration of the present Bishop of New Hampshire had caused such a negative impact in many parts of the Communion. Although there has been a great appreciation of one to one conversation, there is the need to develop further the trust in the relationships that have started here.
By Jim Naughton
Press briefers at the Lambeth Conference continue to speak encouraging words to Left Wing Inclusion Mongers--trademark pending--even as a disappointing draft of the bishops' reports on human sexuality emerged from the indaba groups.
Canon Gregory Cameron, of the Anglican Communion Office, secretary of the Covenant Design Group, discussed progress toward a covenant at this morning’s news conference, and was at pains to emphasize that the St. Andrew’s Draft of the covenant is open to revision.
By Jim Naughton
Mouneer Anis, presiding bishop of Jerusalem the Middle East, has just given the most extraordinary interview here at the Lambeth Conference. If you want to know why homosexuality is a difficult issue within the Anglican Communion, and why the media culture here is so debased, this interview and the ruckus around it are helpful.
Yesterday was the first really uncomfortable day in the Indaba groups for the bishops as their conversations turned to matters of human sexuality and the proper response of the Church to gay and lesbian Christians. Most the reports are that the discussions were frank and honest and mostly loving.
By Jim Naughton
Expect a flood of journalistic activity today a little after 5 p. m. Canterbury time. (That’s noon on the East coast of the US.) That’s when the bishops will release the most recent draft of their reflections, and when they will begin a previously unscheduled hearing, which will be their last real opportunity to influence the reflections that will be released near the end of the conference tomorrow.
By Jim Naughton
A touching, revealing moment at the press conference just now. The bishops have been talking for several days now about sacrifice. “What are you willing to sacrifice” to keep the communion together?” The clear implication is that Western churches must sacrifice their desire to include gay Christians more fully in the Church.
Archbishop Fred Hiltz of Canada has put his finger on the principal disconnect at the Lambeth Conference, the highly relational indaba groups, and the more political hearings held to influence the work of the Windsor Continuation Group and the Covenant Design Group Marites N. Sison of Anglican Journal writes:
Update with reactions
The penultimate draft of the Reflections paper from the Lambeth Conference is now available on the conference web site. Section K on the Windsor Process is likely to have the immediate impact in setting an agenda for our Church. The Windsor section and the Sexuality sections of the report are published below. To see the Covenant section, read below.
The Roanoke Times points out that even pastors sometimes have to just get away. They interviewed about two dozen local clergy members from various denominations and came away reporting just how difficult it is for many of them to take that time off. The Rev. Barkley Thompson of St. John's Episcopal in Roanoke, Va., was one of those priests—trying to get out the door for his vacation even as he was being interviewed, Book of Common Prayer in hand as his family loaded up for the trip.
Andrea Useem writes on Health.com's Poked and Prodded blog about the condition known as runner's high, and her own experience with it during her first marathon. The exultation she felt reminded her more of a religious experience than of any chemical rush, she says, and it piqued her interest enough to drill down into the phenomenon a bit more, interviewing Andrew Newberg, MD, a researcher who has explored brain imagery and how it changes during meditative experiences. Useem points us to a Pew event transcript in which Newberg and others talk about this phenomenon, and goes on to tie it back to her marathon experience:
Today, much talking about the talk, so to speak: How language challenges us. How we hear things, how we say things, and how to truly listen--and speak--when there's so much noise. The Bishops are coming to the end of indabas and bible study with colleagues from around the world, and are feeling pangs of sadness at it being time to go, wonder at what has been accomplished (even if it hasn't seemed like much to those outside).
By Jim Naughton
The last morning of the Lambeth Conference was marked by low clouds, occasional rain and a subdued atmosphere on the University of Kent campus. We are to receive the final draft of the reflections on the indaba process at 2:30 p .m (9:30 a. m. , EDT) and a copy of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s third and final presidential address at 3:30. A press conference with the archbishop is scheduled to begin at 4:30, and the closing Eucharist at 6. I will be writing, rather than attending the Eucharist.
The Reflections Document from the 2008 Lambeth Conference is now online.
Here is the section on the Windsor Report and the three moratoria. I have boldfaced a problematic and I think erroneous addition since yesterday's draft in paragraph 145, and what I consider helpful phrasing in paragraph 146:
By Jim Naughton
I darted around this morning talking to bishops, and what follows is more a reporter’s notebook that a fully-crafted story. In summary, I would say bishops of the Episcopal Church, and those generally sympathetic to it are saying that they thought that the conference went very well and moved the issues in the right direction; that they were glad that no definitive statement on some of the controversial issues was planned, and that they recognized that gay and lesbian people were talked about, rather than talked with.
By Jim Naughton
The Archbishop of Canterbury put the squeeze on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada today, saying that the Anglican Communion would be in “grave peril” if the North American churches did not adopt a moratorium on same- sex blessings and the consecration of gay bishops.
At the end of the Lambeth Conference, John F. Burns writes another profile of Bishop Gene Robinson and describes both the man at the center of the storm and the tough road ahead for Anglicanism if it is to positively build on the work of Lambeth.
UPDATED:
The Blogging Bishops offer some thoughts onthe final day of the Lambeth Conference. Most emphaized the value of the conversations at Lambeth. Several expressed disappointment at the "Reflections" document issued earlier today.
That's going to do it for me, folks. I am heading home on Monday, and will probably be laying low for awhile. I have more strong feelings than are helpful about what has happened here, and I am not yet sure how I think our Church should respond to it. But those are conversations for another day.
Michael Sean Winters, author of Left at the Altar: How the Democrats Lost the Catholics and How the Catholics Can Save the Democrats has an interesting article in the New Republic about two of the three Catholics that are reportedly on Barack Obama's short list for the Vice President slot on the ticket:
Do religions survive because they are useful in combatting infectious disease? One researcher thinks so and he has some data to support his thesis. Here is the report from the Economist:
In many ways the Lambeth Conference had dual personalities. There was the listening, engaging personality of the Indaba groups, along with the Bible Studies, the worship. Then there was the organizational side where the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Communion Office and the Bishops attempted to find a structure by which the Communion could hold together.
Now that the Bishops are on their way home, the press is trying to make summarize the just completed Lambeth Conference and the pundits are polishing their crystal balls to tell us what it all means.
Press summaries are found on Thinking Anglicans here and here. TA also points to the audio of the final press conference here.
Here is epiScopes summary of Lambeth news and here is the ENS report of the last day.
John F. Burns of the New York Times says Anglicans to Seek Pact to Prevent Schism.
Here is Rachel Zoll's (AP) take.
The Telegraph says that Archbishop Williams is upbeat after Lambeth.
Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks plenary to the Lambeth bishops generated some letters to the editor in the Jerusalem Post.
The Guardian's lead is here.
The Times' lead is here.
The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin says that Anglicans need "space without pressure."
Sitting in airports with wifi and traveling home after the Lambeth Conference, bishops reflect on their experiences and offer thoughts on "what now?"
Citing changing demographics and a steady increase in complaints from people of faith, a federal agency last week released an updated compliance manual on religious discrimination in the workplace according to USA Today.
While Anglican bishops were meeting in Canterbury, senior Christian and Muslim scholars and leaders were meeting in the United States seeking common ground in their different faiths to foster better understanding between Islam and the West according to Reuters.
International development agency Christian Aid says the blame for the collapse of the latest Doha Development Round talks in Geneva lies squarely with major agricultural exporting countries putting self-interest above other considerations according to a report in Ekklesia.
The talks were supposed to result in a deal that would help poorer countries develop through trade.
The Episcopal Relief and Development program, Nets for Life, has succeeded in preventing malaria in many parts of the world. With the success of the distribution of treated mosquito netting, the effort will be increased over the next five years. Nets for Life partners with Episcopalians and corporations to raise funds for the prevention of malaria. According to Episcopal Life Online:
IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, June issue, has an in-depth report and analysis of the effect of humanitarian efforts to mitigate the devastation caused to the poorest of the poor by climate change:
Orombi: a child of empire, is the headline in The Guardian today. Priyamvada Gopal writes that Archbishop Orombi's claims of colonialism by Archbishop of Canterbury reveal a colonized mindset. She sees the anti gay rhetoric from Orombi as learned from the British colonists as the church and the empire moved across Africa:
Why does Rowan Williams bow down before those belligerent African Anglican bishops and their conservative supporters who view homosexuality as "unnatural" and a "sin"? By doing so he is not only betraying the spiritual welfare of gay Anglican communicants but also undermining any claims his church has to be established asks Will Self in The Evening Standard, UK.
Videos were shown at the outset of each day of the 2008 Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion. These videos introduced participants to the day's theme. Trinity Wall Street has all ten videos available at their web site.
UPDATED
In a private correspondence conducted eight years ago, Rowan Williams, now the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote that gay sexual relationships can “reflect the love of God” in a way that is comparable to marriage, according to Ruth Gledhill in The Times.
Randall Palmer of Reuters writes:
OTTAWA (Reuters) - There seems little chance that all Canadian Anglican clergy will honor the moratorium on blessing same-sex unions requested by the worldwide Anglican communion.Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, leader of the global Anglican church, warned on Sunday that the 80-million-member church would be "in grave peril" if the U.S. and Canadian branches did not agree to moratoriums on same-sex blessings and on the ordination of gay bishops.
But the head of the Canadian church, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, told Reuters in a phone interview on Wednesday it would be especially tough for Bishop Michael Ingham of the British Columbia diocese of New Westminster to halt the homosexual blessings altogether.
Hiltz pointed out that the decision-making synods of four more Canadian dioceses have in the past year asked their bishops to authorize same-sex blessings.
Phil Groves, who led the Listening Process for the Anglican Communion Office received this letter and permission to share it:
John T. Connolly of the Philadephia Bulletin writes:
The Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania has issued its opinion that the bishop should be deposed for covering up the sexual abuse of his brother.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Bishop Mark Sisk of New York spoke about the Lambeth Conference today on a web cast. The conversation, a kind of modified press conference with viewers e-mailing questions, will be available soon at episcopalchurch.org
Here are a few things that struck me, feel free to add your own observations in the comments, but remember, we require you to use your full name.
There is rather more fallout from the revelation that the Archbishop of Canterbury holds a position on gay relationships that we already knew he held but had never seen him state so clearly than seems entirely necessary. People are telling Ruth Gledhill that a split in the Communion is now "inevitable," and Steve Doughty of the Daily Mail that Williams' position is now "untenable."
At moments such as these, a seasoned gambler would bet on evitability in the first instance and tenability in the second because whether this is a put up job or not, it sure looks like one, and people will begin to see that.
Dan Burke of Religion New Service wrote a provocative story from the Lambeth Conference that received too little attention.
Another story perhaps lost in the Lambeth avalanche was Jonathan Wynne-Jones' article on the exhumation of Cardinal John Henry Newman, a candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church, who was buried with his best friend, Ambrose St. John ( a name which the English pronounce "Sinjin" or "Wuster", or something like that)
(Paul Handley of The Church Times kindly asked me to write the Press column for last week's issue while Andrew Brown was on vacation. In return, as you will see at the bottom of the column, they ordained me. I think this has certain implications involving my pension which my employers are unaware of -- Jim Naughton)