“There is no desire to separate”

The 2008 Lambeth Conference is history, having ended yesterday evening with a moving and hopeful closing eucharist at Canterbury Cathedral. The headline in today’s Times of London reflects well the overall sense at the conclusion of this gathering: “Bishops go in peace as Williams wins over troubled conference.”

Many (if not most) of those in the Anglican Communion seemed braced for the worst possible outcome. And while there were, indeed, some shaky moments along the way, my sense is that the bishops are leaving Lambeth with a renewed sense of their interdependence, a better understanding of where each of them is coming from, and a sincere desire to keep the Communion intact. As the Archbishop of Canterbury plainly put it in his final address, “There is no desire to separate.”

This was expressed is a most profound way by my indaba group (above) on its final day. The last of our 13 sessions together consisted of each of the 40 bishops simply talking about how they were feeling about the whole experience. Though the bishops in my indaba came from as far and wide as you could imagine (Pakistan, Kenya, Sudan, England, Congo, South Africa, South Korea, the United States, the West Indies, Australia, Zimbabwe, Canada, Guinea, Rwanda, and New Zealand), they spoke with almost one voice about the indaba process. It gave each voice in the group a chance to be heard in a way that simply could not happen under the old system of setting up two microphones in a big room and having bishops line up and talk—a system which tends to favour a loud and articulate few and disenfranchises many. One bishop described it as “transformational,” and they all agreed that the personal relationships they’ve built up in these small groups are crucial to life in communion. It’s a lot more difficult to write off or anathematize someone when you’ve established a relationship with them, and, as one bishop put it “can see the church in them,” even if you heartily disagree with them.

It’s true that no hard-and-fast decisions are coming out of this conference. But that was never, in fact, the intention of this gathering. There seems to be increasingly broad support for a covenant of some kind, which would include a trio or moratoria related to the same-sex issue. I say “increasingly broad” because the support is by no means unanimous, and will still be received with some difficulty in the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church. There are several good media accounts (and almost as many that are bad) which you can consult for the details of the conference’s final “Reflections Document,” so I won’t attempt to repeat them here.

But the bishops did so much more than talk about sex for three weeks, thank God. They spent time in study, prayer, and discussion around several pressing issues like the environment, relations with other religions, injustice and oppression in places like Zimbabwe, and other things pleading for the church’s attention and action.

My three weeks at Lambeth will certainly take some time to process. However, I can say that among the things I know I’ll be taking away from Canterbury is a renewed esteem for Archbishop Rowan Williams. The impossibility of his situation became so vivid during the conference, as did the humble and thoughtful way he dealt with it. The bishops’ respect and affection for their primus inter pares was articulated frequently throughout the days of the conference, and I’d venture to say that Lambeth 2008 will be remembered as one of the finest—albeit most difficult—moments of his primacy. And, as you can see, my buddy Jamie and I finally grabbed him for a photo.

A few vital statistics from the Lambeth Conference: We spent 1,320 minutes in our indaba groups (and we rapporteurs at least as much time also working on our daily post-indaba reports), consumed 120 litres of communion wine, and 3,610 pints of lager.

I’m in London now, spending a couple of days with my buddy Stu, then it’s back to Bossey on Wednesday. I’ll spend the next six weeks doing as much research on my dissertation as possible, and then head back to Canada in mid September, and back to the Diocese of Quebec to take up a new appointment in October. I promise at least one more posting before I pack it in.