Friday, June 29, 2007

Sydney proposes alternative to Lambeth Conference

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=41259

[Church Times] 29 June 2007--Conservatives are planning an alternative meeting in the UK at the same time as the 2008 Lambeth Conference, it emerged this week.

The idea is now being put to other conservative bishops in the Anglican Communion including those who have already refused or who have not been invited to Lambeth. The standing committee send warm greetings to Canon Bill Atwood, soon to be consecrated to serve in the US by the Archbishop of Kenya (News, 15 June).

Speaking on Tuesday from Sydney, Robert Tong, a standing-committee member, said that: “Everyone on our 60-strong committee appreciated the dilemma; if we don’t go [to the Lambeth Conference] the conservative position is weakened because of our absence, but if we do go, are we saying that we are in support? That is why we have suggested these principled objections.”

Mr Tong said that he had no idea what form the protests would take. “One obvious course of action is that some bishops may absent themselves from taking holy communion with the others. This goes to the heart of fellowship and makes a liturgical point.”

He said that Bishop Martyn Minns, a member of the Nigerian-based conservative group in the US, was one of a number who would be approached. Bishops and archbishops in the Global South would also be contacted.

“Sydney has tended to be on the edge of the Global South grouping, but this does not rule out contacting all the leaders. But this is a situation that is evolving. Nothing definite has been arranged, and no alternative venue has been booked,” said Mr Tong.

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