Friday, July 06, 2007

Is an Alternative Lambeth Now Called For?

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6291

[VirtueOnline] 6 July 2007--The spectrum of a wholesale revolt by a wide swathe of orthodox Anglican provinces and dioceses across the communion has been raised by the possibility of an alternative Lambeth Conference as recently posed by the Most Rev. Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney. Such a revolt could lead to a boycott of the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, next year.

The concept of a parallel Lambeth Conference was first raised by the Most Rev. Peter Akinola, Archbishop and Primate of Nigeria, as well as head of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA), which represents some 40 million Anglicans across the African continent. He ripped the Archbishop of Canterbury saying that he (Akinola) and his fellow bishops "must receive assurances from the Primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury that this crisis will be resolved before a Lambeth Conference is convened. There is no point, in our view, in meeting and meeting and not resolving the fundamental crisis of Anglican identity. We will definitely not attend any Lambeth Conference to which the violators of the Lambeth Resolution are also invited as participants or observers.

"To add to our reservations about the 2008 Lambeth Conference, we note the huge expense of such an event. Our African churches are asked to divert funds from much needed work of evangelization and charity to a 3-week meeting which has no authority and which is blatantly ignored by "autonomous" member churches. In some cases, poorer provinces are "assisted" by donors from the West who have a deliberate agenda of buying silence from these churches."

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