Thursday, July 10, 2008

Lambeth Final Report Will Reflect ‘Indaba’ Process

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2008/7/9/lambeth-final-report-will-reflect-indaba-process

[The Living Church] 10 July 2008--Members of the Anglican Communion await with interest news of what will transpire at the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, said the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon in an e-mail letter on behalf of the Lambeth Conference Design and Planning Groups to bishops registered to attend the event July 16-Aug. 3.

Previous reports indicated there would be no resolutions or final statements following the once-every-10-year gathering of bishops in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. In his instructions to conference planners, Canon Kearon said Archbishop Rowan Williams sought a conference free from “political posturing or parliamentary process." However, the secretary general of the Anglican Consultative Council said that a “reflections document, which will be a faithful account of the fruit of the 14th Lambeth Conference,” was the end result of the indaba process all along.

“An indaba first and foremost acknowledges that there are issues that need to be addressed effectively to foster ongoing communal living,” he wrote. “In our case, it is issues which affect the whole Communion as reflected in our daily themes.

“In indaba, we must be aware of these challenges (issues) without immediately trying to resolve them one way or the other,” he said. “We meet and converse, ensuring that everyone has a voice, and contributes (in our case, praying that it might be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit) and that the issues at hand are fully defined and understood by all.”

Canon Kearon said the final document must be faithful to the traditional indaba process. “It will therefore be descriptive of the totality of the engagement which the bishops have undertaken under God,” he wrote. “The final document must also be robust enough to describe realistically and honestly where the bishops of the Communion understand our life together to have come, and their resolve for the future.”

Sounds like a process that the liberals running Lambeth can manipulate to produce a document that reflects their vision for the Anglican Communion.

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