A View from Lambeth
by Bishop John E. Privett
Dear Friends,
I write this column during the last few days of the Lambeth Conference where bishops from dioceses across the globe have gathered to build relationships, worship, study, and consult together and I am very aware of what a privilege it is to be here. Each day has been organized around a particular theme such as Anglican Identity, Evangelism, Social Justice, the Environment, and Other Faiths. These last few days are focusing on human sexuality, the Windsor process and the idea of an Anglican Covenant. As you can imagine there are many different viewpoints, some held vigorously, and it is too early for me to comment with any clarity on the themes still under discussion. (I will try to speak to those in subsequent issues of the paper.)
Since Anglican identity emerged as one of the recurring priorities raised in my regional meetings in 2006, I'd like to devote the rest of this column to it. We have many ways of speaking about Anglican identity from "an Anglican is any one who comes regularly to an Anglican church" to those who point to a specific set of Christian beliefs and practises such as those set out in the Prayer Book catechism. Others point to the Book of Common Prayer as the defining mark of Anglicanism, and still others would point to the Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Alternative Services or talk about the Anglican three-legged stool of Scripture, reason and tradition.
The Lambeth Conference considered 4 marks or what have been called “signposts” of the Anglican Way. The study paper states, “The Anglican way is a particular expression of the Christian way of being the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.” It then goes on to identify the following 4 signposts of Anglican identity as a church:
1. Formed by Scripture
2. Shaped through Worship
3. Ordered for Communion and
4. Directed by God's mission.
Three of these are fairly self-explanatory, but the third requires some explanation. “Ordered for communion” means that our orders of ministry beginning with all the baptized and including bishops, priests and deacons are intended to support and express the ministry of the whole church as the Body of Christ. And we organize or order our life not only in congregations and regions, but in dioceses throughout the world. We deeply value our relationships with other Anglicans around the earth. We value the Archbishop of Canterbury as a focus for unity, and we look to the Lambeth conference, the Anglican Consultative Council (an international meeting of Bishops, Priests and Lay People elected or appointed from around the world) and the Primates meetings to support our life in communion with one another.
This order (or way of organizing our life) is an important signpost of what it is to be Anglican. We are not isolated individually or as congregations. The Lambeth Conference is a very significant sign of our relationships with others. Those who have chosen not to attend remind us that there is some degree of broken or impaired relationships and there is great awareness as well as great concern for those who are not present. We gather as a diverse group of Christians who seek to be followers of Jesus in many different parts of the world with many different challenges but also with a strong bond of kinship. I will bring home to Kootenay a deep sense of the great diversity within our church and a greater understanding of not only what separates us, but, more importantly, of what unites us across boundaries of language, culture and geography. We are indeed part of a great family of faith.
Faithfully, +John
