Almighty and everlasting God who gave to your apostles grace truly to believe and to preach your Word: Grant that your Church may love what they believed and preach what they taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The XIIIth Lambeth Conference will, I am convinced, be seen by all who look back to it as a watershed in Anglican history. Like the IInd Lambeth Conference (of 1888) it will, I believe, prove itself determinative in outlining matters that cannot be changed, in redefining the nature of the Communion as truly global, and in re-establishing the balance (and the means) by which autonomous national churches are sacrificially submitted to one another.
Matters which cannot be changed: The 1888 Lambeth Conference gave us the Quadrilateral of Holy Scriptures, Two Sacraments, Nicene Creed and Historic Episcopate. This "quadrilateral" has become the basis of Anglican self-understanding and the engine of ecumenical dialogue ever since. The 1998 Lambeth Conference was principally about the role and interpretation of Holy Scripture. The precipitating issue was the limits of human sexual expression, with a secondary question being the right to disagree about the ordination of women. The 1998 Lambeth Conference reaffirmed "the primary authority of the Scriptures, according to their testimony and supported by our own historic formularies" containing "all things necessary to salvation and for us the rule and ultimate standard of faith and practice." In all of this the conference stood squarely with our Reformation forebears, and with the vast present-day witness of protestant, catholic and orthodox traditions. By a decisive vote of 526 to 70 Lambeth XIII said that faithfulness in marriage and abstinence for all others is the teaching of this Communion. The bishops rejected "homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture," yet called "on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation," committed ourselves "to listen to the experience of homosexual persons" with assurance "that they are loved by God", and condemned "irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialization and commercialization of sex." On the subject of the ordination of women, and because Scripture does not speak with the same clear voice in this area, the 1998 Lambeth Conference, upheld the principle of 'Open Reception,' where "there should be no compulsion on any bishop to ordain or license" and there ought to be provision for "appropriate episcopal ministry" for all.
Global Anglicanism: Just as the Second Lambeth Conference confirmed the reality of an international Communion that was more than English and with ongoing need for international consultation, so the Thirteenth Lambeth Conference confirmed the shift from a Western (or European) hegemony to a Missionary (or two-thirds world) one. Where the Anglican Communion is expanding exponentially, especially in Africa and Asia and South America, is where the center and the voice of this Communion will reside. In 1988 there were 10 million Anglicans in Nigeria. In 1998 there are seventeen million. This reality is altering everything about who we are and yet it is also reasserting everything theologically for which we have stood. The significance of North American Anglicanism, like the significance of British Anglicanism before it, is giving way to a vital and missionary Global Anglicanism. Two issues of immense importance to Anglicans in the two-thirds world occupied much conference time: Christian witness in the face of militant Islam and the scandal of the poverty occasioned by international debt. We pledged ourselves to stand with and stretch ourselves on behalf of our brothers and sisters enduring in these circumstances.
Instruments of Unity: The Twelfth Lambeth Conference (of 1988) was about the freedom of national churches to differ from one another especially as regards the ordination of women. The Thirteenth Lambeth Conference was about the limits of diversity, the same subject over which the First Lambeth Conference had been convened. In a Communion no longer held together by a common language, common culture or common prayerbook, what is the glue? The classic and bedrock Anglican answer of God's Word written, as interpreted by patristic tradition and informed by inspired reason, re-emerges in exactly its original balance. But practically, how does a Communion of "autonomous provinces" remain mutually accountable, each part responsible to all the others? The Thirteenth Lambeth Conference greatly enhanced the role of the Primates Meeting in addressing the boundaries of Anglican diversity and agreed that the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury should, in extraordinary circumstances, extend to intervention in provincial disputes. These are remarkable developments necessitated by the very real threat of the theological and practical fracture of our Communion.
Pittsburgh's Place within Global Anglicanism: For those who have argued that the Diocese of Pittsburgh has often been out-of-step with the American Episcopal Church, Lambeth has simply shown that we are in the mainstream of worldwide Anglicanism. What is more, we, in Pittsburgh, are viewed by bishops from all over the world as immensely significant in the missionary Anglicanism which is emerging. The fact that the South American Missionary society and the Church Army are head-quartered here is better known in other parts of the world than locally. The impact of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry on the global scene is vast. I met bishops from every continent who were trained at or who have been connected to this twenty-year-old seminary. What was even more remarkable were the priests of the diocese like George Conger and Stephen Noll, and to a lesser extent Peter Moore, Harold Lewis and Arnie Klukas, who played major staff roles in the Lambeth outcome. Our God has called us - and is calling us - in this diocese to an international role and prominence which is way beyond our desiring or deserving.
Pittsburgh's Role in the American Church: The Thirteenth Lambeth Conference was a very difficult one for the bishops of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. As a national province - one of what are now thirty-eight national or regional provinces of the Anglican Communion - we found ourselves to be very marginalized, very far away from the Anglican center. The issue before the American Church, I would contend, is whether we can be re-centered. I believe that Pittsburgh will have - must have - an immense role here, too. The Bishops at Lambeth studied Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians. We were reminded that the apostolic way to re-center a Church is to love it, to encourage it, to go to it, and, only after all of that, to challenge it. It also demands speaking out of repentance, weakness and the cross, not out of power, wisdom or pride. There is pain and confusion among many of our clergy leaders over the invitation of the Clergy Conference Committee to the Right Reverend Catherine Waynick, the Bishop of Indianapolis, to be our keynoter. No one was aware at the time of the invitation that Bishop Cate had signed John Spong's Koinonia statement, and no one could know of the leadership role that she would play in Lambeth debates. Perhaps God's hand in the choice was that He saw both her role and ours and desired that we all should make a beginning in this new post-Lambeth landscape.
Local Boundaries and Foreign Bishops: One of Lambeth's actions was a weakened reiteration of the principle that any bishop should ask permission before functioning in another bishop's diocese. You will recall that last fall I wrote to you about my willingness to provide alternate episcopal ministry where that seemed godly. With both of these things in mind I have approved the plan to allow Christ Church, Grove Farm, Sewickley - not a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh - to come under the pastoral care of the Right Reverend Wilson Turumanya, and to be in relationship with the Diocese of Bunyaro-Kitara in the Province of Uganda. My aim is simple. I believe that it is God's plan that that congregation eventually come into union with the Diocese of Pittsburgh. That particular relationship is not possible now. Christ Church, Grove Farm, nevertheless desires to be an "Anglican parish." They need a bishop. They shall have one. The leadership of St. Stephen's Church in Sewickley has been consulted in this and is supportive of my permission.
Benediction: This has been a long but important letter. I look forward to our clergy times together this fall, especially to Clergy Conference. I also look forward to the fall gatherings of lay leaders and to the beginning of my annual cycle of parish visitations among all the people. Please pray for me, as I do pray for you. Please also pray for our worldwide Anglican Communion, for our Episcopal Church, and for our Diocese - especially for dynamic mission and for godly unity at every level.
Faithfully in Christ,
+Robert
VII Pittsburgh
The texts of several Lambeth resolutions are enclosed, as is a very significant editorial from the Times of London. The texts of all Lambeth Resolutions are available on the worldwide web at http://anglican.org/online/LC98res/index.html.
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