The Anglican churches in Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda have effectively separated from the Anglican Communion by refusing to participate in the Lambeth Conference, says Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

Like many other Canadian bishops, however, Nicholls also says she left this summer’s meeting in Lambeth, U.K. with a prevailing sense of hope for the future of the Communion.

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How do we – as Christian world communions – define the goal of visible unity for our churches? Can we find a way forward, walking together towards a shared vision? Or do we “simply fall back and expect the other to look like us?”

Those were key questions posed by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) General Secretary Rev. Anne Burghardt to Anglican bishops and representatives of other Christian world communions gathered at the 15th Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England.

Under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, over 650 Anglican leaders, as well as bishops in full communion from across the globe, are meeting from 26 July to 8 August. Reflecting on the theme ‘God’s Church for God’s World: walking, listening and witnessing together’, they are discussing the mission and the priorities of the worldwide communion for the next decade.
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The headlines were always likely to be: “Archbishop validates Lambeth 1.10” — but that’s only part of the story, the Bishop of Monmouth, the Rt Revd Cherry Vann, said on Thursday, at the Lambeth Conference.

One of the joys of the Call on Human Dignity on Tuesday, she said, had been the recognition, for the first time, that countries across the world were in very different places over human sexuality. “Justin very clearly said that to bless civil partnerships and gay marriages, in most parts of the Anglican Communion, would mean the end of the Church, because there would be no credence or credibility whatsoever.

“Similarly, if in the West we were not to do that, exactly the same thing would apply. I think that, for the first time, that is being publicly acknowledged by someone of Justin’s standing.
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In his opening keynote address at the Lambeth Conference July 29, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby encouraged bishops from around the world to look beyond the internal conflicts that divide the church to the challenges facing the world as a whole.
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They marched up the hill wearing vestments of all styles and colors and speaking an array of languages from around the world. They laughed, sang and danced as they climbed the bleachers and lined up in rows, from shortest to tallest. And then, after some final adjustments and one fainting spell, the last one took her seat and there they were: the bishops of the Anglican Communion.

The portrait of all 650+ bishops in attendance is a tradition dating back to the first Lambeth Conference in 1867. That first portrait, showing a small group of white men in black suits, is unrecognizable from the one taken on July 29 on an athletic field at the University of Kent, under a blazing sun.
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From across the 165 countries of the Anglican Communion, bishops are gathering in Canterbury today to pray, study scripture, discuss global challenges and seek God’s direction for the decade ahead.

The Lambeth Conference 2022, which runs until August 7, is only the 15th such global gathering of Anglican bishops in 155 years.

The event was postponed from 2020 because of the Covid 19 pandemic and takes place against a backdrop of global uncertainty – including the climate emergency, war and poverty.

Taking as their theme “God’s Church for God’s World”, the bishops will spend time praying and studying the Bible together (focussing on the book of 1 Peter) as well as discussing major challenges faced by their global communities – ranging from climate change and scientific progress to Christian Unity and inter-faith relations.
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A highly anticipated statement from the Lambeth Conference on same-sex marriage acknowledged that the Anglican Communion remains divided on the issue, and did not come out in support of one side or another.
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ACSC will “resource the whole Anglican Communion for courageous and confident spiritual leadership in issues involving science.” A new Anglican Communion Science Commission (ACSC) is being formed to “resource the whole Anglican Communion for courageous and confident spiritual leadership in issues involving science.” The ACSC will be co-chaired by the Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba; and the Bishop of Oxford, Stephen Croft. The ACSC will formally launch at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, in July and August next year; and will hold its first conference shortly afterwards.

Scientists, theologians, and bishops from around the globe are being invited by the Anglican Communion’s Secretary General, Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, to serve as Commissioners. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has asked Anglican Communion Primates to nominate a Bishop from their Church to serve as provincial representatives at conferences of the Commission. Science will be a significant feature at the 2022 Lambeth Conference. Today, organisers have posted a series of videos, exploring the relationship between science and faith, on the Lambeth Conference website.
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In an interview with the Church of Ireland Gazette on Oct. 3, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby addressed speculation that the next Lambeth Conference, which is usually held every 10 years and was expected to be in 2018, might be postponed. When asked by Gazette editor Canon Ian Ellis if he had made up his mind or was rethinking Lambeth 2018, Welby said, “I am not rethinking. I’m following through with what I said to the primates when I was installed as archbishop, which was that I would, by the end of 2014, seek to visit them all in their home country, in their own home, discuss with them the future of what it looked like and then we would collectively make up our minds where we went.”
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As the Lambeth Conference of 2008 comes to an end, I want to offer some further reflections of my own on what the bishops gathered in Canterbury have learned and experienced. Those of you who have been present here will be able to share your own insights with your people, but it may be useful for me to add my own perspectives as to where we have been led. For the vast majority of bishops, it seems, this has been a time when they have felt God to have been at work. The Conference was not a time for making new laws or for binding decisions; in spite of the way some have expressed their expectations, Lambeth Conferences have never worked straightforwardly in this way. The Conference Design Group believed strongly that the chief need of our Communion at the moment was the rebuilding of relationships – the rebuilding of trust in one another – and of confidence in our Anglican identity. And it was with this in mind that they planned for a very different sort of Conference, determined to allow every bishop’s voice to be heard and to seek for a final outcome for which the bishops were genuinely able to recognize an authentic account of their own work.
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Rev. Thomas Ryan, director of the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism in Montreal, has been appointed a Roman Catholic staff representative to a world meeting of Anglican bishops that begins today.

Two Vatican agencies have named the U.S.-born Paulist priest as a representative to the communications team of the Lambeth Conference. The conference is a gathering of the bishops of the 450 dioceses in Anglican churches around the world, including Bishop Reginald Hollis of Montreal.

Representatives have also been appointed by the world Lutheran church and by the World Council of Churches, a grouping mainly of Protestant and Orthodox Churches.

Ryan said in a conversation that it is the first time such staff representatives from other churches have been invited to help out at the Lambeth Conference, which meets every 10 years.

“It is an impressive initiative.”
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