
This week the Anglican bishops gathered at the Lambeth Conference will have to confront their divisions and future options.
Media coverage of the 2008 Lambeth Conference has focused attention on divisions among Anglicans by portraying them as straightforward conflicts between ‘liberal’ Westerners and ‘traditionalists’ from other parts of the world. But the divisions are not so neat: ‘evangelicals’ and ‘Southerners’ can be found on both ‘sides’. Indeed, attempts by supposedly ‘conservative’ reformers to rid the Anglican Communion of what they regard as wrong ideas and practices hamper the quest for biblical faithfulness and undermine respect for the spiritual insights emerging from the South. This paper included a constructive critique of recent propositions from Canon Gregory Cameron, Deputy Secretary General of the Anglican Communion.
This paper, one of a series, complements the author’s contributions to the new book Fear or Freedom? Why a warring church must change, edited by Simon Barrow (Shoving Leopard / Ekklesia, 2008) – available in the UK from Metanoia Book Service, and elsewhere via Amazon.