From The Reverend Hugh E. Brown, III, D.Min.,
Rector

June 2008

Preparing for Lambeth
"Conversation across Differences"

Amidst the many gifts and blessings of our guests from Nassau, the Bahamas, with us over a marvelous week from May 8 to May 14 to celebrate, to strength friendship, to build on, and to continue a life-giving new companion relationship--was a vision of the profound gift of the Anglican Communion.

Despite the differences of culture, geography, national origin, and liturgy, our friends in Christ from St. George's Anglican Church of Nassau and the people of All Saints' Episcopal Church in Princeton share a common heritage as Christians and as Anglican Christians--communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England and communion among sister Anglican communities throughout the world.

The Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church in the United States (ECUSA) is a part, is truly a world-wide Christian fellowship sharing a commitment to the bedrock four principles of the Anglican tradition: the sacred scriptures, the historic creeds, the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist and the historic Episcopate within the Apostolic Succession. These four principles are from the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, adopted at the 1888 Lambeth Conference and found in the Book of Common Prayer (pp. 876-878). I would urge you to look it up and read it this summer as we prepare for Lambeth!

Anglicans Christians can worship anywhere in the world in an Anglican church, and, despite manifold differences within worship, cultural expression and theological values, can feel right at home with common roots of church order and sacraments, and a liturgy rooted in the traditions of the Book of Common Prayer.

Perhaps the central symbol and expression of Anglican unity has been the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, which has been held, almost with unbroken succession, very ten years since the first gather of 1867.

From July 16 through August 3, of this summer of 2008, more than 800 Bishops will convene on the campus of the University of Kent in Southeast England.

Our current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams notes that the Lambeth Conference "has never been a lawmaking body in the strict sense, and it wasn't designed to be one. Every local Anglican province (geographical entity with the Anglican Communion) has its own independent system of church law and there is no supreme court."

So, what does form the basis of Anglican unity?

Such a question is of prime dialogue, debate and discussion within the Anglican Communion at present, but, perhaps, it is nothing more, nor less, than, the twin pillars of (1) the very first description of Lambeth by Archbishop Charles Longley at the first Lambeth meeting in 1867, "brotherly (and today we might add, sisterly!) counsel and encouragement," and (2) one of the first Lambeth resolutions of that same year, that the Anglican Communion would be founded on nothing else but "the essence of the faith and what belongs to the due order of the Catholic Church."

From the very beginning of the Anglican Communion, the Anglican tradition of Christianity has forged a creative tension, a via media, between the authoritarian church idea of the Roman Catholic tradition, and the autonomous idea of the Protestant tradition, between freedom and unity. More than a century after that first Lambeth Conference this tension still exits.

With increasing cultural and theological diversity around matters of biblical interpretations, sexual mores, and moral values within cultural difference, the Anglican Communion's "creative tension" is fast become a tension which might destroy it. Some bishops and primates have indicated their intention to boycott Lambeth this summer. Certain provinces have declared their breaking of communion with one another, particularly the Episcopal Church, over issues of sexual ethics. Bishops are crossing lines of geographical and ecclesiological authority within the Communion which can be described as "innovative" moves at best and destructive of Anglican unity at worst.

We might describe the unique aspect of Anglican unity as "conversation." The Anglican Communion is not held together by structures of legal authority, and will not be held together as such even within an "Anglican Covenant" should one ever arise. It is held together by a commitment to conversation, to speak to one another in the midst of difference, within a commitment to the historic Christian faith.

Much of the basis of the Lambeth Conference this year will be around small bible study groups of eight bishops with the purpose of "spending time together in quiet and begin to direct our minds towards the central issues of our faith," said Archbishop Williams.

So how can we prepare for Lambeth, 2008, as Anglican Christians?

First, pray for the Conference; beginning on June 1, we will include a prayer for Lambeth each Sunday during our 8:00AM and 10:00AM liturgies. But please also pray individually and within our small group ministries here at All Saints.

Second, learn, study and become informed. Beginning June 1, we will include a series of bulletin inserts about Lambeth, including its importance to the Episcopal Church, its background and its rich traditions. We urge you to take this material home, read it, and discuss it within our families and within your circle of friends and loved ones. We also urge you to attend the Adult Forums on June 1 and June 8 on the Lambeth Conference and the principles of Christian unity within the Anglican tradition, as we close out the academic year for the Adult Sunday morning Forum.

Third, we invite you to intentionally practice "conversation" around the issues confronting Lambeth, especially and among those who might differ from you: issues of the Millennium Development Goals, human sexuality, biblical interpretation, the authentic basis of Christian unity, cultural difference, among many others. In this way you will be participating in the very same process shared by the Bishops of the Anglican Communion at Lambeth: of forging creative understanding of our unity in the midst of difference. Such as always been the Anglican way. Such is both the gift and challenge of being Anglican Christians.

The Rev. Ian Douglas, who spoke at the Diocese of New Jersey Convention this past March, and who is a member of the design group for Lambeth and Angus Dun professor of world Christianity at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, writes this about Lambeth: "Conversation across differences for the sake of building up the body of Christ and strengthening the Anglican Communion is exactly what we need right now."

The Anglican Communion is a great gift. We experienced such a gift in our very experience and midst this past May with deepened friendship with the people of St. George's Anglican Parish, Nassau, the Bahamas. What a marvelous celebration was this exciting week in May, marked by a Pentecost service in which we experienced, in living reality, the story of Acts and the vision of Christian unity across the boundaries of different languages and different cultures!

Such a gift, like all gifts of God, requires our freedom of choice, intentional practice and disciplined commitment. Honoring the Anglican vision of the via media between freedom and unity requires much work and tough sacrifice. But we know all about the gift of sacrifice from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Faithfully Yours,
The Reverend Hugh E. Brown, III, D. Min.
Rector