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LONDON: Dr Williams hopes for 'Lambeth-lite'
By Bill Bowder
THE CHURCH TIMES
11/26/2005
THE SHAPE of the next Lambeth Conference could be decided at a key meeting in London on 6 December.
A group of eight Primates, bishops, and lay people from across the Communion make up the Lambeth design group. With Dr Williams, they will consider radical changes to the conference which could lower the chances of conflict.
Dr Williams is already on record as saying that he wants a "Lambeth-lite", with fewer resolutions, Sue Parks, manager of the conference, said this week. She also thought it likely that the design group would drop the idea of preliminary regional meetings. Meetings were held in the run-up to the 1998 Lambeth Conference to air agenda issues, but were not seen as effective.
If the regional meetings are dropped, and with no further meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council until after the conference, the 2007 Primates' Meeting will be one of the last chances to affect the agenda.
One way for people to air their views will be on the new website www.lambethconference.org. It goes live for the new conference during Advent. "People can make any comments they want to about the conference there," Ms Parks said.
Commentators suggested that Dr Williams had to hold his ground concerning the Lambeth Conference and the Anglican Communion. Global South leaders last week argued that the American and Canadian provinces should not be invited unless they "truly repent".
Canon Andrew Deuchar, Rector of All Saints', Nottingham, and a former secretary for Anglican affairs at Lambeth, said this week that leaders across the Communion were not reflecting what their people thought.
"I think the Archbishop has got to stand firm. Of course there will be people who will walk away; but, from my knowledge of the Anglican Communion, most will want to stay part of it. People certainly don't want a pope. They still believe in a worldwide Communion, with the Archbishop of Canterbury in an iconic role."
The Revd Anthony Milner, Roman Catholic representative on the General Synod, said that the crisis was one of a lack of authority in the Communion. This had been identified in the 1998 ARCIC report On the Gift of Authority.
To find a resolution to the crisis, he said, "The challenges posed there, and the answers given, would be a good place to start."
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