The Lambeth Conference must not be dominated by sexuality again, said the Primates.

Indeed not. Never mind that a Windsor Report commissioned by the wily Irish Archbishop Robin Eames managed to fudge the whole thing by not adopting a view on homosexual practice. It recommended a moratorium on further considerations of Robinson's consecration "to consider in all conscience whether they should withdraw themselves from representative functions in the Anglican Communion". The report stopped short of recommending discipline against the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada. So, a giant ecclesial fudge cake. If the church were handing out peace (read pacifier) prizes, Eames would eminently qualify.

A much-ballyhooed Covenant turned out to be little more than a Rorschach Test looking at primates' personality characteristics and emotional functioning, reflecting a variety of ecclesiological characteristics around the Anglican Communion but changing nothing. As one writer observed, "the Covenant was more instructive about the state of the Communion than the document itself!"

Today, the Covenant lies fallow, empty of real arm-twisting conformity, a giant bowl of half-baked ideas achieving even less than an Episcopal General Convention resolution, which, when passed, is soon forgotten.

So out with sex and in with climate change, which is ironic bearing in mind that hundreds of planes bearing the bishops across the skies will spew more emissions into the air than tens of thousands of cars combined. Airplanes burn fossil fuel which not only releases CO2 emissions but also has strong warming non-CO2 effects due to nitrogen oxides (NOx), vapor trails and cloud formation.

"The title of the conference is 'God's Church for God's world'... it will be dominated by the way we treat people on the edge, food, insecurity, whether it's rising sea levels, whether it's war, persecution, freedom of religion and belief, torture, unfair trade practices, and a million other things. Those are things which come under the heading of God's call to the Church to speak for justice in every area, and not about human sexuality alone," said the communique. Or at all.

The line: Our hope and prayer is that our time in Canterbury will produce fruit that will enable the Anglican Communion to live as "God's church for God's world" raises the question, what the blazes does that even mean? expounding that slogan; it means, "You could spend a doctoral thesis expounding that slogan: it means whatever you want it to mean, writes blogger Archbishop Cranmer. "It is little better than Keir Starmer's latest slogan, 'On your side', which is little better than Ed Miliband's, 'Better Plan for a Better Future', or Gordon Brown's 'A future fair for all'," or Donald Trump's, 'Make America Great Again', or Joe Biden's 'Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead No Malarkey'. In short, it is meaningless drivel. It borders on tautology.

Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. You could zoom the whole thing for pennies on the dollar instead of the $6 million or so it will cost to run this gabfest.

Delegates will rage against the war in Ukraine with no ability to stop it. They will talk about persecution around the world mostly by Muslim terrorists against Christians with nary a word about Anglicans being slaughtered in Nigeria by Boko Haram and Fulani Tribesmen, 'Hush little baby don't you cry, Justin will sing you a lullaby.'

They will offer up prayers to reduce Covid, engage in business sessions, (the Church of South India, the most corrupt province in the communion could surely learn a thing or two about bookkeeping to outlaw their corrupt practices before they head to jail, where one archbishop has already done time.)

Then there was this: "We are concerned by the unilateral decision to construct the Grand Ethiopian Dam and the potential for water shortage in Egypt and Sudan that may result from it. We strongly believe the Blue Nile is God's gift to the countries through which it flows and should therefore be a reason for cooperation between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt to achieve sustainable development." The UN could do a better job affecting this. Why was there no outrage at the pollution of the oceans filled with empty American beer and soda cans? Or the tons of garbage the Chinese are tossing into the oceans and blaming it on the USA-someone read some of the labels.

In a glance sideways and almost incidental to the call to heal the world, the Primates did make one nod to Scripture, that to follow Jesus' command to the church to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19) should still be undertaken. You can be sure that this will be the central theme of GAFCON IV archbishops and bishops when they meet in Kigali, Rwanda next year. Of course, there were the requisite calls for prayer and Bible study, fellowship and encouragement. The Blue Nile won't feature in any GAFCON communique.

Holy hands were lifted to end the war in the Ukraine, but what about a reset in ecclesial relationships between the Church of England and the Russian Orthodox Church? If the WCC can break relations with Patriarch Kirill, why not the C of E and the lofty primatial thinkers? Why no powerful statement by the assembled bishops rejecting the position of the ROC and Kirill's support of Putin, agreeing never to enter ecumenical talks until Kirill repents of his position. Calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine is milquetoast stuff. It's a bit like having unprotected sex and hoping you won't get pregnant.

In truth, the Primates can't fix anything they made pronouncements about. It is all virtue-signaling.

We continue to lament the absence from our meetings of three primates who choose to stay away. Our reflections, deliberations and fellowship are diminished by their absence. We miss them and their prayerful wisdom, and we long for the time when we will all meet together, said the communique.

The three Primates who absented themselves were those of Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda, and we all know why. The Church Times probed a little to discover if they had given any specific reasons for not attending. The archbishop responded: "Not that I'm aware of. I think they we know very well that they feel, for one reason or another, that they don't want to be in the room with those who changed their teaching on the nature of marriage and human identity." Truth is that's the elephant in the room that will never leave.

Asked whether the spouses of bishops in same-sex marriages had been excluded from such conversations, Welby replied: "I'm not 100 per cent sure, but I think very probably."

But he said: "It is certainly one of the agreed aims of the Primates -- I think by everyone -- that we do not have the whole Lambeth Conference spent talking about issues of human sexuality, but we look at those things which are destroying tens and hundreds of millions of lives and will do even more around the world."

Really. Sodomy is a spiritual life and death issue. Your eternal destiny hangs on whether you embrace or don't a behavior proscribed by scripture. "The poor you will have with you always," said Jesus, not that he approved, rather it was a statement of fact. The rich man and Lazarus story is an indicator of where the divergence goes for all eternity.

The truth is these three provinces represent nearly 30 million Anglicans globally out of about 70 million, which means the 37 who attended have small stakes in the numbers game, with TEC and the ACoC being among the smallest provinces. For allowing sodomy to rein in their ranks, the 37 provinces are watching as their respective churches slowly disappear into the sunset.

One item that has already had Episcopal and Anglican progressives and revisionists up in arms about is this; "During our meeting, we discussed proposals from the Church of England for greater Anglican Communion involvement in the choice of future Archbishops of Canterbury, and the large majority of the primates were generally supportive of the direction of travel."

Of course, if the leadership of the Church of England ever fell into the hands of an orthodox African archbishop, all hell would break loose. Louie Crew would roll over in his grave and lesbian apologist Susan Russell has already decried "that it was little more than another paragraph in the sad chapter of the ongoing effort to impose some kind of Curial authority on the Anglican Communion -- the kind of authority which is contrary to the DNA of Anglican comprehensiveness which is one of its hallmarks."

Simon Sarmiento, editor of Thinking Anglicans commented: "This proposal is beyond madness. As the first person on Thinking Anglicans to comment expressed it: "Another move towards the see of Canterbury becoming a Poundland papacy. Lambeth already has notions of its own worth that are well above its demographic station, and this will just encourage it." Nope, it would encourage the possibility of someone orthodox in faith and morals who would clean house.

One suspects that the absence of someone as incendiary on homosexuality as Nigerian Primate Henry Ndukuba at Lambeth might be a relief for Welby who would have to listen to Ndukuba roar that much of the persecution of his people by terrorist groups is precisely because of the West's embrace of pansexuality.

Mercifully there was no singing of kumbaya, for which we should be eternally grateful.

For another perspective from conservative British Anglican blogger Archbishop Cranmer, click here: https://archbishopcranmer.com/welby-prays-lambeth-conference-wont-be-dominated-by-human-sexuality/