By Allan Reeder
Lambeth Conference Communications

The Lambeth Conference sent a strong message of commitment to church unity Tuesday (August 4, 1998).

In its first plenary session to debate resolutions, the bishops recommitted the international Anglican church to journey towards "the full, visible unity of the Church as the goal of the Ecumenical Movement," and voted to strengthen the role of its own major ecumenical agency.

"As bishops, the visible unity of the Church is a vital part of our ministry," said Bishop Jabez Bryce of Polynesia, who introduced the report and resolutions from the conference's Section Four. The section, comprised of approximately 200 bishops, has been discussing the theme, "Called to be One," for the past two weeks.

After reaffirming the Anglican commitment to unity, Resolution IV.1, approved by the conference, goes on to encourage the Anglican provinces that have already formed close inter-church relationships to continue to fine tune those links. (In ecumenical circles, "visible unity" can show up in steps such as common confession of the creeds, sharing of the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, recognition of each other's clergy and joint decision-making.)

Dealing with "untidiness"

The same resolution goes on to recognize that in moving toward full visible union between the churches, certain "anomalies" may arise that are evidence of "untidiness," which "may be bearable" for the sake of achieving unity. The report lists as an example of such anomalies the problem of "overlapping jurisdictions," that is, when the territory overseen by the bishop of one church body overlaps with the territory of a bishop of another church body.

Such a situation exists in parts of Europe, for example, as the result of the 1996 Porvoo Declaration, an ecumenical agreement between the Anglican churches of Great Britain and the Lutheran churches of Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, which establishes communion between those churches.

Bishop Bryce asked: "Do Anglicans still share a common commitment to visible unity and is there behind the many ecumenical endeavours a shared vision of that unity which is God's gift to us and our vocation to play our part in bringing it into being?"

The section's report also raised issues which "took the Conference into uncharted waters with a consideration of the pastoral and ecumenical issues which arise out of Anglican experience of new churches and independent Christian groups," he said.

Bishop Bryce noted that, as the report was drafted, "we were aware that our ecumenical vocation is carried out in the context of the encounter with people of other faiths and none. If our witness is to be credible it requires that Christians are united."

Role for new commission

In other business at the plenary, the conference voted to set up a new international commission (Resolution IV.3) that will not only monitor the range of official inter-church dialogues around the Anglican world, but also intervene "to ensure theological consistency in dialogues."

Under the terms of the resolution, when a proposed new inter-church agreement between an Anglican province and another denomination "affects the life of the communion as a whole," the new commission would "refer the matter to the Primates Meeting . . . before the Province enters the new relationship."

The proposal to establish the new Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations came from the church's current agency, known as the Ecumenical Advisory Group.

Unified tone to first 'debates'

The spirit of 'unity' also was evident in the pace of the plenary's business. The plenary proceeded with such a spirit of consensus that bishops completed their scheduled work on resolutions from Section Four and moved on to the reports and resolutions of Section Two, which has been considering the topic "Called to Live and Proclaim the Good News."

Two of the three Section Four resolutions (IV.1 and IV.3) presented for debate passed on a show of hands with no visible objections. The third resolution, which proposed an expanded role for the Archbishop of Canterbury in resolving internal conflicts within Anglican provinces, will be incorporated with another resolution and brought back to a conference business session later this week.

Bishop Wilson Mutebi of Mityana diocese (Uganda) had moved to amend the resolution, suggesting an expanded role for the Anglican Consultative Council instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishop Mutebi argued that giving special powers to the See of Canterbury was a departure from Anglican tradition. The amendment was defeated.

"Agreed list" resolutions approved

Tuesday's plenary also approved without debate 20 resolutions from Section Four's "agreed list" stating that the Lambeth Conference:

• Reaffirms the 1888 Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral as a statement of Anglican unity and identity; acknowledges understandings gained from ecumenical dialogues and commends continued reflection on imperatives of the Quadrilateral (IV.2).
• Welcomes local ecumenical initiatives, commends joint ministerial and theological formation, encourages ecumenical peace and environmental cooperation, welcomes the "continuing work of the Church Unity Commission on episcope" and notes its work in South Africa on mutual recognition of ministers and commends for study a proposal for an ecumenical bishop for Wales (IV.4).
• Welcomes and encourages continuance of the ecumenical work on ecclesiology and ethics done since the last Lambeth Conference; rejoices at emerging consensus that racism, sexual inequality, economic injustice and ecological degradation are un-Christian; and calls for continued efforts to resolve ethical issues threatening to divide the Anglican Communion (IV.5).
• Welcomes various ecumenical actions and agreements involving churches in communion with the See of Canterbury and recommends reflection upon and study of other such proposed actions (IV.6).
• Reaffirms the work of the World Council of Churches; invites consideration of changes necessary for the inclusion of the Roman Catholic Church as a full member of the WCC; requests consideration at the WCC Harare Assembly in December of concerns raised by the Orthodox Church (IV.7).
• Welcomes work done by the WCC towards establishing a common date for Easter and recommends guidelines for setting the date in the future (IV.8).
• Asks the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates' Meeting to consider how to initiate dialogue with groups calling themselves "continuing Anglican churches" who have separated from the Anglican Communion in recent years (IV.11).
• Encourages the world's Anglican provinces to embody the "spirit and content" of existing ecumenical agreements in their life and teaching: urges provinces to ensure new liturgical texts be "consonant with accepted ecumenical agreements"; requests the Primates to facilitate greater consultation between provinces and the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation (IV.12).
• Encourages regional conversations between Anglicans and members of the Assyrian Church of the East (IV.14).
• Recommends making implementation of Lambeth 1988 resolution 10(3) regarding establishing a continuing world-level forum between Anglicans and Baptists a priority (IV.15).
• Welcomes recent progress in Anglican-Lutheran relations and recommend further consultation (IV.16).
• Greets with appreciation the report of the Anglican-Methodist International Commission, invite its study and appropriate application, and recommend establishing an Anglican-Methodist Joint Working Group (IV.17).
• Welcomes agreements between Moravians and Anglicans in Great Britain and Ireland and commend study of the Common Statement regarding its wider application (IV.18).
• Reaffirms Lambeth 1988 resolution 5(9) regarding Anglican-Oriental Orthodox Church relations and encourage bilateral regional discussions (IV.19).
• Invites Anglican bishops to study and respond to Interim Agreed Statements of the International Commission of the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue; note continuing difficulty with Orthodox Churches regarding ordination of women; request circulation for study of Dublin Agreed Statement 1984; and welcome and recommend for study emerging Christological agreement between Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches (IV.20).
• Invites proposed Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations to explore possibility of conversations with Pentecostal churches (IV.21).
• Encourages regional initiatives and dialogues with Reformed Churches and look forward to completion of studies commissioned by Joint Working Group of the Anglican Communion and World Alliance of Reformed Churches (IV.22).
• Strongly encourages continuation of Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission work; welcome proposal for high-level consultation to review Anglican-Roman Catholic relations on several fronts; recognise special status of agreements affirmed as 'consonant in substance with faith of Anglicans' by 1988 Lambeth Conference; encourage for study ARCIC's anticipated work on authority; and welcome warmly 1995 invitation of Pope John Paul II for Anglican Communion to consider the ministry of unity of Bishop of Rome in service of unity of the Universal Church (IV.23).
• Offers warm support to the work of the WCC's Faith & Order Commission (IV.24).
• Encourages new links to develop between Anglican churches and the world's "New Churches and Independent Christian Groups" a category to include pentecostal and locally-based churches. In an effort to learn from the growth of these churches, the resolution also asks the Primates to monitor their development (IV.25).

(The content of a number of original resolutions drafted by this section were incorporated into resolutions put forward by other sections of the Lambeth conference, and so are not listed here.)

Randall Lee, E.T. Malone Jr., Susie Erdey and James Thrall contributed to this story.