At Lambeth, Anglican Bishops Cannot 'Walk Together'

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Thabo Makgoba, archbishop of Cape Town, participate in the closing service of the 2022 Lambeth Conference in Canterbury Cathedral in the United Kingdom. Photo: Neil Turner for The Lambeth Conference.

Religion Unplugged believes in a diversity of well-reasoned and well-researched opinions. This piece reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent those of Religion Unplugged, its staff and contributors.

(OPINION) While Canterbury is urging Anglicans to keep “walking together,” the 2022 Lambeth Conference demonstrated that many of the Anglican Communion’s bishops can no longer even receive the Eucharist together.

Doctrinal conflicts over biblical authority and sexuality have raged for decades, with growing churches in the Global South clashing with the shrinking but wealthy churches in England, America and other Western regions. During the 12-day conference, which ended Sunday, Aug. 8, conservatives from Africa, Asia and elsewhere declined to receive Holy Communion with openly gay and lesbian bishops. Several provinces — including the massive Church of Nigeria — boycotted Lambeth 2022 altogether.

“For the large majority of the Anglican Communion, the traditional understanding of marriage is something that is understood, accepted, and without question, not only by bishops but their entire church,” said Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby in a midconference address. “To question this teaching is unthinkable and in many countries would make the church a victim of derision, contempt and even attack.”

Bishops in the minority, he added, “have not arrived lightly at their ideas. ... They are not careless about Scripture. They do not reject Christ. But they have come to a different view on sexuality after long prayer, deep study and reflection on understandings of human nature. For them, to question this different teaching is unthinkable.”

Throughout Lambeth 2022, the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches — representing about 75% of Anglican church attendance — pushed to reaffirm a 1998 Lambeth resolution that “homosexual practice” is “incompatible with Scripture,” while also urging Anglicans to “oppose homophobia.” It stressed centuries of doctrine that “sexuality is intended by God to find its rightful and full expression between a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage, established by God in creation, and affirmed by our Lord Jesus Christ.” That earlier resolution passed with 526 votes in favor, 70 opposed and 45 abstentions.

Writing to Lambeth participants, Welby said the “validity” of that resolution “is not in doubt” and that the “whole resolution is still in existence.”

However, the archbishop did not allow a vote on the issue, and he said he would not, as requested by Anglican primates in the past, discipline the unorthodox. Welby’s team consistently tried to focus attention on restorative justice, Christian unity and global warming — such as a photo-op with bishops planting a tree at Lambeth Palace.

“Truth and unity must be held together, but church history also says that this sometimes takes a very long time to reach a point where different teaching is rejected or received,” said Welby. “I neither have, nor do I seek, the authority to discipline or exclude a church of the Anglican Communion. I will not do so.” He then cited a Lambeth 2022 trope: “As bishops we remain committed to listening and walking together to the maximum possible degree, despite our deep disagreement on these issues.”

A coalition of Anglican bishops and primates “keen to affirm and celebrate LGBT+ people” quickly interpreted Welby’s “walking together” message as a signal to move on. While committed to “working with our siblings across the communion,” these bishops stressed, “We will never shy away from tackling discrimination and prejudice against those of differing sexualities and gender identities.”

The Rev. Charlie Bell, fellow at Girton College, Cambridge, and author of the book “Queer Holiness,” went further. “The Lambeth Conference has,” tweeted the psychiatrist, “ended with a recognition — explicit and implicit — that the acceptance of LGBTQI love and SSM (same-sex marriage) is within the bounds of the communion we share. The Holy Spirit was at work.”

For Global South bishops, all of this showed that Anglicanism “is not in a healthy, working state.” The question is whether brokenness will inspire repentance.

The “revisionist Provinces,” said a Global South Fellowship statement, “adapt the Word of God to the prevailing culture ... and end up condoning what is morally wrong in God’s eyes. ... Failing to correct false teaching is to fail to act in love. Hence, orthodox Bishops are duty-bound to God not to ‘live and let live’ under the guise of simply walking together.”

Thus, Archbishop Justin Badi Arama of South Sudan told journalists, “A communion is where you have one belief, one doctrine, and here there is an issue where there are two different doctrines. How can you walk together?”

Terry Mattingly leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.