RITE AND REASON:Appreciation of the hurt and integrity on both sides of same-sex debate emerged, writes JOHN NEILL
THERE IS something unique about the Lambeth Conference which seeks to gather together all the Anglican bishops around the world to a conference every 10 years.
This is because the Anglican Communion which, though like the Protestant world communions in being made up of autonomous local churches, differs in being united by a single historic episcopal ministry, and indeed by the special primacy of honour given to the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, unlike the Roman Catholic Church, it has no central magisterium, and authority is widely dispersed.
Lambeth 2008 was heralded by some as the break-up of the Anglican Communion. The consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson in New Hampshire brought into sharp focus not simply the controversies surrounding a gay lifestyle, but also the deeper and underlying issue as to whether a church could act independently of the rest of the communion of churches in a matter that went right to the heart of the understanding of Scripture, tradition and, indeed, that of the ministry.
In the lead-up to the conference, some 20 per cent of bishops dropped out of it, often because their primate insisted.
Across the last couple of decades, there had been a centralising momentum developing in global Anglicanism, in spite of the fact that many of the member churches, including the Church of Ireland, have resisted it.
Alongside this, there has also been a tendency among some to accord to the Lambeth Conference a status of a council of the Church, making decisions binding on all member churches.
It was therefore natural that some expected the Lambeth Conference to declare definitively on current problems.
Those planning Lambeth 2008 were inspired with a new approach. It was not to be a decision-making body producing either clear answers, or a "fudge", a sort of compromise that would satisfy nobody. Instead what was envisaged was a listening and reflective process through which might be discerned something that could unite the church in a way forward.
This was to be in the context first of a three-day retreat, and then listening and discussion, but in the context of Bible study and worship.
The outcome in terms of paper is a document of reflections. More significantly, there emerged, as conservatives and liberals listened to one another, a fresh appreciation of the depth of hurt felt on all sides, as well as of the integrity of one another.
The Archbishop of Canterbury gave strong spiritual and intellectual leadership, showing how any change that might come in the future had to be tested and explored, and indeed discerned to be right, before the worldwide communion could even accept it.
Words like patience, restraint, waiting, listening seemed as the conference progressed to replace words such as demand, condemn and even repent! It was not that an agreement was emerging that could be defined, but instead a determination that the communion must stay together.
The sad thing is that those who stayed away simply did not have the experience of sitting together in prayer and worship and Bible study with such a wide variety of people, through whom God seemed to speak many healing words to the Anglican Communion.
The work of the Lambeth Conference continues - a genuine attempt is being made to provide a "temporary safe space" for those who cannot remain in their local province but yet want to remain Anglican, and this should replace the irregular "invasions" of churches in north America by some from the Global South.
A moratorium seemed to be widely acceptable on both official same-sex blessing liturgies and on consent to ordinations to the episcopate of those in same-sex relationships.
Meanwhile work goes ahead on an Anglican Covenant which would be a basic series of commitments that churches would eventually agree, setting out the basis of the Anglican Communion, and the basic demands of belonging to it.
Hard and fast decisions have not been made, but pointers given so that the discussions within the Anglican family of churches can continue.
John Neill is Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin