Fulcrum Blog
Bishop of Bristol blogs from Lambeth 2008

This will be my last blog because I have to go back to Bristol on Monday.  The reason for this is that my second daughter, Charis is getting married on Saturday and my wife needs some support in the myriad of last minute things to do!

Today has been the last Indaba group for me and I thought it was excellent.  This was partly due to the facilitator who I think has been excellent and partly due to the process, which has been under pressure at points, but I now think is starting to pay dividends.  Indaba protocol means that I am not able to speak in any detail about this.  However, I can confirm that these groups appear to have created a 'space' for people to express very divergent views without creating the kind of division that people are expecting.

I think it must be quite frustrating for the media, who have not been able to pick over the bones of massive feuding.

Today we had the group photograph, in itself an interesting logistics problem.  Imagine trying to get 600+ bishops to do what you want them to do!  Unlike 1998 when we did it with passive acceptance, today we sang, in good harmony, the words of John Newton's hymn, 'Amazing Grace' whilst the photographer and his assistants arranged us for the photograph.  In its way it said something of the spirit of the conference.

Let me end by saying a thank you to the thousands of people who have apparently logged on and read the writings of myself, +Nick Baines, and more latterly, +Andrew Burnham.  I hope that you have read something of the reality of what we have been sharing in over the past ten days.

Finally, a thank you to Fulcrum for giving me the opportunity to offer some reflections.

The truth is that getting a dispensation to go home on Monday was something I viewed as a potential bonus as I came with a level of anxiety as to what might happen.  I can honestly say that the past ten days have allayed my fears and I shall drive home on Monday with a heavy heart because of what I might miss.

My hope and prayer is that what has been achieved in the first ten days will provide a platform for the final seven days.  I have learnt that it is much better to talk to people than talk about them.  That is why I am so disappointed that some people chose to stay away.

To indaba or not to indaba, that is the question?  Well something like that anyway.  Today is a beautiful and hot day down here and certainly it feels as though the temperature is rising.

Interestingly, this is not to do with what you might imagine, but to do with process.  To do with how we talk about the difficulties within the Communion, rather than, at this stage, the actual problems themselves.

There seems to a number of different strands of approach emerging. 

First there are those, and I include myself, who think the present indaba approach should be given more time to develop. 

Then there are those who think that the present approach is too managed and controlled and imagine that, if somehow we could revert to a more authentic and African indaba model, we would somehow 'cut to the chase' and talk about our problems.  In favour of this point of view is the fact that if it proves to be too 'managed' it will become disconnected to the wider proceedings of the Conference. This is because it would factor out the need to be responsive to issues as they arise within the wider goings on.

Then there are some who feel irritated that this is not an African style indaba and think it therefore flawed and even disrespectful.  However, as one African Bishop remarked 'It can't be an African indaba because we're not all African'.  Good point!  I have the feeling that many of us who are not from Africa have certain misunderstandings about the African approach. But I think we're learning! 

I hope all this is making sense because for a brief time I was a bit confused this morning!

Then I opened my Times.  Apart from a hilarious cartoon implying that the heavily disguised Radovan Karadzic bore a certain similarity to the Archbishop of Canterbury, there was a strange piece from Ruth Gledhill, struggling to get her head around the indaba groups.  Fair enough, we all are in different ways.

However, she seemed to me to be trying to pour petrol on the sparks of potential controversy by arguing from the particular to the general - 'a bishop commented', implying therefore lots of bishops must think this.  Then her second paragraph which reads 'Yesterday, the Archbishop of Canterbury invited hundreds of feuding bishops to an Anglicised version of the indaba'. I just wonder if we are at the same conference.  It certainly doesn't feel like that. 

The vast majority as far as I can see have come to do business and to do it in a way that befits the Church of God.  The problem is that to do it this way may not be that newsworthy.  Various people who might be otherwise thought to take extreme positions on either side of the sexuality debate have expressed gratitude for much of what they have experienced.

Tomorrow's a kind of day off (breakfast at 6am apparently) as everybody is off to London for the March against Poverty and a visit to Lambeth and Buckingham Palaces.  I think that's where we are.  A day off and an opportunity for those whose spouses are here to spend a less demanding day together will be good for all and good for the ongoing process of the conference.

Bring it on.......

I just read Nick Bains' post done in the early hours of this morning.  It's scary to think that your fellow blogger cannot only throw himself into, as he says, a very full day's programme, but that in the early hours of the morning he can write something as fair and coherent as he has.

Fate has conspired to put us both in the same Ndaba group and I would share his insights into the positive start they have made.  It is interesting however, to see how the process has been 'westernised'.  Felt pens and whiteboards to the fore!  However, it was fascinating to participate.

My Bible study has not yet really worked that well because four out of the eight present remain fairly quiet, which I reckon has more to do with confidence about speaking in English than anything else.  However, there is small progress day by day and I like very much the qualities I see in the members.

In my small Ndaba group of five I had a Venezuelan and apart from the fascinating and culturally diverse way in which members (Mexican, Australian and American) pitched in with their basic understandings of their episcopal ministry, I had a fascinating talk with my new Venezuelan friend about President Hugo Chavez.

He thought Chavez was a great man and that the only people who did not like him were the elite who had been ousted by him.  He has made a huge difference to the poor and improvements in health care and education have given people the means to lift themselves out of poverty.  He also told me that petrol in Venezuela traded at about 0.1p per litre!

Part of the privilege of being here is the opportunity to have those off-line conversations with bishops snd their spouses.  It maybe that I lead a sad life, but this opportunity is not offered to me on a daily basis and I intend to milk it!

Bruce Maclaren was very challenging.  Obviously he had more to say to post-modern contexts, but the extended applause he received indicated that his stuff had played out well with the punters.  Nick's comments that his analysis was a bit 'broad brush' is entirely fair, though I found his style of communication (Powerpoint with photographs and imagination) very helpful.

Without prior consultation, it is clear that Nick and I have tried to take a similar approch to the conference.  I think we have decided to approach everything in a positive and open way and then reflect, hopefully realistically and fairly on what we have experienced. 

Amazingly, a fellow English bishop told me that he thought that the main thing that we English brought to the conference table was 'unfettered cynicism.'  Personally, I think if that is all we have to bring that is a bit sad.  I say that recognising that I can easily be sucked into a mickey-taking cynicism myself.  With a somewhat hybrid background (father from an American family, a mother who was from a German family) I am loathe to conclude that unfettered cynicism is a national characteristic of the English, but I think we do sail a bit close to the wind in all this. 

I read Ruth Gledhill's  generally fair piece in the Times yesterday and was interested to read her sentence, "The sermon (in the Cathedral on Sunday) marked the official start of the Conference and confirmed the liberal direction of the Church."  Such a comment might have been true of many of the Churches in the developed world and was certainly a fair comment on the Bishop of Colombo's sermon, but, thus far, the evidence on the ground of the conference, despite the absence of the GAFCON bishops, is actually the opposite in my view.  A colleague remarked that he thought that if (God forbid!) Lambeth resolution 1:10 was brought back for a vote, it would go through comfortably.

Having been here in 1998, the one thing that seems clear is that a strong commitment to social justice and concern for the poor is much more prevailent this time around than it felt last time  I think this is a reflection of the fact that worldwide, Pentecostals and Evangelicals are now very committed to these  significant and biblical themes. Maybe this confuses the traditional domains of liberals and conservatives.

Well here we are.  The sun's shining, I'm off to my Bible study and thus far it all feels very good and a privilege to be here.  What a great pity some people aren't here!

I have just read Nick Bains' excellent write up of yesterdays event and I think he got the whole day in the right kind of focus.  I will however, comment in a little more detail on the Bishop of Columbo's sermon at the Cathedral.

Nick, in quoting from Clive Hansford's input at the first plenary session alluded to the fact that the hymn, "All are welcome" doesn't mean that anything goes.  Two things occurred to me about the sermon.  Firstly, for reasons I can't quite understand the sermon was applauded.

I liked the gentle style of the preacher and it crossed my mind to object to the Buddhist chant with which he ended, but I couldn't be bothered.  It was not a bad sermon, but when I think of some of the amazing sermons I have heard which have been met with silent passivity, it certainly wasn't good enough to clap.

There was nothing in the sermon that I objected too.  It was simply what wasn't said that worried me.  He placed three challenges to the Communion.

First, our communion must return to the discipline of self scrutiny.  This emerges from our rich tradition of meditation and contemplation.  He alluded the parable of the plank and the speck of sawdust.

Secondly, we need to resuscitate the challenge of unity in diversity.  This he described as an insight into what the Church is meant to be.

Finally, he challenged the Church to re-discover it's prophetic voice.

So far so good, but that was it!  To speak about Anglican identity without reference to the Scriptures and the Catholic teaching of the Church seemes to me to be an avoidance of our Communion problems.  It felt like the Communion was like a big ship which had just been cut loose from any moorings.

All that said, I share Nick's view that it was a very powerful experience and the fact that we are here and we are gathering at the Lord's table is a very good and positive experience.  Actually, I'm looking forward to my first Ndaba group.

P.S.  Just heard Nick Baines being interviewed with Theo Hobson on Radio 4 and thought he did an excellent job of undermining Theo's cynicism about the Conference.  Good on yer Nick!

It's early on Sunday morning and I have just been listening to Radio 4's piece on the Lambeth Conference.  Much quoted was Stephen Bates phrase likening the Conference to a train crash in slow motion.  Well, time will tell.

Tomorrow the Ndaba groups kick off and will hopefully provide a better way of discussing difference and disagreements than the more parliamentary debate style which led to Lambeth '98's outcomes.

There was much debate on the radio about whether a Covenant is 'Anglican' and you can see partly what the Archbishop was talking about yesterday (referred to in my post yesterday), in not using the 'Is it Anglican?' question to pull down the Communion scrum.

My old friend Vincent Strudwick pointed out how the Communion has changed over the years.  The first Lambeth Conference he opined was a bunch of white bishops, many of whom had been at school together, meeting to chew the cud.  How things have changed!

Norman Doe an eminent ecclesiastical lawyer, offered the view that a Covenant was not a new idea in seeking to hold together a global denomination.  He reminded us that the Lutherans had already gone down this route

Finally, some members of an Anglican Congregation from Letchworth offered their views.  Without giving the impression that they really understood what the Anglican Communion was all about, they generally thought that it would affect the local church if the train crash happened.  This was backed up by a more informed input from Lucy Winkett at St Pauls. 

Well, I have to say that from my own perspective it doesn't feel thus far like a train crash waiting to happen.  True there is a slight 'elephant in the room' feel to being here, but I have not yet experienced or observed any unpleasantness to date.

It still feels as though there is much to play for and I think that it is difficult for me to see what might be left of the Communion if a covenant or something like it can't be agreed on.  Of course this is slightly complicated by the 'elephant in the garden', GAFCON and where all that will go if Lambeth doesn't in some way satisfy their demands.

Anyway as I said at the top of this piece, time will tell.  We are here and that's a start.  I am aware that in the run up, there has been much criticism of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  I have to say that I think he is right to try, as he has, to do everything he could to create unity within the Communion.  As someone said on the radio, for some members, the maintenance and support of the Communion is, quite literally a matter of life and death.

The "retreat" came to an end this morning in the big top (no circus jokes!) with yet another interesting input from the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Though called a retreat it was barely recognisable as one.  For instance, there was very little silence and room for reflection.  This aside, I think it has been valuable to listen to the Archbishop in the context of bishops from around the world.  Our  differing situations mean that we hear different things from the same words.

He spent this morning talking about the paradox that leaders (in the Church) are always followers.  Their calling is to lead people into new experiences of God and in our life together in the world.  Leadership for us can never be about issuing commands.

He also encouraged us to be risk takers.  Borrowing from a quotation in the 1978 Lambeth Conference preparation papers written by Alan Ecclestone the Archbishop noted that episcope is not just about oversight, it is also about insight.

The question that so quickly comes to mind in those who forget this truth when faced with a new and risky initiative is one that has frustrated me throughout my ministry.

"Is it Anglican?"

The Archbishop said that our first response to this question ought to be fashioned by insight rather than oversight.  He reframed the question in a more helpful way.  "Will this or that new initiative lead us to new experiences of God and new ways of being in the world?"

Having given the lion's share of my time to mission and evangelism, I have been constantly asked the "Is it Anglican?" question.  It has always felt like an attempt to "pull down the scrum," because so much of what people perceive to be Anglican is refracted through cultural spectacles rather than our clear and empowering values.

Having reflected further on his thoughts, I'm up for a bit more of that!

This afternoon was free time so I took myself into the centre of Canterbury, bought some coffee and indulged in a favourite pastime of mine - observing people and reminding myself that it was for people like the Canterbury consumer crowd that Jesus gave himself over to death.

I am refreshed and re-inspired to work tirelessly for building ecclesial communites that will better and more sacrificially serve and save the world that God loves more than I will ever understand.

And it's only Day Three!

This morning I met a bishop in my allotted small group from Southern Sudan. He was ordained a bishop 33 days ago and since then has been unable to visit his Diocese. When he gets there he inherits a Diocese which is almost entirely devoid of any institutional infrastructure.

No stipend, no Bishop's house, no Cathedral, no Diocesan Office. Just a handful of congregations pastored by untrained or partly trained staff. His conclusion was hard to disagree with. "There is much to be done!"

Of course, a very small part of me imagined that being free of the "clutter" of institutional paraphernalia would be a kind of blessing. However, my heart told me that creating a Diocese ex nihilo would be a massive challenge. Where would one begin? The answer was relatively uncomplicated - with prayer.

All this took me to the endless discussions within the Diocese I serve where we imagine ourselves to be short of resources. The truth is uncomfortable. In terms of a comparison with my Sudanese brother, we are rich. I confess to feeling a little guilty as I thought about the house I live in, the car, the cathedral, the Diocesan Office and the list goes on and on.

This Lambeth is intended to be a gathering place for people's stories.  Some of those stories are comfortable and familiar. Some however, are very demanding and unfamiliar.

After barely 24 hours here, I am focussed on how I can better listen to those less than comfortable and unfamiliar stories and what all that might mean for my own story and that of the Diocese of Bristol.

Later this morning we heard a very thoughtful reflection from the Archbishop of Canterbury about the role of the Bishop as a person whose obedient life in God holds together their obedient listening in the world. This was a challenging portrait of the Bishop as the "Christ-like stranger."

The Arcbishop reminded us that their is a time to be silent, as well as a time to speak. Something of a challenge to a Lambeth blogger!

In his recent book, 'The Reason for God', Tim Keller starts with this intriguing point

"There is a great gulf today between what is popularly known as liberalism and conservatism. Each side demands that you not only disagree with but disdain the other as (at best) crazy, or at worst evil. This is particularly true when religion is the point at issue."

My fear for Lambeth is that it will become dominated by one issue and that the media will try and seize the agenda and if necessary distort it. For instance, a recent article in the Guardian attributed certain sentiments to the Archbishop of Uganda.  I can tell you, as I have contacted his office, that he certainly did not say what was attributed to him or anything like it.

Further reflection however takes me back to Tim Keller's opening remark. Of course there is a presenting issue about the part that gay and lesbian people can play in the life of the Church which is important, but is this part of a wider chasm which is opening up about the way we do our theology? Liberalism inclines to an agenda which seems to be driven by the value of universal inclusion. I am told that this is now leading to baptism being questioned as a 'qualification' for receiving Holy Communion in certain Episcopalian churches in the USA.

To those of us who are not happy to be labelled as fundamentalist, but who try to take the Bible seriously, a cursory reading would certainly put the brakes on the idea that God is as universally inclusive as some would like to make him. Whilst we are told that it is "His will that all will be saved," (1 Tim. 2:4) it is equally clear that some will be excluded (Matt.25:46) and that there are some whom the Church is asked to "have nothing to do with." (2 Tim. 3:5).

Here's my point, I don't think that liberals or conservatives are 'evil' but I do think there is a lot of theological listening and learning to be done and certainly some work to be done on the whole area of what Christians can mean by inclusion. If Lambeth could be a backdrop for some of that stuff it could certainly fulfill an important function. Either that or the chasm between us will become wider and deeper and the world will be further confused.

This is not my first Lambeth Conference. I was there when apparently all the Anglican Communion trouble kicked off. I was even at the Lambeth I.10 vote, though I'm not sure my grandchildren will remember me for that. - at least I hope not!

I can't leave for Canterbury untill tomorrow so I have a day to check out my thoughts and share them with the Fulcrum Blog readers.

To be honest, I can't say that I am really looking forward to it. Last time reminded me of a sort of weird, national, political conference with most of the business being 'fixed' outside the main body of the Conference. To be honest, I have little time for much of that.

Because our Diocesan Link is with Uganda, our pre-Lambeth hospitality was something of a stretch. How do you give hospitaiity to people who (for whatever reasons) don't turn up? Consequently we were invited to give hospitality to a handful of bishops from the USA, the Phillipines, Mexico and Australia. Monday night we had a great banquet together and then transported them to Canterbury yesterday.

Reflecting on our time with those bishops made me reflect on a number of things.

Firstly and obvously, how very different our cultures and contexts are. We had two bishops from the USA and the one thing that is clear is that to speak of American culture as if it was one big processed, McDonalds-ising empire is too simplistic and far from true. One of the American bishops was white, male and West coast, the other black, female and East coast. Parallel universes!

Second, though I have some anxieties about Lambeth (will it just become a media circus around one person and one issue?) I am committed to being there, because staying away would rob me of the opportunity of relating with and listening to the experience of others across the Communion. It doesn't mean I have to agree with them and as far as I can see I probably won't, but it is much easier and healthier to disagree with people with whom you are in relationship. (Ask my wife!)

Thirdly, I am distressed by the inference that 'sound' people go to GAFCON and 'liberals' go to Lambeth. If you have to run your own show in Jerusalem (great place to hold such a conference!) why not come to Lambeth as well?  The Communion really did need you to be there.

I do hope that Lambeth will afford us the opportunity to look at an agenda beyond the Church - environment, violence and conflict, collapse of financial markets in the west and its knock-on effects etc. etc.

Who knows if an agenda for realising God's Kingdom on earth emerged, it might even be a significant gathering.

Mike Hill has been the Bishop of Bristol since 2003, seeking to lead the Diocese into growth. His ongoing interest in education is evidenced in his work as Chair of the Diocesan Board of Education.