Letter from the Vicarage

June 2008

Dear Friends,

This summer we will be welcoming around twenty bishops and their wives to Sussex from the world wide Anglican Communion. They will be coming from West Africa, Canada, USA, Australia, India and New Zealand. The bishops will be here in the lead up to the Lambeth Conference taking place in Canterbury during July. I am involved in organising a programme of events that includes a service in the Cathedral, a conference in Hove and even a trip on the Bluebell Railway!

Of course the Lambeth conference, which takes place every ten years, has been surrounded by controversy this year. A significant number of bishops are refusing to come largely because of the presence of the American bishops who consecrated the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson. None of the Nigerian or Ugandan bishops will be attending. Sadly this means that although over 70% of the bishops will be at the conference less than 50% of Anglicans worldwide will be represented.

It is a huge loss to the Communion that so many, especially African, bishops will not be at Lambeth. They have felt that their views have not been listened to in the past and that the American church has acted arrogantly, independently and contrary to Scripture. On the other side the Americans feel that they are leading the way on an issue of social justice. Quite how these positions can be held together goodness knows!

Back to the bishops who will be in Sussex. We have no idea what the views are of the bishops that will be visiting us. However, we see it as our duty to offer genuine Christian hospitality to whoever comes, even if we disagree with them. It is only when we meet together, talk and listen to each other that we can begin to understand each other. Our prayer for the Lambeth conference must be that our bishops model this kind of dialogue.

If you want to find out more about the controversy surrounding the Lambeth conference and explore what might lie ahead for the Communion we will be looking at the issues at our evening Kairos service on 8th June at 6pm.

With best wishes.

Mark

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