Will the (Lambeth) conference bring communion? (BBC)

By Nick Higham
BBC News

... Those who did come for the opening service of the conference listened to Bible readings in Korean and French, prayers in Swahili, and music and dance from Melanesia ...

The congregation also heard a sermon from Duleep De Chickera, the bishop of Colombo in Sri Lanka, a country as he said, of five great world religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and cricket ...

And if .. members <of the Anglican Communion> attempted what he called "this game" of trying to uproot the unrighteous, "none of us will remain" ...

Gene Robinson ... explicitly not .. invited .. for fear .. his presence would be divisive .... was .. on the conference fringe, accompanied in a show of solidarity, by many of his fellow North American bishops ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7516497.stm

episcopal folk are trying and failing to hold the whole church hostage over their outrage for ordaining both women and lgbtiq people.

it is NOT just about a gay bishop -- that's just the 'sexy' topic that makes headlines.

i will say again though -- that if the conservatives don't want to move forward -- there's nothing that will force them to stay in the communion.

and it's time -- past time -- that the church move onto other issues than molly coddling the conservatives.

the church will survive a split -- we are very old and change is a feature of being alive. sometimes slow sometimes dramatic.

all are welcome at god's table.

thanks for your concern. We'll take that under consideration.

And then proceed to ignore them and their bigoted ways.

Time to move on to important things and quit worrying so much about the tender sensitivities of those who struggle with such monumental arrogance and hate. They ought to be told that the door is open whenever they're ready. But meanwhile, we have work to do, thanks.

I've come to think that the Anglican tent is so huge that different parts of it really would prefer to have nothing to do with one another. The idea of communion will mean something different to every bishop present or not present at Lambeth. This is normal for us.

Meanwhile, we will all fumble along in our general vagueness, and since all dioceses are autonomous, and each country is as well, nothing will really change, except through court actions over property in the U.S., the only place that rules can or will be enforced. Rowan Williams as the Archbishop of Canterbury has nothing to say in U.S. property disputes, and he has not been inclined to say much about the conservatives until they set themselves up as alternatives to him. It took that much. I think their GAFCON alternative to the Anglican communion will fail, because of the lack of unity among them, and general Anglican vagueness, and lack of interest.

Lambeth happens once every ten years, it has great symbolic authority and no legislative authority, and the move by conservatives worldwide to create and enforce rules will fizzle and fail because no one, including other conservatives, wants to give Akinola and friends authority, and give away their own freedom.

This Lambeth will have no votes on anything, so nothing can or will be decided here, even if it could.

Still, it is good theater, and happens only once a decade.