Bishop Wendell Gibbs with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

by Herb Gunn

One week into the 20-day Lambeth Conference, Bishop Wendell Gibbs sat down with The Record to assess the start of the conference that has drawn 650 bishops of the world-wide Anglican Communion to Canterbury, England. The conference is taking place on the campus of the University of Kent on the northside of the historic city and will conclude August 3.

The conference began with three days of retreat with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to discuss and explore the ministry of a bishop. While it's a normal conversation within dioceses to discuss the parameters of the priesthood, the diaconate and even lay ministries, the opportunity for vocational discernment and refreshment does not come as readily for bishops of a diocese.

"Doing this in the location of Canterbury Cathedral was a wonderful connection to the history and the tradition of the Communion and the Anglican Church. Having all the bishops in the Cathedral singing with the reverberation of the music after we stopped was as if it hung on the airwaves, mixing with all those who had come before us and those who will come after us. This was a very holy moment," Gibbs recounted.

The three days of retreat during which the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a series of plenary talks to set the tone of the conference has been followed by days and evenings of structured and optional programmatic workshops and small group discussions through what are called Indaba groups. A written summary of comments made within all of these groups will build a history of the discernment across the Anglican Communion on a wide-range of topics.

"We have had a very full agenda focused on evangelism, Millennium Development Goals, and concerns throughout the globe where we are looking at issues that affect our brothers and sisters all around the world," said Gibbs in a brief summary of discussions thus far.

Gibbs said he has listened to a bishop from Sudan whose diocese has no housing for him, no schools for his children, and where many of the churches are destroyed.

Along with the Sudanese bishop, Gibbs's group includes two bishops from Papua New Guinea, a bishop from Australia, one from Toronto, one from Tanzania and one from England.
Concerning reports that the Lambeth Conference is principally focused on conflict across the Anglican Communion and that will reverberate to Michigan, Gibbs completely disagrees.

"I do not see any division here. We are certainly not engaged in a debate around division, around schism. We are, in fact, engaged in a discussion about unity: How do we live together in the midst of our diversity? Are there people here who disagree with things the Episcopal Church has done? Yes. But my experience is that these issues are not communion-breaking issues for the people who are here. And we have prayed for those bishops who have chosen not to be here for one reason or another and we continue to invite them to be part of the conversation.

"This is not a preparation for schism," Gibbs said.

Near the end of the final week of the conference, attention will be turned to the idea of an Anglican Covenant-a proposal under consideration that might outline core expectations of its member churches-and the most recent version called the St. Andrew's Draft. For the Episcopal Church, any formal consideration or acceptance of such a pact would have to be considered by General Convention, not merely the bishops of the Episcopal Church.

"As I understand the process, there will be another draft after the bishops have had an opportunity for input and after it has gone back to the design group. The new draft beyond the St. Andrew's draft will go to the ACC [the Anglican Consultative Council-the only body in the Anglican Communion that includes voices of the laity]. At the meeting, they have the opportunity to say ‘okay, this is ready for prime-time viewing; let's send it to the [38 Anglican Communion] Provinces' or they can send it back to the design committee and say ‘this needs more work.'"

The ACC only meets once every three years, so any definitive plan for an Anglican Covenant could take many more years.
In a few Provinces, Gibbs said, some bishops are not even aware of the proposals and the Windsor Report.

The issues under consideration by the bishops gathered at Canterbury are large, compelling and complex-and if anything, addressing the pressing issues that face the world will determine the course of the Anglican Communion more deeply and long after any disagreement over human sexuality.

"As the preacher so well stated on Sunday [in the opening worship service], the church does not exist for itself. If all we ever talk about are internal concerns, we become irrelevant to the world. There is no one here who wants the Communion to become irrelevant. We've got to be able to speak to the war in Sudan, problems in Zimbabwe, war in the Middle East. We've got to be able to speak to the people who continue to die of HIV-AIDS around the world. We've got to be able to speak to environmental issues. All of these are on our agenda here. Throughout the discussion group process, we've got to put together a commentary on where we all are as bishops," Gibbs said.

"Since the watershed moment of Bishop Robinson's election and concurrence and ultimate consecration, we have had one priest with a portion of a congregation choose not to walk with us," Gibbs explained when asked about the July 22 Detroit Free Press story that made it sound as if several churches in the Diocese of Michigan had left the Episcopal Church over the sexuality conflict. "The remaining members of that congregation are still in a viable Christian community still known as St Andrew's, Livonia. There may have been other members of other congregations who have chosen to worship elsewhere, but we have not had a mass exodus of members of our diocese."

Gibbs indicated that the conversations around the presenting issues are not over, "but I still believe very firmly that the Church is wide enough to contain all of our various opinions. We certainly have clergy and laity in the diocese who are of different minds, not only on the issues of sexuality, Gene Robinson and other gay and lesbian clergy, but also folks who are on different sides of the issue on women's ordination. We have people on different sides of the debate over which prayer book to use; how old is that debate? We've always had room to disagree in the church. We will continue to. This has been a hot topic, but I don't see it tearing the church asunder."

Gibbs said he doubted that a huge number of people are waiting at home in Michigan to see if this issue will be resolved once and for all in Canterbury.

"I think there are just as many if not more people, not only in our own diocese in Michigan but around the world, who are saying ‘let's get on with it. The Gospel mission is to show people Jesus and we do that in the ways we relate to the world by being faithful to our calling and not continuing to debate issues that certainly among our young people is a non-issue, certainly among many of our adults is a tiresome issue," he said.
 

"I agree. I worry that the Church has lost some of its integrity because we preach one thing and we do another. In the Cathedral on Sunday, while it was a glorious service and a wonderful opportunity to worship in that great historic cathedral, many of us were very hurt by singing a hymn where the refrain was ‘all are welcome' and knowing that at this moment all are not welcome because our brother Gene was not there to sing it with us. That is a hard thing for all of us."

Gibbs recounted a story told to him by the bishop from Ireland when he took his family to the London airport to return home. His teenage son asked about Lambeth and what the controversies were. The Irish bishop mentioned that one bishop from the United States was not invited.

His son said, "‘let me get this straight; the people of his diocese elected him, right?'

"And his father said, ‘yes.'

"And the son said, ‘and then he wasn't invited as a bishop to the Lambeth Conference.'

"And his father said, ‘right.'

"And his son said, "that's not fair.'

"That is all his son sees as the issue: fairness," Gibbs said. "I understand that there are people around the world and in our own Church and even in our own diocese that would say it is more than that. But the age bracket that many of us label as the Church of the future is saying ‘Stop it or there's not going to be a Church in the future; get on with the mission.'"

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MDG March in London

On July 24, Anglican bishops will take to the streets of London to emphasize commitment to MDGs

[Episcopal News Service] When Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and more than 600 Anglican bishops, their spouses and other faith leaders from around the United Kingdom march through central London July 24, Episcopalians back home can "march" with them.

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