Alternative Lambeth

This blog news item picks up the earlier blogs from the Primates meeting in Africa:


"CONSERVATIVES are planning an alternative meeting in the UK at the same time as the 2008 Lambeth Conference, it emerged this week.

The diocese of Sydney’s standing committee agreed on Monday that the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, and his five regional bishops should attend the Lambeth Conference next year. Yet members were exercised by the invitation to bishops of the Episcopal Church in the United States who “agreed to or participated in” the consecration of the Rt Revd Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, a gay man living with a partner.

The resolution advises Dr Jensen and the bishops not to accept the invitation “without making public in protest, speech and liturgical action, both prior and at Lambeth, our diocese’s principled objections to the continued participation of those whose actions have expressed a departure from the clear teaching of scripture and who have consequently excluded orthodox Anglicans from their fellowship.”

The resolution goes on to request that Dr Jensen approach “other orthodox bishops of the Communion with the purpose of meeting in England at the time of the Lambeth Conference for Christian fellowship and the planning of joint action within the Communion to contend the faith of the Apostles once delivered to the saints”.

The idea is now being put to other conservative bishops in the Anglican Communion including those who have already refused or who have not been invited to Lambeth." (Church Times Today)

Bishop Martyn Minns, a member of the Nigerian-based conservative group in the US, was one of a number who would be approached. Bishops and archbishops in the Global South would also be contacted.

“Sydney has tended to be on the edge of the Global South grouping, but this does not rule out contacting all the leaders. But this is a situation that is evolving. Nothing definite has been arranged, and no alternative venue has been booked.”

Watch this space! Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!