Continuing to read .. and of course finding that Lambeth has constantly been in difficulties from the very beginning. I hadn’t thought, of course, how significant it is that many who attend the Lambeth Conference will do so for the first and only time. So it has always been difficult to order the Conference in such a way that it builds on the work of former Conferences – too tempting to treat it as a ‘one-off’ without reference to the past. That in turn seems to contribute to the relative ineffectiveness of Lambeth Resolutions – and probably makes the Lambeth Conference less significant as one of the instruments of unity in the Anglican Communion than it might otherwise be. Maybe it’s partly a factor of time scales. Ten years may just be too long in today’s world. But, to be honest, I wouldn’t be queuing up to go more often!
I’ve been reading the GAFCON material with a curious mixture of sympathy and disappointment. I don’t think it is helpful at this moment to do more than say that I find it difficult to recognise myself in it. Maybe that shows just how ‘compromised and enfeebled’ I am without realising it.