A Lambeth triumph for Dr. Williams, but the splits go on: CEN 1.02.09 p 8.

Lambeth, Gafcon and the American church’s legal wrangling topped the international church news in 2008.

Designed to avoid controversy, Lambeth 2008 set out to make no statements, take no stands, and avoid provoking new conflict within the Anglican Communion. By its own lights, the July 14 to Aug 3 meeting at the University of Kent in Canterbury was a triumph for its organizer and host, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, for during those three weeks the oft foretold crack up of the Anglican Communion did not happen.

While Lambeth was not by schisms rent asunder or heresies distressed—no anti-Popes set up residence in Abuja to preside over rival Communion as a result of the July gathering—functionally the tear in the fabric of the church begun in 2003 was all but completed. A third of the bishops—representing over two thirds of the communion’s active members—refused Dr. Williams’ invitation, even as the Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson was prevented from defending himself before the assembled bishops in Canterbury.

The plan for Lambeth was that if the bishops “just kept on talking”, while avoiding discussion of the underlying issues dividing them—the person of Christ, the efficacy and nature of the sacraments, the place of Scripture within the church—-a ceasefire would emerge giving time for healing.

However, “the miracle hasn’t happened,” Bishop Gregory Venables of Argentina said on Aug 2. “It was a good try,” but Lambeth did not prevent the crack up of the Anglican Communion.

“We talk but nothing is decided. People are frustrated,” and Lambeth did not address these needs.

Lambeth 2008 drew 617 bishops from the communion’s 722 dioceses, 5 missionary districts, and 2 ecclesial jurisdictions. In protest to the presence of the bishops who consecrated Gene Robinson, 214 bishops boycotted the conference. From Africa’s 324 dioceses, 200 diocesan bishops (61 percent) refused Dr. Williams’ invitation.

Three Roman Catholic cardinals also attended the Conference and offered a harsh critique of Anglican-Catholic relations. The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor urged the bishops to put their house in order, and decide what they believed. “If Anglicans themselves disagree” over contentious issues like women priests “and find yourselves unable fully to recognize each other’s ministry, how could we?” he asked.

The Russian Orthodox Church’s representative to Lambeth was blunt. Women or homosexual bishops would exclude “even the theoretical possibility of the Orthodox churches acknowledging the apostolic succession” of Anglican bishops, Bishop Hilarion of Vienna told Dr. Williams on July 28.

On August 3, the conference released a statement that noted the broad desire for a “season of gracious restraint” marked by abstentions from further gay bishops and blessings, and a halt to foreign incursions into the jurisdictions of the North American provinces.

In the closing press conference, Dr. Williams said “the pieces are on the board” for the resolution of the Anglican conflict. “And in the months ahead it will be important to invite those absent from Lambeth to be involved in these next stages.”

Yet by year’s end, Dr. Williams had yet to contact the boycotting bishops to take part in the “next stages” nor was he able to honor his promise that “within the next two months” a “clear and detailed specification for the task and composition of a Pastoral Forum” to support embattled traditionalist would be delivered to the communion.

The Lambeth call for restraint was soon rejected by left and right. On Dec 3, traditionalists in the US and Canada ratified a draft constitution for the Anglican Church in North America, institutionalizing the cross-border violations denounced by Lambeth. By mid-December five Canadian dioceses announced plans to begin work on rites for the blessing of same-sex unions, while 9 American dioceses issued formal calls for the US church to end its self-imposed ban on further gay bishops.

“We have gotten this far without formally announcing our division, but we [just] haven’t announced it” yet, Bishop Venables said on the closing day. “I hoped we would be able to talk about very serious things [at Lambeth]. We tried to but were unable to,” he said.

Standing in contrast to Lambeth’s indecision, was the June Gafcon Conference in Jerusalem. The gathering of Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals and Charismatic Anglicans formed a confessing movement centering upon common doctrinal beliefs rather than a common historical heritage or tie to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

On June 29, the 1200 delegates-including 291 bishops representing two thirds of the communion’s members—endorsed the “Jerusalem Declaration”: a 14-point manifesto that set the foundations of a “confessing movement” to provide a haven for traditionalists.

The Jerusalem Declaration “is really calling us back to our roots,” Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda said, and states “as Anglicans were we really belong.”

Nor was the Jerusalem Declaration was a mark of schism. We are “not saying we are the only faithful Anglicans,” Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen said, nor were we forming a “church within a church.” Gafcon provided a bulwark against “Western revisionist” theology by preparing a “fellowship” of Christians to “support each other in truth,” while “charting the way forward for a Gospel-centered future,” Dr. Jensen explained.

It also “creates order out of chaos,” he said. The church splits and lawsuits that had arisen since the Episcopal Church consecrated a gay priest as Bishop of New Hampshire were spiraling out of control, Dr. Jensen said.

With an estimated $5 million spent in litigation, the American church news was all but consumed with lawsuits and parish and diocesan secessions. Eleven breakaway parishes that formed the nucleus of the Nigerian backed Convocation of Anglican Churches in America (CANA) won their legal fight to quit the Diocese of Virginia and to keep their property—while lawsuits waged in New York, Florida and half a dozen other states saw the national church prevail over the parishes.

Three dioceses: Pittsburgh, Quincy and Fort Worth quit the Episcopal Church, joining the Diocese of San Joaquin in affiliating with the Province of the Southern Cone, prompting litigation in the church and secular courts. As a result of their secessions the US House of Bishops expelled the Bishops of San Joaquin, Fort Worth and Pittsburgh from their ranks—while the Bishop of Quincy took early retirement.

Litigation over parish secessions was the order of the day in Canada as well—as dioceses brought suit to gain possession of parishes that had quit the church to affiliate with the Anglican Network in Canada—a partner in the new Anglican Church in North America. Complaints by the Archbishop Fred Hiltz in January about the intrusion of the Southern Cone into Canada received a sympathetic hearing, but Dr. Williams explained that he had no power to do anything about it.

The Diocese of Sydney synod reiterated its long standing support for diaconal presidency at the Eucharist, and embarked on a campaign to offer a Bible to every home in the region. The Dioceses of Perth and Melbourne appointed the first women bishops in the country, while Adelaide continued to dig out from under the financial burden brought on by clergy abuse scandals in the 1990′s.

New Zealand elected the former bishop of Edmonton, Canada, the Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews as Bishop of Christchurch—and witnessed a division over how best to proceed over the gay issue at its meeting of General Synod.

The Church of Ireland continued its push toward breaking with the island’s sectarian past, and early in the year issued a statement confirming that the pope was not the anti-Christ.

Politics, persecution and pogroms drove the church news for the majority of Anglicans in the developing world.

A “silent genocide” underway in the Eastern Congo, church leaders claimed, has killed thousands and driven over 100,000 from their homes as rival war lords clash with government forces. The Archbishop of Burundi along with other church leaders in East Africa has sought to mediate between the Congolese government and rebel leaders-even as tensions in Burundi between Tutsis and Hutus remain high.

The shadow of genocide still hangs over neighboring Rwanda, with the Anglican Church taking the lead in providing a moral witness to combat the “genocide ideology” that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands almost 15 years ago.

Across the border in Uganda church leaders lamented the collapse of peace talks to end the 23 year old war with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Archbishop Henry Orombi has called upon the LRA to lay down its arms, but church leaders in the north of the country warn that military force will not bring an end to the conflict.

Peace has broken out across South Sudan, as the political settlement that ended the decades old civil war between the Islamist government in Khartoum and the predominantly Christian government of South Sudan appears to have taken hold. However, the crisis in Western Sudan’s Darfur region continues to sap the efforts at rebuilding the country.

Stung by the country’s post-electoral violence, Kenya’s bishops have joined with other Christian leaders in seeking constitutional reforms for the government, and an end to the tribal jealousies that all but closed the country down in January.

The Anglican Church in Ghana, however, has celebrated their country’s break with the past, applauding an apparently successful presidential and parliamentary election. Plans for division into a Ghanaian Church and a Province comprised of Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Gambia, Guinea, and Cameroon are also underway.

The Church of Nigeria continued its tremendous growth throughout 2008, adding almost three dozen new dioceses and continuing to play a prominent role in the social and intellectual life of the country. However, tensions with the Muslim minority remain high with continued bouts of sectarian violence plaguing the country. In December fresh riots broke out in Jos, leaving hundreds dead and over a dozen churches burnt to the ground.

Attacks by Hindu militants upon Christians in Orissa opened the year in India, while Islamist terrorists closed the year with terror attacks on Mumbai. Christians in Pakistan continued to live and work under legal and social pressures. The future for the country’s Christian minority was grim, the Bishop of Raiwind warned, unless the government took firm steps to control Islamist aggression.

With hundreds of thousands dead and millions left homeless by Cyclone Nargis in May, the Church in Myanmar (Burma)’s focused on rebuilding and reaching out to the those afflicted by the worst natural disaster to strike the country in the modern era.

Zimbabwe’s natural disaster, however, has been man-made by the regime of Robert Mugabe. Fraudulent elections, a complete collapse in the country’s economy and infrastructure—and by year’s end outbreaks of cholera and starvation in what was once the bread basket of Africa, have left the country all but bereft of hope. Mugabe crony Dr. Nolbert Kunonga, the former Bishop of Harare who quit the province of Central Africa to form his own Anglican Church of Zimababwe maintains a hold over most the church properties in the diocese, but has the support of only a handful of worshippers.

Dr. Sebastian Bakare, who came out of retirement to lead the embattled Anglican Church in Harare, has risen to become one of the leading moral voices in the country—and has won international accolades for his pursuit of justice and freedom in the country.

The scandal over the Church of Papua New Guinea’s former primate, Archbishop George Ambo, joining a “cargo cult” and in the process, being sought by the police for questioning in the theft of typhoon relief supplies, ended after the archbishop sought the pardon of the church and received absolution for his sins before his death in July.

Crime was also the focus of much of the work of the Church of the West Indies, with debates over the reinstitution of capital punishment, as well as a call for self-examination over the moral corruption of society.