Lambeth Reflections
Written by Rabbi Dr. Tony Bayfield Wednesday, 03 September 2008
As the Rebbe used to say, 'You’re right and you’re also right'
Travelling back from Canterbury after having spoken at the Lambeth Conference, I found myself deep in conversation with a leading Bishop of the Church of England who was playing hooky from the Conference for the evening. I won’t snitch on him because he’s a really good bloke!
A few days earlier, when I was being briefed before my lecture, another good friend explained to me that the trials and tribulations being experienced by the Anglican communion were far more profound than issues relating to sex – gay priests and women Bishops.
The Anglican communion is a product of empire and was set up without the need for formal power structures at a time when Canterbury played the same role vis-à-vis the religion of empire as the crown played in the authority of empire. Today the situation is profoundly different. There are 80 million Anglicans worldwide, the overwhelming majority being in the Far East and in Africa, far outnumbering the Anglicans of Britain and North America. The cultures are vastly different and there are no structures for mediating authority and no process for decision making. The task of this Lambeth Conference – held only once every ten years – was to see whether ways could be found of bringing a viable and acceptable authority and decision making process to this huge Church, far less hierarchical than the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.
I asked my friend, the truanting Bishop, whether he shared this analysis. He did. He went on to say the following. The vast majority of us know that we don’t possess the whole truth; that we need to accommodate other people’s understandings; that we need to allow for decision making at a non-centralised level; and that we need to establish ways in which dissenting minorities can be respected and have their needs met.
Unfortunately, he said, there is a minority who keep rejecting the compromises, who are so convinced of their own rightness that they want to impose it on the rest of us and, if they can’t get their own way, are prepared to see the Anglican communion fall apart. In a way, the specific issues don’t matter. What is at stake is how you live with difference, how you retain a broad church, how you vindicate the majority without trampling on – or being trampled on by – the minority.
Suddenly, I understood what was at stake. Sadly, the British Jewish community has absolutely nothing to teach the Church of England in its hour of need. We too are weighed down by the arrogance of those who suppose that they alone possess the whole of God’s truth. Religion and religious leaders preach humility. What a disaster it is that so many refuse to practice it.
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