A church divided

Anglicans stand in the middle of “one of the most severe challenges” to have faced the Church in history, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams said last week. He was speaking at the 14th Lambeth Conference which saw 650 bishops from 43 national churches and 164 countries gather at the University of Kent. Rwanda’s Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini was not among them. In fact, a large number of primates and bishops were missing because of a boycott relating to biblical authority, homosexuality and gender roles. The current fissures began a decade ago at the last Lambeth Conference with a controversial resolution about homosexual practice and the Bible. The ordination of an openly gay bishop, the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson from New Hampshire in 2003, the election in 2005 of the first woman primate, the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori by the Episcopal Church, USA, and the recent General Synod vote for women bishops in England have heightened tensions at the current conference.