Ruth Gledhill: Anglicanism's hectic summer

April 03, 2008

This is a copy of my latest CEN column, reproduced also by Lisa Nolland on Anglican Mainstream. Thank you Lisa.

When Gafcon (the Global Anglican Future Conference) was first announced, I was utterly dismayed.

Never mind the theology. How on earth were we going to cover it? For religion correspondents the Olympics are coming four years early. Our task is Herculean. The events we must race between, holding high our flaming batons of "truth" and "justice", included Lambeth, General Synod, Methodist Conference, the usual Roman Catholic conferences that happen around this time, alongwith various wars around the globe involving Islam.

Not only did Gafcon land slap bang in the middle of all the Christian ecclesiological war fare, it also landed like some unexploded hand grenade in the middle of one of these very real Islamic conflict zones. Did these people not have children? Were no women involved? Will I ever see my son this summer? That’s why I’ve disappeared off skiing a record three times this spring, to escape into the mountains while I can. I wanted, no needed, some of the mountain-top fresh air that is in such short supply in the under-air conditioned Times office at Wapping, along with some ‘quality time’ with my family and friends before the internecine Anglican wars that dominate my professional life separated me from them for weeks at a time. the rest