Lambeth: Archbishop says truth not held by any one party

Sunday, 20th July 2008
By: George Conger

Canterbury: Truth is not the possession of any one party with the church or a single denomination, but can only be found through sustained dialogue with one another, the Archbishop of Canterbury said in an address to bishops and ecumenical participants attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference on July 19.

Warming to theme of the necessity of dialectical engagement with opposing viewpoints within the church, Dr Rowan Williams telegraphed his hopes for the Lambeth Conference, and the Anglican Communion — asking the bishops to hold together and in unity share in the search for the divine.

While his terms of reference were to the ecumenical movement, the message of unity through collective engagement was not lost upon the Anglican bishops gathered under the conference marquee at the University of Kent. Whether Dr Williams’ programme for church union can be sustained through the life of conference, however is unclear, as conservatives press for a resolution to the divisions of doctrine and discipline from within the church, while the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches have pressed Dr Williams to set his house in order. the rest