Albert Mohler on Lambeth 2008

A 'Season of Gracious Restraint?' Not Likely.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008

The 2008 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops ended with something more like a whimper than a bang. The once-a-decade meeting of bishops of the Anglican Communion was a matter of controversy long before it started. In an unprecedented move, over 200 conservative bishops boycotted the meeting and held their own gathering in Jerusalem a few weeks before the Lambeth conclave. The 650 bishops who did attend had faced one unavoidable question -- will the Anglican Communion survive?

Anglicans -- like most denominations -- are no strangers to controversy. But the stresses and strains in the Anglican Communion have clearly reached the breaking point. Some of the tensions can be traced back to the historical roots of the church and the attempt to forge a national church out of the turmoil of English history. In more recent years the church has claimed a principle of "comprehensiveness" that has produced the radical doctrinal diversity that is now tearing the church apart.

The Anglican Communion includes the Church of England and other national churches associated with that church and its primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the United States that church has been the Episcopal Church U.S., which made its break from the Church of England in the course of the American Revolution. Virtually all of the member churches are evidence of the long reach of the British Empire and the missionary efforts of the Church of England. the rest image