Dean Slee and the English Sect – the Global Anglican Rift Widens

April 21st, 2009
By Charles Raven

The Very Rev’d Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark, has alleged that the Bishop of Rochester’s recently announced resignation is the first step in setting up an alternative church. According to last weekend’s London Sunday Telegraph he also declared that, together with Bishops Wallace Benn and Pete Broadbent, Dr Michel Nazir-Ali’s status as a bishop in the Anglican Communion, ‘must be open to some debate’ because they had declined invitations to last year’s Lambeth Conference.

Although he is one of the more outspoken liberals in the Church of England – in 2003, he described Archbishop Peter Jensen’s involvement with English conservative evangelicals as ‘reprehensible’ - these remarks cannot be dismissed as the unrepresentative prejudices of one man. He is a member of the Crown Nomination Commission, which has a key role in the appointment of the Church of England’s bishops, and Southwark Cathedral is the most ancient cathedral church in London. the rest at Anglican Mainstream