The two paragraphs above were the ones which concluded my In England Now contribution to the June issue of The Rock which I called “Up and Down in Adria”

Lambeth 1998 exceeded all our wildest hopes for the good news that it produced, not despite but because of the liberal ascendency whom we expected to make the most noise. There were those of our friends who had been dreading the experience, expecting it to be a total sell-out to post-modernist deconstructionism dressed up in fashion-designer vestments.

Well there was plenty of that; but what began to emerge somewhere during the second week was that the African and Asian bishops, so far from being a docile and biddable group who would hesitate to bite the hand that so often feeds them (America in a word), emerged as men whose convictions were something they were prepared to fight for to the bitter end.

The shock to the liberal constituency was devastating – so much so that Bishop Barbara Harris suggested that their loyalty had been "bought with chicken dinners". “We do also have chickens in Africa” said one of them in reply; and Bishop Jack Spong suggested that they were Animistic and superstitious – only just stopping short of suggesting that they should return to the tree-tops whence they had come.

Not surprisingly Jack and Barbara were hardly the Flavour-of-the-Month amongst the African bishops, which may have accounted for the fact that those voting in favour of the resolution upholding monogamous, heterosexual marriage, and condemning the various parodies of it which the Western world has tried to popularise, were in a majority of about eight-to-one.

It is very important neither to under- nor over-estimate the significance of this vote. It was indeed "a famous victory" for the Truth which we [priests and laity alike] have been ordained to safeguard, the "faith once delivered to the Saints"; but equally, to suppose that this vote marks some guaranteed global return to virtue and righteousness is like supposing that the Gift of the Decalogue on Mount Sinai would lead to the demise of sin. On the contrary, it led straight to the Golden Calf!

Within a day or so of the resolution being passed some hundred and fifty bishops, mostly from the United Kingdom, USA and Australia had cobbled together a Comfort Letter for Lesbians and Gays who might be distressed by the passing of the motion.

Mind you, the letter in itself was pretty anodyne, and barring one or two phrases I would have been perfectly willing to sign it myself. Making life miserable for people who prefer the company of their own sex, which is all that many homosexuals are on about is no part of my Christian agenda, nor should it be of anyone else's.

But the fact is that the leaders of the Gay Movement have a very different agenda. They want to persuade simple souls (and this includes a great many Western bishops) of two propositions.

First they want to get them to accept the "equivalence" of hetero- and homosexual practices; for example that anal intercourse between "loving couples" of either sex is as natural and harmless as its counterpart; and secondly they want it to be axiomatic that everyone has the "natural right" to pleasure, fulfilment, satisfaction or however you like to describe it, irrespective of whether God's revelation suggests that it is contrary to his will or not. In other words if Golden Calves are what makes people happy, then Golden Calves they must have.

Lambeth, by its vote, said otherwise. Here is how the official Report describes what happened:

The Lambeth Conference today approved the following resolution on sexuality by a vote of 526 in favor and 70 against, with 45 abstentions (italics indicate amendments):

"This Conference:

² commends to the Church the subsection report on human sexuality;

² in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence [A28] is right for those who are not called to marriage.

² recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God's transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships, and we commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual people. [A24] We wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ;

² while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, [A36] calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals [A27], violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex;

² cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same-sex unions, nor the ordination of those involved in such unions;

² requests the Primates and the ACC to establish a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion and to share statements and resources among us;

² notes the significance of the Kuala Lumpur Statement and the concerns expressed in resolutions IV.26, V.1, V.10, V.23, and V.35 on the authority of Scripture in matters of marriage and sexuality and asks the Primates and the ACC to include them in their monitoring process. [A15]"

By passing this resolution with such an overwhelming majority the Conference effectively reasserted not only their belief in the discipline of Christian marriage to which, in the past, the Anglican communion has largely adhered; even more importantly they implicitly reaffirmed the theological and spiritual significance of Holy Matrimony as set forward by St Paul in (for example) the Epistle to the Ephesians, and explicitly stated in the Introduction to the Prayer Book Rite for the Solemnization of Holy Matrimony.

There, you will remember, it states that Holy Matrimony is an... estate “signifying unto us the spiritual union that is betwixt Christ and his Church”. The Lambeth Resolution, not only affirms this Pauline teaching but, by unequivocally declaring that physical homosexual gratification, gay "marriages" and the ordination of practising homosexuals to be equally unacceptable, leaves nobody in any doubt that, whatever the nature of these practices and relationships, and however sinful or not they may be, they can in no way be likened or compared with our Lord's relationship with his Church as can the estate of Holy Matrimony.

The importance of this vote is not that it will suddenly, as if by some miracle, make men and women "turn back" and "forswear their foolish ways" nor yet persuade Western Bishops entirely to give up the practice of ordaining and preferring active homosexuals. It takes more than a Lambeth Conference to do that!

But its true significance lies in the fact that, after due consideration, the vast majority of bishops have reached this conclusion which, unless and until they reverse it (which of course they will be under incessant pressure to do) can be appealed to as the authoritative voice of the Anglican Communion for at least the next ten years.

Previous Lambeth Conferences have produced carefully tailored resolutions which were patient of almost any interpretation by those who wished to find in them support for the particular opinions they espoused. This time it is very much more difficult to “make it go away”.

So what should the victors do to follow through their largely unexpected success?

There's little doubt as to what those who were defeated will do. They will try and persuade everyone that this is a matter which "needs more study, discussion and negotiation"; and to this end they will try and get precisely the sort of Commission of the Great and the Good set up to produce a Report in about five years time, which will by then be conveniently out-of-date if only because they will have used the interim period to persuade the rest of us that the whole subject is a very difficult one (and therefore mere mortals like us cannot possibly understand it) and that anyway it would be inopportune to reach any final conclusions until the Commission has made its report.

In the meanwhile of course, they will have pressed on regardless doing whatever they please in their own potato patch just as they have always done. This is what in Lambeth-speak is called subsidiarity.

Our response has got to be quite straightforward.

Firstly we have to insist that the time for discussion and negotiation about matters of revealed truth is now at an end. God's revealed will is not patient of negotiation: it has to be obeyed or disobeyed.

Secondly, we have to establish in people's minds the close connection between any form of sexual perversion and apostasy from the faith – the faith which we are here to safeguard. It's only necessary to start thinking or saying that such-and-such "doesn't matter very much" either because "it doesn't seem to do much harm" or because "everyone does it nowadays" and you might as well say that nothing matters at all. The fact that something "seems harmless" or is something that "everyone does" has never been an accurate measure of its intrinsic righteousness in the the sight of God.

Thirdly, we have to get back to a binary system of belief: that is to say, the Catholic faith is about either being saved or lost. There is no alternative. Without in any way succumbing to the temptation to speculate about whether particular persons are on the road to salvation or damnation we have to insist (as our Lord did) that there are only Two Ways – the Straight-and-Narrow, or the Easy-and-Broad. If you're not on the right one, then it follows that you are on the wrong one.

Fourthly, it is imperative that we should be as well-informed as possible about the medical and emotional consequences of homosexual acts. Here we don't want to believe everything that the medical profession puts out. It speaks with a voice which is as divided on this subject as the voice of the Anglican and other churches have been until recently. And that's saying quite something!

The fact is that nearly every month evidence emerges which is relevant to this question. The reaction of some pro-Gay bodies is predictable. No matter whether the evidence comes from impeccably objective and scientific sources or not: if it fails to give the looked-for answer it is invariably shouted-down by those who wish that the truth were other than it is. Those who believe the truth because it's true must, on this showing be bigots, homophobes or fundamentalists. It's an interesting use of the word "fundamentalist" n'est ce pas?

Well, there's only one answer to being shouted down, and that is persistence using wherever possible a "still, small voice". Shouting back does no good whatever. The evidence is that a continuing limpet-like hold on the truth is what will have most effect.

Perhaps surprisingly, research suggests that almost seventy per cent of people both in England and the USA are antipathetic to physical homosexual relationships. This number doesn't seem to change very much over the years. Actually to have the official Anglican body like the Lambeth Conference saying something that so many people unconnected with the Church agree with is quite remarkable. There is already some evidence that the Man-in-the-Street thinks that the majority of Bishops at Lambeth got it right for a change.

But it was not just on the controversial sexual agenda that the most significant decisions were made at Lambeth. Equally significant was the almost unanimous acceptance of the Eames Commission's recommendation that Alternative Episcopal Oversight should be made available in every Province of the Anglican Communion during the Period of Reception for those who are unwilling to accept the ministry of women priests and bishops.

Here I will quote from the report which came from that section of the Conference which was considering this.

Lambeth Conference Communications

² The Lambeth Conference approved an amended resolution Thursday (August 6) stating that bishops should not be compelled to ordain or license women.

² Bishop Penny Jamieson of Dunedin (Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia) moved the amendment, hammered out in a series of meetings between female and traditionalist bishops, and supported on the floor by a cross section of female, traditionalist and liberal male bishops.

² "During our discussions there were deep and real disagreements," Bishop Jamieson said. "Our small group began by being suspicious of each other, but as trust between us began to grow it became our prayer that we could agree on an amendment that we could offer to this Communion as a way of deepening our communion in the heart of God while and because of our respect for our differences."

² Approving 'flying bishops'

² The third section of the resolution contained language calling upon the provinces to make provision for "appropriate episcopal ministry," an apparent reference to allowing bishops serve congregations in addition to or as an alternative to that of the diocesan bishop, often called the use of 'flying bishops.'

² That section also said "that there is and should be no compulsion on any bishop in matters concerning ordination or licensing," a concession to traditionalist bishops who maintain that they are conscientiously opposed to ordination or deployment of women in their dioceses.

² The resolution, titled "Unity of the Anglican Communion," was a reflection of the work and conversations of the Conference's Section Three (Called to be Faithful in a Plural World).

² Canadian Bishop Victoria Matthews of Edmonton (Canada), a member of the small group that drafted the amendment, said, "At this Lambeth Conference I have been received with a gracious and generous spirit . . . and as one of the first generation of women bishops, I ask that we keep this same spirit of graciousness and generosity as we continue the process of open reception [of female clergy]." She said dissent can be creative for the mind of the church.

As you know, we in England and Wales have anticipated the ratification of this decision to such an exent (through the Act of Synod) that we now have no less than five, shortly to be six, Provincial Episcopal Visitors (some of them go by another title but they are all clones of the Eames proposal).

The fact that they have been such an outstanding success, the fact that the number of parishes making use of their services, officially or otherwise, grows every month, and the fact that by now, in all but name, a separate, "free province" within the Church of England already exists are all indicative of the way forward for other provinces.

Of course the other provinces, especially those like Canada and the USA which enjoy the existence of a powerful "Women's Caucus" won't like this. Their whole logical validity rests upon the twin supposals that opposition to women priests and bishops would quickly "melt away" and that the consequences of attaching this novelty to the Catholic faith would be self-vindicating to the extent that everyone else would follow suit sooner rather than later.

In fact worldwide opposition has been surprisingly well co-ordinated. The Episcopal Synod of America and Forward in Faith shared premises in Canterbury throughout the Lambeth Conference and were able to strengthen the hand of those bishops, many from the Third World, who agree with them. The fact that the Lambeth Conference has now itself endorsed not only the right but the importance of the Two Integrities means that we no longer have to see ourselves as being there under suffrance, but as those who have every bit as much right to be heard as Bishops like Jack Spong of Newark and Richard Holloway of Edinburgh.

Now let me end with a word of caution amidst all the quite legitimate gladness which has been generated by the 1998 Lambeth Conference.

Let me draw the attention of the various "Continuers" who are Anglicans, and whose existence was for the first time officially recognized in the documentation of the Conference, to a problem which they are going to have to face in the near future as a result of what has happened at Lambeth this year.

Until now it has been possible to justify the separation of yourselves from the main body of Anglicans partly on the grounds that your existence was not acknowledged, and partly because there was no provision for you within it. Indeed many of you left because you were actually driven out by unsympathetic bishops and others.

Well now, post-Lambeth 1998 that situation is rather different. The Conference has endorsed the provision of Alternative Episcopal Oversight, so that is now, insofar as anything ever can be, "official Anglican policy". It has recognized that there are other Anglicans (such as the Continuers) who have as much right as anyone to be treated as such. The Conference had in front of it the English Act of Synod as a model of how such things can be achieved. It had the presence of all the PEVs to consult as to how it was working in practice.

So what is there stopping it being put into effect elsewhere?

Four reasons actually, one good, two bad, and one that we can't do anything about anyway.

This last is the sheer determination and wilful obstinacy of those provinces which will take as long as they possibly can to implement the provisions of the Eames Report which Lambeth '98 accepted. About that we can do nothing very much except continue to point out to them the error of their ways. The onus of Lambeth is on them to make the provision. If they refuse to take this obligation seriously then that is their concern. If they're determined to continue with their persecutions then they deserve our prayers, not our co-operation!

The second (bad) reason for hesitation is the opposite side of this coin. It is the reason given by the hundreds and thousands of sincere Anglicans who know in their heart of hearts that there is something deeply unorthodox about the beliefs and practices of many of the Anglican bishops in the Western world, particularly as expressed at Lambeth, but for whom the considerations such as "I've always attended St Grizelda's and don't mean to change now" or "Our dear Bishop Garfunkel is such a nice man even if his beliefs are intolerable" outweigh any questions of orthodoxy.

The third (good) reason is the misgiving that to be in any sort of "communion" with a body of believers whose faith is so very different from one's own may be to compromise precisely those principles which (for instance) the Affirmation of St Louis safeguarded.

To decide whether that is so in a particular case will take a lot of thought. It will differ from one Province of the Anglican Communion to another. It needs to be remembered however just how many of the Lambeth Bishops especially those from Africa, Asia and South America, proved themselves to be thoroughly orthodox. If some "Orthodox Province" of Anglicanism were to emerge as a result of the alignment at Lambeth, and this is already being discussed and planned, then it would raise a whole number of questions for those who are at present understandably cautious about any sort of re-alignment.

And, dare I suggest it, there is fourth (and not so righteous) reluctance to be overcome. That is the very understandable, but quite misguided, taste for "separation" which can so easily afflict minorities like the Continuing bodies.

One of the reasons why there are so many of them, and why so many divisions lie between them like fault-lines in the rock, is that the luxury of being a "separated minority" is just too attractive to resist. Of course once people have given in to the pleasure of separation then there are any number of reasons which can be dredged up for remaining so. There's no sin like one that the sinner regards as justifiable for him.

Continuers need to ask themselves this question: if some impeccably orthodox source Alternative Episcopal Oversight became available to us tomorrow, how long would it be before we could bring ourselves to accept it?

Would we do it tomorrow?

Or next year perhaps?

Or would some of us prefer to wait for the Greek Kalends?

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