Geoff writes...... Every ten years! …
On July 13th we will be pleased to welcome Bishop Trevor Mwamba, the Bishop of Botswana to Holy Saviour's Church - he will be staying here for a couple of days before going on to the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops from around the world.
The Church of England was formed in 1538; rejoined the Roman Church in 1555 and then split again finally under Elizabeth 1st in 1570. At about the same time (the detailed history is too complex for this short article) the Church of Ireland and the Scottish Episcopal Church were formed and that was the extent of the Anglican Church at that time. However, the expansion of the British Empire during the C18th and C19th meant that wherever the Empire went, so did the Church of England! All the clergy working overseas came under the authority of the Bishop of London and indeed it was the Bishop of London who, in the late C17th , asked a priest called Thomas Bray to formalise the recruiting of clergy - which in turn led to the formation of SPCK in 1698 and SPG, later USPG, in 1701. The situation remained, and it wasn't until 1787 that the first of the so -called colonial bishops was appointed in Nova Scotia, followed by Calcutta in 1814 and the West Indies in 1824.
By 1840 there were still only 10 colonial bishops but in that year they came together for a conference which led to the rapid expansion of their number and a change of name to missionary bishops. It seemed natural to group these bishops and form new provinces with Archbishops - and so it began in 1847 when Bishop Broughton was made Archbishop of India, and it went on from there. Now there are 44 provinces across the world with about 80 million Anglicans; there are 880 bishops and about 620 are coming to this conference.
These gatherings happen about every ten years and the first one was in 1867; 76 bishops attended and it was convened by the then Archbishop, C.T. Longley to try to resolve a doctrinal dispute which surrounded the Bishop of Natal, Bishop Colenso. Colenso had written a book in which he questioned whether we should take the bible literally or leave it open to interpretation. It sounds fairly tame now! However, as I am sure you know, this conference too will be against a background of controversy - in this case the burning issue of same sex relationships, although the matter of the authority of scripture is still part of that debate. Some bishops have refused to attend and are having an alternative gathering (June 22nd - June 29th) in the Middle East. Furthermore, there are one or two other bishops that Archbishop Williams has not invited, including Bishop Gene Robinson from New Hampshire in America.
However, despite all this, the conference will be a wonderful occasion.
The church is no different from any other organisation in that the news that hits the headlines is the more negative news - in this case about disagreement and division. We don't hear about the vibrancy of the church in many parts of the world; we don't hear the fact that 98% of all Anglicans live in other parts of the world; that in many places it is the church that is leading the fight against HIV/AIDS; that development agencies often work through the churches because there is an established network; we don't hear that the church is often leading the way in highlighting women's issues in some very male dominated societies; that in many places it is the church that is the lead agency in providing education and health care. We don't hear about the courage and determination it takes to be a Christian in some parts of the world.
Whenever we baptise babies here at Holy Saviour's, we use the Collect for the day and (except in a few cases) the Gospel for the dayand explain to the congregation that that prayer and that reading will be being used in churches all around the world. The child is being baptised into a worldwide church. I tend to think of myself as an Anglican before I think of myself as
being a member of the Church of England. I .
hope I can encourage you to have that same pride in being part of that wonderful worldwide body, despite its problems. When these problems go away, some more will surface that's life !!
Have a lovely summer. Geoff
