You can spot Canada’s very own Bishop Kevin Robertson, who is married to another bloke, on the far right.

I admit, they do make a charming group, but what continues to puzzle me is sorting out which is a G, a B or a Q – I think I have the Ls.

And that’s just the beginning of the problem, because we also have 2, S, 2s, P, A, I, and + to deal with. Although I suppose + must include the rest of us, which only makes it even more confusing since the group photo should really have been of all the bishops.

If you think that’s mixed up, it’s about to get worse. Lesbians have gone to war with transgenders, so they will have to be split up in the next Lambeth group photo, or they’ll be hitting each other with their handbags.

Just Welby really didn’t want to talk about sex at the recent Lambeth gathering; specifically homosexual sex. It was his elephant in the room: everyone knew it was there, the global south bishops wanted to talk about it and Welby wished it would just go away. Instead, he wanted to talk about: Safe Church; Anglican Identity; Reconciliation; Human Dignity; Environment and Sustainable Development; Christian Unity; Inter Faith Relations; Discipleship; Science and Faith and Mission and Evangelism.

I left Mission and Evangelism until last for reasons that will become clear in a moment. As for the rest, they are all empty platitudes; they sound good, but no one is going to take them seriously. No one is interested in what a gathering of bishops thinks about the environment. The Anglican church is powerless to change the environment, or to develop sustainable energy. It can’t bring itself to reconcile with ACNA or ANiC, the average bishop knows as much about climatology or science as my cat and interfaith relations with Islam will end up being about as rosy as it was between Salman Rushdie and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The one thing that Justine Welby did have the authority to address, he chose not to: the continuing controversy of homosexual clergy and same-sex marriage in the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church. That was the small elephant.

That brings us to Mission and Evangelism, which is, according to Lambeth:

Each diocese and every church should commit to prayer and listening guided by the Holy Spirit to discern how to bear faithful witness to Christ and authentically proclaim the gospel. Each Christian should strive through their witness for at least one person each year to come to faith and grow as a disciple. The Secretary General should support and monitor progress and report back to the Anglican Consultative Council.

What is missing is that nowhere does anyone say what “the gospel” is. Is it caring for the environment? Apologising for our ancestors who owned slaves? Presenting an appearance of unity? Planting trees? Promoting socialism? Violating the laws of logic by holding two proposition which cannot both be true as equally valid; after all, what is truth – hang on didn’t someone else say that?

As far as I know no bishop came within hailing distance of declaring that we are all sinners; our sin separates us from God the Father; if there is justice in this universe, we deserve the judgement of a holy God; we can do nothing ourselves to remedy this; in spite of this, God still loves us; Jesus paid the price for our sin, receiving our punishment upon himself; all who trust Jesus are given the free gift of forgiveness and eternal life. That is the Good News, the Gospel. Did any of the 600 or so bishops mention this? Did they forget? Does it embarrass them?

My suspicion is that most of them (we’ll exclude the global south bishops) don’t believe that this is the Gospel – and that is the real problem, the bigger elephant in the room.

Read it all here:

We will be returning to our dioceses with a renewed commitment to the Lambeth Calls for Mission and Evangelism, Safe Church, Reconciliation, Human Dignity and Climate Justice as well as those Calls that will be discussed on Hospitality (Christian Unity and Interfaith relationships), and Discipleship.

The Bishops have spent a significant amount of time discussing and sharing these calls in light of our contexts. They have been at the core of the Bible studies as well as the discussions at our table groups. There has been much written in media with regard to the discussion on human dignity in particular.

We were moved by the speech of the Archbishop of Canterbury who spoke directly to the Bishops. While there is deep difference on matters of sexuality, there is a serious commitment to listening and walking together in spite of the differences to the maximum possible degree.

While in some provinces of the Communion same sex blessings/marriages have been the product of careful theological reflection and a process of reception, other provinces of the communion (and within Canada, some dioceses) maintain the traditional definition of marriage, also with careful theological reflection. The Archbishop noted that both hold to Jesus Christ and both take Scripture seriously.

The Archbishop of Canterbury made it clear that he does not have and will not seek the power to exclude or sanction provinces of the Communion who have made changes and the Lambeth I.10 resolution does not require such sanctions.

What puzzles me somewhat is the fact that Justin Welby has made it abundantly clear that the 1998 Lambeth 1.10 resolution declaring same-sex activity to be unbiblical, while still valid, is free to be completely ignored if you don’t like it.

Yet, at the same time, other Calls on Climate Justice, Christian Unity, Interfaith relationships, Reconciliation, Safe Church and so on he expects to be taken seriously. Why can’t we ignore them, too – well, to be honest I shall be expressing my defiance by turning up my air-conditioning tonight.

What exactly is the point of this conference: hundreds of bishops travelling thousands of miles in fossil fuel burning aeroplanes, spending millions of dollars to lament together about climate change and poverty.

Here it is. You can read the whole PDF here:

STATEMENT FROM ANGLICAN BISHOPS AND PRIMATES WHO ARE KEEN TO AFFIRM AND CELEBRATE LGBT+ PEOPLE
August 2nd 2022
“So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.” – Ephesians 2:19
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” – John 13:34
God is Love! This love revealed by Jesus, described in the Scriptures and proclaimed by the Church, is Good News for all – without exception. That is why we believe that LGBT+ people are a precious part of God’s creation – for each of us is ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ (Psalm 139:14), and all are equally loved.
We recognise that many LGBT+ people have historically been wounded by the Church and particularly hurt by the events of the last few weeks. We wish to affirm the holiness of their love wherever it is found in committed relationships.
We therefore commit to working with our siblings across the Communion to listen to their stories and understand their contexts, which vary greatly. However, we will never shy away from tackling discrimination and prejudice against those of differing sexualities and gender identities.
Together, we will speak healing and hope to our broken world and look forward to the day when all may feel truly welcomed, valued and affirmed.
Signed by bishops from across the Anglican Communion including:
Most Revd Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church
Most Revd Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States
Most Revd Naudal Alves Gomes, Archbishop of Brazil
Most Revd Linda Nicholls, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Canada
Most Revd Andy Johns, Archbishop of Wales
and, as of 1640 BST on August 4th 2022, these additional 170 bishops/archbishops

Most Canadian bishops signed it:

Justin Welby auditioning for The Ministry of Silly Walks:

As you can imagine, it was an easy transition from oil executive to Archbishop of Canterbury to the Ministry of Silly Walks – I, for one, have seen this coming for some time.

What has accelerated Welby’s ascent to the zenith of his vocation has been his performance at Lambeth 2022.

He didn’t want to talk about sex: the press coverage has been all about sex. He didn’t want to discuss Lambeth resolution 1.10 on human sexuality: somehow it found its way into the Human Dignity Call, nonetheless. Liberals forced him to remove it. Conservatives are trying to force him to put it back. He wanted to use electronic voting machines: they are too confusing (and they reveal real numbers, which could be embarrassing) so he changed voting to “voice votes”, although no one knows how that will work. He wanted everyone to get along: conservative bishops have refused to take part in the Eucharist with homosexual bishops. And we are only on day four.

Little wonder Welby is moving to a more compatible occupation.

The Anglican Journal has an article covering the rewriting of the Lambeth Call on Human Dignity. The headline is “Same-sex marriage controversy erupts pre-Lambeth”.

In case you are wondering what the controversy is, the body of the article offers clarification. It’s defining marriage as the union of a man and woman rather than two men. In the Anglican Church of Canada, to avoid controversy, we have to all agree that two men can marry each other.

From here (emphasis mine):

A draft Lambeth Conference statement reaffirming a 1998 resolution that describes marriage as the union of a man and a woman has been revised, with the resolution now mentioned but not explicitly reaffirmed. On Tuesday, Lambeth Conference staff published a new version of the Lambeth Calls, with several revisions, including the removal of the call to reaffirm 1998’s controversial resolution I.10 on same-sex marriage.

What level of insanity have we reached when a church newspaper tells us that “marriage is confined to men marrying women” is a controversial proposition? Is this an example of “those whom God wishes to destroy he first makes mad”? Let’s hope so.