c. 1998 Religion News Service

CANTERBURY, England _ Once again _ as in 1978 and 1988 _ the prophets of doom got it wrong in predicting that seemingly unbridgeable gaps in culture and theology would split the Anglican Communion.

In 1978, the schismatic issue facing the world’s Anglican bishops gathered for their once-a-decade Lambeth Conference was women priests. In 1988, the issue was women bishops. And this year, in the months leading up to Lambeth ’98, the doomsayers said the communion could not hold together because of its radically differing views on homosexuality.

While the issue of homosexuality did dominate the three-week meeting that ended Saturday (Aug. 8) evening with a celebration of the Eucharist, it did not divide.

The conference, led by bishops from Africa and other Third World nations, restated its traditional view that homosexual activity is incompatible with Scripture while emphasizing that all baptized people _ including gays and lesbians _ are full members of the church. Supporters of increased gay rights in the church, led by North American and British bishops, issued their own statement pledging to continue to press their cause.

Indeed, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, the spiritual head of the 80 million-member Anglican Communion, told a final news conference Saturday he believed”our communion is significantly stronger than when we began”even with the differences over homosexuality.

Why? One element in the three-week meeting the news media and other outsiders do not see, he said, is the friendships formed in casual meetings, at meals or over coffee and in small Bible study groups. Bishops from different parts of the world and cultures get to know one another and learn to see things through each other’s eyes.”Bishops have met each other face to face, shared their stories of pain, of joy, of hope,”Carey said.

Or, as Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold of the Episcopal Church, the U.S. province of the Anglican Communion, said,”I’ve been stretched by the profound differences in worldview and culture.” For many, it was symbolic that a key resolution was passed that affirmed both advocates and opponents of women’s ordination have a place within the church. The resolution emerged from a small, ad hoc group consisting both of women and traditionalist bishops, demonstrating that for the 739 officially registered bishops what united them was more important than their sharp disagreements.

Still, it was Lambeth’s expression on the issue of homosexuality that will mark the 1998 and it is unlikely the subject will fade from the scene.

Carey, asked if the Lambeth resolution on sexuality would have any effect in parishes and dioceses now welcoming homosexual relationships, answered,”If we are a communion and not just a collection of independent churches, then we will pay attention to the voices of the communion.” Griswold, while not disputing Carey, took a wait-and-see attitude.”We’ll go back and live with the Lambeth experience and see how it becomes part of our experience,”said Griswold, who as bishop of Chicago ordained gays in committed relationships to the priesthood. But as presiding bishop he now only ordains other bishops and the question of ordainly an openly gay bishop has yet to come up, he said.”I’ll simply have to wait until it does,”he said.

A major internal structural issue was also adopted by the bishops when they endorsed a resolution giving top church leaders the ability to intervene”in cases of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within provinces,”a resolution prompted by the 1994-1995 crisis in Rwanda. Four bishops, accused of complicity in genocide, refused to return from exile and the province had no mechanism for declaring their sees vacant and electing fresh bishops.

Besides the actions rejecting homosexual activity and endorsing freedom of conscience for opponents of women’s ordination, the bishops also endorsed a resolution calling for the cancellation of the international debt of the world’s poorest nations. And they rejected euthanasia, which they said is”neither compatible with the Christian faith nor should it be permitted in civil legislation.” Carey, who has been a leader in advocating greater church involvement in the fight against world poverty, said the conference resolution on debt”is a challenge not only to politicians and economists, but to the churches as well.” In other actions during the three-week meeting, the bishops:

_ Called for peace in Uganda’s civil war after an impassioned plea by Bishop Macleod Ochola of Kitgum, Uganda. Ochola’s wife was killed in May by a land mine planted by rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army.

_ Condemned the United States economic embargo against Cuba.

_ Welcomed the peace process in Northern Ireland and voiced support for the (Anglican) Church of Ireland and other denominations in their efforts to build bridges between the differing religious communities of the area.

_ Gave thanks for the end of apartheid in South Africa.

_ Urged Anglicans around the world to mark the millennium as”a Christ-centered event”in which slaves are freed, refugees are enabled to return home and land is restored to those deprived of it.

DEA END NOWELL