c. 1998 Religion News Service

CANTERBURY, England _ Anglican bishops from around the world Sunday (July 19) opened the 13th Lambeth Conference _ the once-a-decade meeting of the communion’s prelates _ with a dramatic liturgical demonstration of how un-English, indeed, how un-Anglo-Saxon, the denomination has become.

And on Monday, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, in his address to the first business session of the conference, urged the church to maintain its tolerance for diversity even while _ in a reference to the thorny issue of gay ordinations _ there are”limits beyond which we cannot stray.” Many observers believe the gay issue is likely to dominate the Lambeth meeting but church officials are hoping to play down the sharp divisions among the world’s 80 million Anglicans on homosexuality.

Anglicans generally welcome gays and lesbians as church members and, in some cases, into the priesthood _ if they stay celibate. Carey’s Church of England, for example, currently holds that heterosexual marriage or celibacy are the only acceptable lifestyles.

The rainbow of cultural influences on the England-based communion were lifted high at Sunday’s opening worship, beginning with Carey delivering the liturgy’s opening salutation _”The Lord be with you”_ in Swahili.

It continued with Bishop John Sentamu of Stepney, England, the Ugandan High Court judge who fled Idi Amin’s dictatorship to become a priest of the Church of England, leading a Kikuyu version of the Gloria accompanied by African drumming. A tenor from the English National Opera sang an African-American spiritual while the Epistle was read in Portuguese by the wife of the Bishop of South-Western Brazil, Senhora Jubal Neves. The Gospel was proclaimed in Arabic by Bishop Ghais Mailk of Egypt, Primate of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East.

Nor did Carey, who presided at the Eucharist, deliver the sermon himself. Bishop Simon Chiwanga of Mpwapwa, Tanzania, chairman of the Anglican Consultative Council, the small body of 100 bishops, clergy and laity that meets every two or three years between meetings of the Lambeth Conference.

Without mentioning any of the contentious issues threatening to tear worldwide Anglicanism apart, Chiwanga called on the 800 bishops to look for the Christ in each other when controversy arises and to turn the other cheek.”Being Christlike in our differences does not mean having no convictions or clear position of your own,”Chiwanga said.”It is a call to interpretive charity in our Christian dialogues.”He said”interpretive charity”is the ability to apply the most loving interpretation to others’ actions and opinions. It also meant not disenfranchising anyone.”Hold unswervingly to that which you believe to be of essential truth, but to God leave the final judgment in all matters,”said the bishop.”Change comes by enlightenment, not by force. Forcing your point of view by excluding from your circle those who disagree with you, or by compelling acceptance, is to usurp the place of God.” But each bishop at the three-week meeting was confronted with the issue as they arrived to worship, as the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement handed each a pamphlet arguing for change in the church’s stance on the issue.

In his opening address Monday, Carey also skirted the divisive issue of homosexuality but urged his colleagues to practice the Anglican”via media, or middle way”which he said has”encouraged the growth of tolerance, freedom and generosity of spirit.” The main thrust of Carey’s address was a defense of the Anglican system of diffused authority with no central coercive power.”Let us remember that we have always been a communion where diversity and difference have been cherished and indeed celebrated,”he said.

But he said he was not calling for some kind of”vague or woolly”Anglican comprehensiveness uncertain about the foundations of faith.”We have a firm hold on a historic credal faith, earthed in Holy Scripture,”he said.”This is primary and pivotal, and there are boundaries to our faith and morals which we cross at our peril.” Carey, who has tried to downplay the divisive gay issue, instead stressed other issues the three-week conference will take up, especially the issue of Third World poverty.”Poverty and starvation stalk too many of the lands where Anglicans serve,”he said.”One hundred million go hungry everyday. One hundred and 50 million never get the chance to go to school. They are the awful statistics behind the issue of the relief of the burden of unpayable debt which will focus as a major element in this conference.”

DEA END NOWELL