Archbishop of Canterbury opens the 2008 Lambeth Conference

July 17, 2008 [ACNS] Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams opened the 2008 Lambeth Conference to the sounds of South African Alleluias and prayers for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He spoke to the gathering of Anglican bishops from around the world addressing the first plenary session of the Lambeth Conference July 16. He stressed that the conference had a very strong emphasis on drawing together around the Bible and had been designed as a place "in which every voice can be heard and in which we build Christian relationship."

Williams said that his own prayer and hopes for the conference "is not that after two weeks we will find a solution to all our problems but we shall as I have written more than once in some sense find the trust in God and one another that will give us the energy to change in the way God wants us to change. That is the most important thing we can pray for, the energy to change as God wants us to change individually and as a Communion."

Some bishops have chosen to stay away although only the Anglican Church of Uganda has no bishops present. "I think it's important I should say that it's a great grief that many of our brothers and sisters in the Communion have not felt able to be with us for these weeks, a grief because we need their voice and they need ours in learning Christ together," he said.

Williams said that, as he had written to many people in recent months, "I respect and accept the decisions that have been made but together we need in prayer to acknowledge the wound that that makes in our fellowship [and] that we still have to mend relations that have been hurt. I hope that in these weeks we shall daily be remembering those who are not with us, upholding them in our prayers, in our respect and love."

Williams continued: "I don't imagine that simply building relationships solves our problems but the nature of our calling as Christians is such that we dare not, and I say very strongly, dare not pretend that we can meet and discuss without attention to this quality of relation with each other even if we disagree or find ourselves going in different directions. The Lord of the church commands that we must love one another in the process and there is no alternative to that. I trust that you are here in that confidence, in that willingness to love one another."

The Archbishop added that this sounded "so simple," but it had to be said "because we know as we meet that we are also a wounded body." He said there were no magic words to heal those wounds, "but as we seek to meet Jesus Christ in each other we hope that the wounds that are still open will in some sense also be open to receive the work of God the Holy Spirit in our work."

Williams concluded his address by encouraging the bishops, who are now in retreat until July 19, "to be there and let God come to you."

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