More than 650 Anglican bishops are meeting in Canterbury for almost two weeks of prayer and discussion that will highlight divisions within the church, broadly between the global north and south.
The 15th Lambeth conference – postponed twice before finally convening this week, and formally opening on Friday – is likely to descend into acrimony over polarised views on same-sex marriage and relationships. Even before the conference began, a furious row over a draft declaration forced Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury and conference president, into a U-turn.
Profound differences over sexuality exploded at the 1998 Lambeth conference, at which same-sex relationships were declared “incompatible with scripture”, and they have persisted ever since.
The 15th conference was due to take place in 2018 but Welby cancelled it when he realised there was little hope of papering over toxic divisions. It was rescheduled to 2020 but postponed because of the Covid pandemic.
Welby has spent almost a decade as leader of the global Anglican church trying to persuade bishops, clergy and parishioners to “walk together” – despite there being what appear to many to be irreconcilable differences.
In practice his approach has infuriated liberals who want to see the church embrace same-sex marriage, and conservatives adamant that traditional biblical teaching must prevail. Representatives of both will be out in force in Canterbury over the next 10 days.
According to the archbishop’s website, the global Anglican church comprises 85 million people from 165 countries speaking 2,000 languages. But growth over the past half a century has been predominantly concentrated among young people in sub-Saharan Africa, while ageing church congregations in the UK and elsewhere in the global north have shrunk.
This has raised questions about whether it is appropriate for the global church to be led and dominated by the Church of England, with some, including Welby, suggesting this is a colonial hangover.
Now African bishops are to have a greater say in choosing the next archbishop of Canterbury, probably in 2026 when Welby is expected to retire. The C of E’s ruling body, the General Synod, approved a motion this month saying representation from the Anglican Communion on the Crown Nominations Commission, the body that puts forward candidates to the Queen, should increase from one to five. Some believe this will greatly increase the chances of the next archbishop of Canterbury being more conservative.
Meanwhile, three primates from Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda, jointly representing about 30 million Anglicans, are boycotting the conference over the issue of sexuality.
In a communique in May, they wrote: “Human sexuality is not a moral issue to be wrapped in the garment of human rights which allows for distortion of fundamental biblical truth. For faithful Anglicans, Anglicanism is a way of life of total commitment to biblical truth that has no room for any revisionist agenda.”
They said Welby was “becoming too tolerant and complicit in the arrogance and errors of the revisionist Anglican churches in the west”.
The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches, led by the archbishop of South Sudan and claiming to represent 75% of all Anglicans around the globe, has declared one of its four priorities to be sounding a “clarion call to biblical faithfulness”, including a reaffirmation of the 1998 Lambeth conference motion. It plans to hold daily press conferences and issue statements on social media.
Welby has said he hopes the conference will “look outwards” and address the “great challenges that the next 30 or 40 years will impose upon the vast majority of Anglicans, especially those in areas of climate fragility, and of political and other fragility”.
Acknowledging that sexuality was an issue of “enormous significance”, he said: “The idea that millions of Christians in 165 countries are going to agree on every level is an illusion, but we do agree that Jesus Christ is Lord.”
