I was asked recently why our Church magazine hadn’t carried articles about the two big political hot potatoes in the Church of England: women bishops and gay clergy.  My response, perhaps ducking the issue ever so slightly, was to plead that these issues had not yet affected us directly in Ledbury, and there were many more important subjects I wanted to concentrate on – notably building up and sharing our faith.

Yet these two issues have dominated the news over the past couple of weeks, perhaps because it’s the slow time of year for news (the politicians are on holiday, so nothing happens in the world!), and notably because of General Synod and the Lambeth Conference – so perhaps some thoughts are necessary.

Women bishops: an inevitability after 1992, and something I have no problem with as long as faithful Anglicans who disagree still have a place within the Church.  Will they?  Time will tell.  It will be some time before the first draft of a Code of Practice appears, and much longer before it is debated by Deaneries and Dioceses before returning to General Synod.

But what about the fault-line in the Anglican Communion?  The division between those North American dioceses explicitly ordaining sexually-active gay clergy, and traditionalists, frequently in the developing world, who are so strongly opposed to such developments.  We’re not seeing active disputes at the Lambeth Conference this time around (unlike 1998), partly because of the anodine way in which the Conference is being managed, and mainly because many of the more vociferous traditionalists have stayed away.

It’s hard therefore to comment on what might emerge, but for what they’re worth here are just a few general observations:

Old colonial patterns of paternalism towards African and Asian churches simply will not do (and neither will attempts at neo-colonial control through financial aid).  These churches are the liveliest, most evangelistic and Biblically-faithful churches in the Communion.  They are growing rapidly.  Western churches are not.  Anglicanism is no longer a ‘white’ faith, and the strongest Anglican churches are in the Southern hemisphere.  We need to learn from them, and to hear talk about such churches needing to ‘grow up’ makes me weep with frustration.  Why on earth would we want them to become like us?

While it may not have been altogether wise for African and South American churches to intervene in the internal affairs of the American and Canadian Episcopal churches, by including them as Churches in Rwanda, Uganda or Nigeria, I can share their frustration.  The North Americans have agreed to, and then ignored and breached, a whole series of resolutions and agreements at and since Lambeth 1998, most recently the Windsor process.  It seems that any attempt to reach agreement is worthless, so reciprocal action must seem a very attractive possibility – and indeed the only way of helping fellow Christians.

And such action may well be necessitated by the actions of the North American leadership.  Their persecution of traditionalist congregations and bishops seems, from this side of the pond, to resemble nothing less than totalitarian dictatorship, rather than the love and fellowship expected within the people of God.  It is a frightening sight, and looks for all the world like a huge self-inflicted wound.

Perhaps something good will come out of Lambeth to heal the divisions.  We can only hope and pray so, but I’m not that confident, not least because of the list of Lambeth absentees.