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of the liberal view that the church’s teachings on sexual morality should be adapted to fit the needs of a changing world. On the contrary, African and Asian prelates upheld the traditional teachings as eternal and thus relevant to every age. Many Western liberals were concerned by what they saw as a rather harsh Biblicist stance on the homosexual issue by the Africans. Duggan (cited by Ward, 2002) commenting on the intricacies of the debate states:

It was noticed that harshest attitudes towards homosexuality came from those bishops who represented the traditional CMS countries like Nigeria and Uganda, while the bishops of Southern Africa generally spoke with more liberal generosity…It was…as if the CMS had never passed on an appreciation of the complexity of Anglicanism. (p. 85).

Thus it is obvious that there is a strong connection between church tradition and a hard or soft line approach towards homosexuality. While Anglo-Catholics are likely to be more tolerant and sympathetic, evangelicals and the churches they planted are more orthodox. The Lambeth 1998 experience brought to the limelight the deep fault-lines running underneath the Anglican Communion which has quaked the church to its foundations. The fault-lines are obviously driven by differences in theology, culture and life experience. Whereas orthodoxy upholds the priority of the Scriptures in the theologization process, the liberal view gives more priority to the issue of human rights, culture and life experience.

The Lambeth Conference has a strictly consultative character, not infringing on provincial ‘autonomy’. Hastings (1991) rightly submits that “total ‘autonomy’ or

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the ‘independence’ of any part of the church is not very good ecclesiology” (p.

147). Anglicanism has a basic sense of the need for interdependence, but apparently does not know how to put its acts together beyond the claims of consultation and communion. Since Lambeth 1998, there has been a growing attention in the Anglican “north” to the ever increasing vitality within southern (especially African) Anglican provinces which has led to their open denunciations of the liberal excesses of the Western Churches.

Carrette and Keller (1999) point out the irony to the confrontation in the Anglican Communion as follows:

The Lambeth Conference is still held on the soil of the once-imperial homeland of the Anglican church, but the representative and voting power of the church now belongs to the majority of its members who come from what is called ‘the church of the south’ whose members reside south of the equator. While the Episcopal Church in the United States (i.e. the church of the North) represented the strongest appeal for the ordination of gay ministers, members from the church of the south organized themselves prior to the Conference in order to fight and successfully defeat the vote, viewing the ordination of gays as a symptom of the lax spirituality and liberal attitudes of the North. (p. 32).

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For Sollis (2000):

The 1998 Conference was the first time that homosexuality was a matter of central debate and, by chance, the Conference coincided with the House of Lords debate on the lowering of the age of consent for gay men to 16, which many of the Church of England bishops had to leave the Conference to attend and vote. (p. 109).

Combe (cited by Sollis, 2000) represents the Lambeth Conference debate on homosexuality in terms of ‘rights’ and states:

The division of opinion is more geographical than theological with pressure for change coming from a small but vociferous body of bishops from the West, led by Bishop Jack Spong of Newark, New Jersey and Bishop Holloway of Edinburgh. This construction of the debate in terms of equal rights on the one hand and conservative southern (or Third World) bishops versus liberal Western bishops was the dominant attitude of most media representation of the debate. (p. 110).

Sollis (2000) further posits that:

The debate focused on the fundamental compatibility of a lesbian or gay sexual relationship with the Christian life; having presented the debate as a contest between conservatives and liberals, Africans and Westerners and supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage and ordination, the Western media pronounced the conservatives as victors. A few days later, 146 bishops signed a pastoral statement to lesbian and gay Christians apologizing

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for any sense of rejection and pledging to continue to listen and reflect on the issue, among the signatories, two bishops from Central Africa, one from Brazil and six from South Africa, areas which were assumed to be hostile to liberalism. (p. 112).

Human sexuality has been a thorny issue within the Christian community. While the social climate on grassroots level might vary, the authority structures of institutionalized churches have demonstrated a high degree of unease in handling issues related to sex and sexuality. Among these issues, homosexuality has proven to be the most contentious. For instance, in the 1998Lambeth Conference, there was a high degree of disagreement and contention among the bishops representing 80 million believers in the worldwide Anglican Communion. The scenario of hot contention is closely related to the assumption that the Bible serves as the most powerful and fundamental basis for the church’s prohibition of the practice of homosexuality. The focus on biblical exegesis and other related issues (e.g. church tradition) was therefore inevitable.

Iheagwam (2010) states that:

During the 1998 Lambeth Conference, there was a palpable tension as the pro-homosexuality group, notably bishops from America, Canada and England went about lobbying for support while the anti-homosexuality group spearheaded by bishops from Africa, Asia and South America had their meetings to sharpen their strategies to counter the other group. (p. 90).

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After the heated debate, Resolution 1.10 on Human Sexuality which summarizes the position of Lambeth Conference is stated as follows:

The Conference:

(A) Commends to the church the subsection report on human sexuality.

(B) In view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage.

(C) Recognizes that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexuality orientation. Many of these are members of the church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the church, and God’s transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God, and that all baptized, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation are full members of the Body of Christ.

(D) While rejecting homosexuality practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation, and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriages and any trivialization and commercialization of sex.

(E) Cannot advise the legitimizing of blessing of same-sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same-gender unions.

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(F) Requests the Primates and the ACC to establish a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion and to share statements and resources among us.

(G) Notes the significance of the Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality and the concerns expressed on Resolutions IV.26, V.1, V.10, V.23 and V.35 on the authority of Scripture in matters of marriage and sexuality and asks the Primates and the ACC to include them in their monitoring process.

(pp. 91-92).

With the foregoing resolutions, many bishops from the West who came to the Lambeth Conference to further the cause of the homosexuals in the church were disappointed and according to Iheagwam, left for their respective countries in frustration and anger before the Conference was officially declared closed.

Zeigler (2007) states that:

‘Listening’ was highlighted by Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference on Human Sexuality, with the statement, “We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptized, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ”. This commitment was reaffirmed by the Anglican Primates at their special meeting in October 2003. It was this exhortation to listen that prompted the 2005 Primates meeting and the Nottingham meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council to urge the appointment of a listening process

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facilitator, Canon Philip Groves who began this ministry in January 2006. (p.

265).

Ziegler (2007) concludes that although successive resolutions of Anglican bodies have addressed the sexuality issue, it has been relatively recent that listening has been stressed as important to moving forward. Resolution 10 on Human Relationships and Sexuality at the 1978 Lambeth Conference encouraged dialogue with homosexual persons, but did not cite listening in particular. Resolution 64 of the 1988 Lambeth Conference on Human Rights for Those of Homosexual Orientation, mentioned study about homosexuality, but neither dialogue nor listening. (p. 264).

Thus the 1998 Lambeth Conference and its resolutions could be seen as not giving impetus to the unilateral actions of the Church in America and Canada. However, it is observable that while the revisionists invoked their autonomy rights in doing what they did, the orthodox branches of the church invoked the provisions of the Conference in their reactionary response. The ever brewing trouble created by the revisionists, and the state of broken communion led to significant portions of the Anglican Communion boycotting the Lambeth Conference of 2008, and gave birth to the GAFCON movement to be discussed in the fifth chapter of this work.