Losses at Lambeth
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If there’s one thing on which the fractured pool of Anglican bishops can agree, it’s that the Lambeth Conference is an enormous waste of time and money. Lambeth — named for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s opulent London palace — is the once-a-decade gathering of the bishops of the Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church here in America is a small part.
Sadly, it’s the New York City-area Episcopalian delegation to Lambeth that is to blame — once again — for ruining the conference. This time around it was the antics of the suffragan bishop from the Diocese of New York, Catherine Roskam. At a Lambeth workshop late last week, Ms. Roskam told the crowd that men beat women “because they can.”
According to a report in the Times of London, Ms. Roskam shocked and dismayed her fellow bishops with the following tirade: “We have 700 men here. Do you think any of them beat their wives? Chances are they do. The most devout Christians beat their wives … many of our bishops come from places where it is culturally acceptable to beat your wife.” She may be right that such places exist. The problem is that the bishop was making sweeping allegations about groups, not individuals.
More specifically, Bishop Roskam was aiming her remarks at the delegation of African bishops at the conference. Ten years ago, the bishop of the neighboring Diocese of Newark, N.J., John Shelby Spong, rocked Lambeth 1998 when he said that African bishops were out of touch with the modern world and that their interpretation of the Bible was “superstitious.” Bishop Spong later said he was sorry and that his remarks were misunderstood.
The mean-spiritedness of these two New York City-area bishops reflects a profound level of arrogance and envy on their part. That’s because the Anglican Church in the African subcontinent is composed largely of traditionalist clergy who oversee a vibrant and rapidly growing church grounded on the authority of the scriptures and using a liturgy that reflects the rich traditions of the Church of England.
The situation is much different in the American wing of the Anglican Communion, the Episcopal Church. In fact, it’s Bishop Roskam’s own New York diocese that is leading the Episcopal Church’s slide into oblivion. “The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches,” an annual report published by the National Council of Churches, reports that the Episcopal Church experienced a 4.15% decline in membership last year, the largest drop in membership of any American religious body.
In New York City, the divisions caused by figures such as Bishop Roskam are even clearer. The General Theological Seminary in Chelsea, for example, just last month sent out a desperate appeal to alumni for donations; this Episcopal clergy school is chipping away at its endowment simply to keep the lights on. Within the Manhattan churches that are under the jurisdiction of Bishop Roskam, secular humanism has replaced religion. Walk into any Episcopal church here on a Sunday morning and you’re more likely to hear preaching on social justice topics — such as recycling, homelessness, and the United Nations — than you will reverent appeals for heavenly forgiveness.
Any church conference should end better than Lambeth, which wrapped up its two-week affair yesterday. Some senior bishops estimate that the meeting will have cost some $10 million when the catering bills come due for the lavish banquets and lunches held for the bishops. (There was even an enormous lawn party with Queen Elizabeth II for the 670 bishops and their spouses.)
But the wounds caused by the caustic remarks of Ms. Roskam, New York’s suffragan bishop, are even more costly. She has helped deepen the growing schism between a small American Episcopal minority and the rest of the Anglican Communion.
Worse still is that the viewpoints espoused by radical bishops like her ensure that Anglicans will never be able to reconcile with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, the leaders of which were aghast by the three-ring circus that was Lambeth. In fact, in an address to the conference, a Roman Catholic spokesman said that his church had no choice but to consider Anglican priestly orders to be invalid.
“I find guilt by association very difficult,” the archbishop of York who was born in Africa, John Sentamu, told the Times in response to Bishop Roskam’s statements on spousal abuse. “You have to be extremely careful. People should stop putting labels on members of our family without evidence.”
One thing is certain: There is enough evidence to demand that Catherine Roskam immediately resign her post as suffragan bishop. Her departure from the Episcopal Diocese of New York will be the first step in putting the Episcopal churches of New York back in order.
Mr. Akasie, an Episcopalian, is a contributor to The New York Sun.