In his moving presentation to the Compass Rose Society, Rowan spoke of the pressure to make the recent Lambeth Conference a certain kind of conference—a conference that would make decisions that would draw lines and pass resolutions. The design group, with broad representation across the globe of Anglican communities, came to the conclusion, that there was no point in making decisions if the relationships that give decisions real impact were not also encouraged and strengthened.
Rowan noted that the tensions and ruptures within our Communion are not going to be resolved in a hurry. “Deep wounds heal slowly,” Rowan said. “We can fall into the trap of allowing rapid communication to substitute for real communication. Having to sit down every morning with the same group of people for nearly three weeks, having to look a person in the eye when you say rude things about them is a very good discipline. When you watch somebody else reading Scripture, you see their face turned toward God, and when their face turns toward you, you see that face differently for you’ve seen it turn towards God.”
Rowan told us that the Lambeth Conference was designed to facilitate a rediscovery of those things we can only do together and need to do together and above them all are mission and service. “Mission is never just a matter of delivering a pre-prepared package from one owner to another,” Rowan said. “Mission is trying to absorb as full a sense as you possibly can of what God is doing and what God wants to do. Out of the fullness of that absorption flows the urgency of our mission activity. And having our understanding of God’s purpose and God’s commitment deepened by our fellowship with one another is one of the deepest motivations for mission we could possibly have.”
Speaking of Christian service, Rowan was especially eloquent: “Theology does not dictate who we can collaborate with in meeting the needs of the Sudan or the Congo. The politics of church doesn’t dictate what the church might do in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. We acknowledge that further space where God retains that capacity to be unscrupulously, consistently, getting around our fear and moving us forward.”
In Part III, I’ll share Rowan’s concluding remarks on his personal theory of the “sanctified and unsanctified Ego” and a few pictures of the Compass Rose Society prayer service at the Compass Rose on the floor of Canterbury Cathedral.
