one end of the week, or the other.

It has been an interesting week of hearing about people's church leadership styles. There certainly is a lot of diversity in the church of England. I love diversity. I think is what makes life interesting but it seems to be something that the church is finding particularly difficult to deal with at the moment. In the course of the last year it feels like more and more groups of people, churches and types of churches have become more separatist in their approach. Rather than celebrating diversity in congregations it seems that many people have chosen to gather with like minded people and form what might be referred to as 'religious gangs'. This doesn't seem to me to be very useful in terms of offering an alternative to dominant world views. Anyway, I haven't been invited to the Lambeth Conference so I can't ask the Bishops what an earth is going on...But it feels like us little people are getting swamped by the BIG arguments of a few men. And now it appears that those who have been invited have the arrogance to turn the opportunity to talk about these issues down. How does that happen? How do people who are supposed to represent the diversity of the Anglican Communion get to the point where they think the can think it is ok to just not turn up to stuff like this? It beggars belief. I am taking a course at Trinity on Galatians and I have realised the intensity of Paul's feelings about the Jerusalem Church's hold on the early Christian Church. He was really cross (understatement) about how things were panning out in terms of their power and influence on the 'right' way to be Christian. He challenged this power and wrote very strong letters expressing his feelings. BUT he never stopped talking to those he disagreed with. He always kept up the dialogue.

Anyway, Dave Walker has drawn an amusing cartoon called 'Why everyone should go to the Lambeth Conference' - it takes the edge off the bitter taste...



Also Bishop Alan Wilson writes far more articulately about why he IS going to Lambeth.

By the way - if you are not a Christian and you have read this I am so sorry that we don't always offer you credible alternatives to world views. Please don't think that this is a fair representation of Christianity - Jesus is so much better than us, really honest.