The BBC reports the Lambeth Conference march of witness, and finishes the report with an appeal for photographs:

But that’s impossible! Imagine taking photos of a procession of bishops without endangering yourself or others!

Simply can’t be done. Leave it to the professionals.

Do you want to hear a sick joke?¹

So then we turn to the parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13. It’s very tempting to think that this parable is a direct description of the world and church we find ourselves in: we know that God works all things for the good, and we have a fairly good idea of what the good is that God wants to achieve in our church. And yet, unaccountably, the person in the pew next to us or three rows in front of us, doesn’t seem to share the same understanding: in fact, they are positively antagonistic towards our ideas (God’s ideas!) for what we should be doing next. The only explanation can be is that they are the weeds, sown by the enemy, and we are the children of righteousness, sown by God.

It’s then very easy, and very tempting, to begin to look around the church (the parish church, the national church, the Anglican Communion) and begin to mark out the weeds from the wheat, and prepare for the day of harvest. But, as the parable explains, that isn’t what the Lord of the harvest wants us to do. According to his instructions the weeds and the wheat are to grow together until harvest time, and then, and only then, will they be gathered in, and separated and the weeds burnt off. And it is the Lord of the Harvest who will do the directing; of what needs to be gathered, and what needs to be burnt.

NOT US

I would happily chuck any number of people out of heaven:

• refuse to believe in evolution as a explanation for the development of species differences? You’re out (you’re too stupid to be a Christian)
• do you insist in thinking that being “christian” means nothing more than “being kind and neighbourly” and not wanting to sincerely follow Jesus Christ? You’re out (you’ve obviously never even tried to read the Gospels).
• do you insist on swearing in front of me and then apologising ostentatiously for doing so? You’re out (you’re just showing off, childishly)

Those are the people that I would chuck out, and I bet they could compile a list which would include me; once, twice or a hundred times.

But, guess what?

I don’t have the final say.

That’s God’s job, and curiously, God has a different set of criteria to me.

God’s criteria is that everybody (everybody) has ultimate worth and value, and that everybody (everybody) should be given every possible chance to live their life, to orient their life, according to the values and practices of heaven.

For some people that will mean coming to church, and saying their prayers. For other people, orienting their life along the values and practices of heaven will have nothing whatsoever to do with church: they will have performed works of charity and compassion, that were costly to them and to their standing in society, and at the last, the Lord of the Harvest will say to them, ‘Come in to the place I have prepared for you’ (and in case you don’t believe me, then go away and look up Matthew 25).

There’s a country singer called Lyle Lovett who expressed this difference beautifully:

Who keeps on trusting you
When you’ve been cheating
And spending your nights on the town
And who keeps on saying that he still wants you
When you’re through running around
And who keeps on loving you
When you’ve been lying
Saying things ain’t what they seem
God does
But I don’t
God will
But I won’t
And that’s the difference
Between God and me

So, let’s be thankful that God is different from both you and me; let’s be thankful that the way He judges us and will judge us is different from the judgement we would inflict on each other.

There is a practical benefit to all this as well. If we realise that it’s not our job to judge our brothers and sisters in Christ, then we might actually be able to get on with the task that God has given us, which is living as if we really believed the kingdom of heaven is already among us. We would stop looking for the things that divide us and concentrate on the things that unite us. We would believe that unity is more important than purity. We would believe (and behave as if we believed) that other people, other lives, might have an insight into what it is that God wanted for us, that we didn’t have the monopoly on God’s will.

We would be, in short, Christians.

There is the other way: we can split, and split, and split. Separate ourselves from anyone who disagrees with us in anyway about anything. It doesn’t matter whether it is about doctrine or morality or worship or even whether we should serve Café Direct or organic coffee after church. If you want to split then an argument about refreshments is just as good a reason as an argument about redemption.

And it doesn’t matter how trivial the reason for the split might be if we can use the bible to justify it: if we preface our argument with “the bible says…”, then who is going to be able to argue against us? (and if they attempt then it means that they don’t take the bible seriously, so we can feel free to split from them).

If we work at it really well, you can eventually make our church congregation incredibly pure: tiny, but incredibly pure. We’ll end up like the tiny group of disappointed people playing at being a church in a former wedding dress shop. That’s not the church. That’s pathetic. (But let’s leave God to judge the ultimate worth of the “Anglican Catholic Wendy Church”)

So moral of this talk:

Peace is better than war.
Unity is better than purity.
We are better together than apart.
It’s God’s job to judge, and it’s our job to live as if we believe all these things.

1. an original joke by Emo Philips

The fringe entertainment has yet really begun at the conference (despite the World’s Greatest Living Ecclesiastical Conference Cartoonist’s attempts at liturgical dancing and pigeon killing). The fringe will begin with the conference moving out of retreat next week.

In the meantime, here is a person and a trick that the conference organizers have missed. What a lost opportunity!

Brother Cesare and the Brother Metal Band

With the bishops retreating to the cathedral, today the campus of UKC was curiously deserted, inhabited only by the bishop’s wives¹ (I would say “spouse”, being a good Guardian-reading liberal, but I didn’t see anyone who wasn’t a wife!):

There were wives from the sub continent:

There were wives from Africa:

Wives from Melanesia (who were in England for the first time, and having a ball learning about all sorts of new things):

… and wives from Canada:

(who thought, when I went up to ask if I could take their photograph, that they were about to be told off for being noisy! Canadians, eh? Noisy and conscientious!)

(That’s not sunshine outside the tent, but snow, brought in especially to make them feel at home).

There was a wonderfully calm feeling to the conference today, and as I wandered around I fantasied about today being the real Lambeth conference.

What would it be like if the Spouses Conference was the real business of the Anglican Communion?

What if all the bishops were like these women: looking out to make friends, learn new things, have a ball?

1. oops! typo! I suppose that should be “bishops’ wives”– I don’t think they all belonged to one man!

Well they’ve only gone and done it.

The pile of bishops arrived today, finding themselves, bewildered, in the University of Kent’s equivalent to Heathrow Terminal 5:

Once meeted, they were greeted (with “difficult” bishops being identified by specially trained volunteers)

The volunteers had to deal with refugee quantities of luggage:

(Not every bishop can afford those lightweight, collapsible mitres).

To find their way around the campus a system of Aramaic insignia has been devised (based upon textual variations in the Dead Sea Scrolls) — very clear as I’m sure you’d agree:

The “World’s Greatest Living Ecclesiastical Conference Cartoonist” will soon be plying his wares from this des res:

Some bishops have already found themselves, curiously, at home:

Others were being “inculturated” into the fine English tradition of queuing:

Some bishops’ wives (or perhaps she is a bishop herself?) remembered that there is a garden party at Buckingham Palace coming up:

Tomorrow…

into retreat!

The rumours have been confirmed. There really is a pile (synod? congregation? crook? fudge?) of bishops descending upon the quiet and respectable parish of St Stephen’s Canterbury, and it’s happening imminently.

Today we had a meeting of all the volunteers from the diocese who are happy to act as “human sign posts” for the bishops who will insist on getting lost on the campus of UKC (although the thought did strike me that if they were capable of kayaking down the rivers of Guinea Island to get to the dirt road, to drive in the land rover to the jungle airstrip, to fly in the two seater plane to the rail head, to travel on the wood-fired steam train to the nearest settlement, to catch the ferry to the nearest international airport, to fly on the scheduled airline to London Heathrow AND still manage to find their way on the hell that is SE England’s public transport network to the remotest university campus in the Home Counties… if they can manage all that, then they might not need the aid of “human sign posts” to find their way to the bloody great circus tent in which the plenary sessions are being held! — but that’s  just me— I haven’t organised one of these conferences before, and I’m sure that piles / synods/ congregations / crooks of bishops are perfectly capable of getting lost like sheep between breakfast and morning prayer.)

Anyway, the volunteer sign posts enjoyed a leisurely lunch in Rutherford College, and because there were only 250 of us (and not the 1300 bishops, spouse, translators, secretariat, there will be from Wednesday) we were able to get through the lunch service in a little under two and an half hours. I am sure that things will slow down a little (be spoilt?) when all those bishops turn up later in the week.

The Rutherford Dining Hall, with a wonderful view of the Mother Ship beyond (designed to concentrate the minds of impressionable people of the episcopal persuasion).

Those of you who have followed the link (to the left) to the church where I am allowed more than three minutes, will have discovered that my parish incorporates the campus of the University of Kent at Canterbury. Something seems to be happening at UKC; all sorts of activity is going on, at a time of the year when we should be enjoying the peaceful absence of students.

Normally well-informed sources tell me that “the bishops are coming! the bishops are coming!” This can’t possibly be correct. Hundreds of bishops from all over the world descending upon a poor rector’s parish? This is boundary crossing of the most egregious kind! And nobody has asked my opinion on the matter, let alone my permission!

If the Anglican Communion has really descended into the worst kind of transgressions in this way, then I, for one, am prepared to document it. Stay tuned to 3 Minute Theologian over the coming three weeks and see if these episcopal rumours are true. Find out what cross-border incursions actually look like (when togged up to an impossible degree)!

In the meantime, this is what the calm before the storm looks like:

A circus tent has appeared in the car park of Rutherford College. Allegedly this is where the bishops are supposed to be meeting. In a circus tent? Surely not!

A labyrinth is being built overlooking the Cathedral– difficult bishops will be shown into the labyrinth, without the directions on how to get out.

The Senate House of the University, in which we find…

…the Conference “Prayer Space”.

(Not yet finished because a carpenter needs to come to install 800 bishops’ thrones).

Keep your eyes posted here for more “Signs of Life at Lambeth”™.

Well… quite!

(I think ultimately it comes down to the fact that if we don’t want them¹ as bishops, then we shouldn’t baptise them).

If I come across any blog comments worth reading, that don’t rehash the arguments of fifteen years ago, then I might link them here.

1. insert group of your choice here

(Shamelessly stolen from Chris Brady’s Targuman blog– where he has a very amusing caption competition for the picture)

UK listeners might have heard “The Now Show” on BBC Radio 4 last weekend. If so, then you will have been delighted by Mitch Benn’s song in support of Dr Rowan Williams (“who knows which bits of the bible are no longer true”). If you haven’t discovered the “Listen Again” facility on the BBC’s website, then this is for you:

Lord knows there are many of us who wish the song were true!