Archbishop's
Lambeth hope: 'Change the way God
wants us to'
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams opened the Lambeth Conference July
16 with prayers for the Holy Spirit's guidance, contending that "the most
important thing we can pray for [is] the energy to change as God wants us
to change, individually and as a Communion."
"I don't imagine that simply building relationships solves our problems," Archbishop Williams admitted, "but the nature of our calling as Christians is such that we dare not pretend that we can meet and discuss without attention to this quality of relation with each other, even if we disagree or find ourselves going in different directions. The Lord of the Church commands that we must love one another in the process and there is no alternative to that."
Addressing the conference's first plenary session, Archbishop Williams acknowledged that more than 200 bishops have chosen not to attend the event.
"It's a great grief that many of our brothers and sisters in the Communion have not felt able to be with us for these weeks," he said, "a grief because we need their voice and they need ours in learning Christ together.
"I respect and accept
the decisions that have been made, but together we need in prayer to acknowledge
the wound that that makes in our fellowship and to acknowledge also, as I
must do myself, what we still have to do to mend relations that have been
hurt," he said. "I hope that in these weeks we shall daily be remembering
those who are not with us, upholding them in our prayers, in our respect and
love."
—Anglican Communion News Service contributed to this report.
