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The Lambeth Conference
ii
 The Lambeth Conference

Theology, History, Polity and Purpose

Edited by Paul Avis and Benjamin M. Guyer

Bloomsbury T&T Clark

An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY
 Bloomsbury T&T Clark
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Imprint previously known as T&T Clark

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London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10018
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www.bloomsbury.com

BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the Diana logo are trademarks

of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published 2017

© Paul Avis and Benjamin Guyer, 2017

Paul Avis and Benjamin Guyer have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval
system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting

on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication
can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: HB: 978-0-5676-6231-6

  ePDF: 978-0-5676-6233-0
ePub: 978-0-5676-6232-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Avis, Paul D. L., editor. | Guyer, Benjamin, editor.
Title: The Lambeth Conference: theology, history, polity and purpose /
edited by Paul Avis and Benjamin M. Guyer.
Description: New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, An imprint of Bloomsbury
Publishing Plc, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017032159| ISBN 9780567662316 (hb) |
ISBN 9780567662330 (epdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Lambeth Conference. | Anglican Communion.
Classification: LCC BX5021.L5 L36 2017 | DDC 262/.53–dc23 LC record
available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017032159

Cover image © Westminster Abbey by scubabartek / iStock

Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

 Contents

Foreword: The Archbishop of Canterbury vii

Editorial Preface viii
Contributors xiv

Part I: Theological, Historical and Constitutional Studies

1 The Lambeth Conference among the Instruments of
Communion Stephen Pickard 3
2 The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth
Conference Paul Avis 23
3 ‘This Unprecedented Step’: The Royal Supremacy and the 1867
Lambeth Conference Benjamin M. Guyer 53
4 William Reed Huntington, American Catholicity and the
Chicago—Lambeth Quadrilateral Mark D. Chapman 84
5 The Making of ‘An Appeal to All Christian People’ at the 1920
Lambeth Conference Charlotte Methuen 107
6 Christian Mission and the Lambeth Conferences Ephraim Radner 132
7 Episcopal Leadership in Anglicanism, 1800 to the Present:
Changing form, Function and Collegiality Jeremy Morris 173
8 Before and After Lambeth I.10: The Lambeth Conference
on Sex and Marriage Andrew Goddard 205
9 The Windsor Process and the Anglican Covenant
Gregory K. Cameron 234
10 The Resolutions of the Lambeth Conference and the Laws of
Anglican Churches Norman Doe and Richard Deadman 259

Part II: Personal, Pastoral and Political Perspectives

11 ‘Such Unfolding of the Truth of the Gospel’: Post-colonial
Reflections on the Missiological Dimension of the
Lambeth Conference Cathy Ross 297
vi Contents

12 The Household of Faith: Anglican Obliquity and

the Lambeth Conference Martyn Percy 316
13 The Lambeth Conference: Has it succeeded? Can it
survive? Mark D. Thompson 341
14 The Ecumenical Dimension of the Lambeth Conference
Mary Tanner 358
15 The Methodologies of the Lambeth Conference 1998
and 2008: The Impact of Process on Spiritual
Discernment Alyson Barnett-Cowan 388
16 Critical Solidarity: Roman Catholic Perspectives on
the Lambeth Conference Donald Bolen 403
17 Remembering our Future at the Lambeth Conference
Victoria Matthews 419

Index of Subjects 431

Index of Names 433
 Foreword: The Archbishop of Canterbury

I am very grateful to Paul Avis and Ben Guyer for bringing together this
important collection of essays. It is of course timely as we approach the next
Lambeth Conference.
I was struck by this sentence in the editors’ preface to the book: ‘We hope
and pray that these chapters will communicate – and, more importantly,
re-inspire – some of the faith, dedication and utterly infectious joy that the
Lambeth Conference has generated over the last 150 years.’
I pray that the Lambeth Conference in 2020 will indeed be an opportunity
for expressing faith, dedication and utterly infectious joy. It is of course only
with the crucial aid of reflecting back on what has happened that we can begin
to move forward and make sense of what is happening in the present.
I therefore commend this book of essays and hope that others will read them
carefully as a preparation for further reflection on the Lambeth Conference
and its part in the complex web of relationship in the Anglican Communion.

The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Justin Welby

 Editorial Preface

This volume of scholarly studies is being published 150 years after the first
Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops in 1867. The Conference that
will convene in 2020 will be the fifteenth in the series. The last major study
of the Lambeth Conference, Alan M. G. Stephenson’s Anglicanism and the
Lambeth Conferences, was published forty years ago.1 Much has happened
in Anglicanism since then; a fresh, thorough and comprehensive account is
overdue. Surveying a range of historical, theological and constitutional topics,
these essays collectively lay the foundations for future scholarship on the
Lambeth Conference as a major institution of the Anglican Communion.
The first Lambeth Conference was a new departure for the world’s
Anglicans. That conference was not intended as the first Lambeth Conference
– no sequel was envisaged at the time. However, bishops and laity found the
1867 meeting both electrifying and inspiring, and within a few years of its
conclusion, there were calls for another such conference. From 1878 until
2008, the Lambeth Conference took place every ten years. There were only
three exceptions during this 130-year period. The fourth Lambeth Conference
was held in 1897 rather than 1898 so that all Anglican bishops might gather
together in commemoration of the 1,300th anniversary of St. Augustine’s
missionary venture into England.2 The two world wars inevitably brought
about considerable disruption: the 1918 Conference was pushed back to 1920,
and the 1940 Conference was delayed until 1948. But with the practice of
decennial gatherings already set, in the post-war period the Conferences met
without fail each decade for the next sixty years.
Given this pattern, the next Conference should have taken place in 2018.
But the Anglican Communion is not what it once was. Bonds of affection have,
in some places, been replaced with fetters of discord; matters of long-standing
consensus have become topics of acrimonious debate. Nonetheless, as the

1
Alan M. G. Stephenson, Anglicanism and the Lambeth Conferences (London: SPCK, 1978). See also
id., The First Lambeth Conference, 1867 (London: SPCK, 1967).
2
Stephenson, Anglicanism and the Lambeth Conferences, p. 94.
 Editorial Preface ix

chapters in this book show, with 150 years of history and attendant influence,
the Lambeth Conference is a defining feature of modern Anglicanism.
Because of its institutional nature, the Lambeth Conference is best spoken of
in the singular, as an enduring reality. Anglicans refer not to ‘the Lambeth
Conferences’ (plural), but to ‘the Lambeth Conference’ (singular), specifying
only the year in which it took place (e.g. ‘the Lambeth Conference 1920’ or
‘the 1920 Lambeth Conference’). As with every institution, the membership
changes from one meeting to another, but as with a Parliament or Congress,
the meetings of the Lambeth Conference are not one-off events. The whole is
greater than the sum of its parts.
The Lambeth Conference is often described as one of the Anglican
Communion’s four Instruments of Communion. The other three are the
office and ministry of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the incumbent for the
time being of the oldest Primatial See of the English Church; the Primates’
Meeting, which consists of the senior archbishop or metropolitan of each
member church of the Communion and the Anglican Consultative Council
(ACC), the only body that is both governed by a constitution and made up
of representatives who are not ex officio, but elected or appointed by each
member church. It is no exaggeration to claim that the Lambeth Conference
has done more than any other Anglican ‘Instrument’ to create and facilitate the
modern Anglican Communion. In the light of current debate and dissension,
it is especially important that Anglicans and their ecumenical partners have
a clear understanding of the role played by the Lambeth Conference in this
regard. False memories die the slowest of deaths; partisan historical narratives
are often the handmaidens of long-lasting ecclesial division. Discord must
not be allowed to occlude the deep historical and theological roots that all
Anglicans share.
The Lambeth Conference has played a decisive role in shaping and even
creating the other three Instruments of Communion. The ACC came into
existence in 1968, when the Lambeth Conference of that same year passed
Resolution 69. The wording of that resolution is important; the ACC was not
created by fiat, but by mediating a request to the provinces of the Anglican
Communion: ‘The Conference accepts and endorses the appended proposals
concerning the Anglican Consultative Council and its Constitution and submits
them to the member Churches of the Anglican Communion for approval.’ The
x Editorial Preface

resolution specified that approval would come ‘by a two-thirds majority’ sent
to the Lambeth Consultative Body (LCB), and further specified the contents
of the ACC’s constitution and its schedule of membership. Resolution 69
indicated no possibility that non-approval by a province necessarily excluded
that province from continued membership; rather, the minority would be
bound by the decision of the majority. Spurred by the Lambeth Conference,
the Anglican Communion’s provinces approved the creation of the ACC,
which held its first meeting in Limuru, Kenya, in 1971.
The ACC is not the only body that the Lambeth Conference has helped
bring to birth. The LCB was created by the 1897 Lambeth Conference and
formed so that ‘resort may be had, if desired, by the national Churches,
provinces, and extra-provincial dioceses of the Anglican Communion either
for information or for advice, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury be
requested to take such steps as he may think most desirable for the creation
of this consultative body’.3 The 1930 Lambeth Conference further specified
that the LCB should ‘be prepared to advise on questions of faith, order, policy
or administration’, and, more importantly, begin the work of normalizing its
membership, requiring that it ‘should consist of not less than 18 members’.4
The LCB continues to exist as an ad hoc group, advising the Archbishop
of Canterbury on matters pertaining to the Lambeth Conference, but the
ACC has taken over duties pertaining to policy and administration, and
to a lesser extent, faith and order. The creation of both the LCB and the
ACC are abiding testaments to the importance of the Lambeth Conference,
and to its capacity for authoritative suasion in leading the wider Anglican
Communion.
Although the Lambeth Conference did not create the other two
Instruments of Communion, it shaped them decisively. The Lambeth
Conference very much recreated the Archbishopric of Canterbury as an
episcopal see of international import. By the late nineteenth century, a
synergistic relationship had developed between the Lambeth Conference and
the Archbishop of Canterbury. When Archbishop Charles Thomas Longley
endorsed the 1865 Canadian proposal for convening an international synod
of Anglican bishops, he took on the responsibility of issuing personal

3
LC 1897, Res. 5.
4
LC 1930, Res. 50.
 Editorial Preface xi

invitations to each Anglican bishop. All later Archbishops of Canterbury

have followed Longley in this regard. This gives Canterbury a position
of unparalleled influence in shaping global Anglicanism. Importantly,
Archbishop Longley set a precedent in a second way by not inviting the
South African Bishop John Colenso, whose theology had been condemned
as heterodox by every provincial Anglican body then in existence. Invitations
to the Lambeth Conference are not a foregone conclusion. The prestige
accorded through the Lambeth Conference to the Archbishop of Canterbury
enabled Archbishop Donald Coggan to create the Primates’ Meeting, the
fourth Instrument of Communion, in 1978.
The nomenclature ‘Instruments of Communion’ points to an imperative and
priority for the Anglican Communion in recent times – to hold together. The
Anglican Communion will not last if it settles for merely pragmatic political
ties and props in order to avoid falling apart. If it is to have a meaningful
quality of communion, the Anglican Communion must cultivate an ecclesial
character and quality expressible in a globally interchangeable ordained
ministry, the exercise of episcopal collegiality, a common sacramental life and
structures for consultation and discernment, arriving at a common mind on
all essential matters. This includes, but is not limited to, recognizing in one
another biblical fidelity and creedal orthodoxy. Our communion as Anglicans
must instantiate the biblical notion of koinonia, sharing and participating
together in a reality greater than ourselves. That reality is the realm of the
grace of God, mediated to us through the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ
and energized by the power of the Holy Spirit. The whole is greater than the
sum of its parts.
The Anglican Communion is a communion of churches. It is not
constituted as a global church with a common set of liturgies or a unified
canon law. The Anglican Communion does have shared, international
structures of governance and guidance – the Instruments of Communion –
but liturgies, disciplinary procedures and official policies on many matters
are administered at the provincial or local level. Because of shared historical
roots in the Church of England, there are strong family resemblances between
the liturgies, laws and structures of governance of member churches. The
ideal balance between local autonomy and international communion is best
encapsulated by the phrase ‘Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence’
xii Editorial Preface

(MRI), which dates from the 1963 Anglican Congress in Toronto, Canada.
The Lambeth Conference is nothing if not a collective episcopal commitment
to this very principle.
We hope and pray that these chapters will communicate – and, more
importantly, re-inspire – some of the faith, dedication and utterly infectious
joy that the Lambeth Conference has generated over the last 150 years. More
specifically, as we told contributors, the purpose of our book is fourfold:

1. to affirm the strategic importance of the Lambeth Conference as an

enduring institution of the Anglican Communion, marking its first 150
years of existence, while also attempting to raise its public profile both
within the Communion and ecumenically;
2. to provide a range of scholarly in-depth resources – historical, ecclesiological,
ecumenical and constitutional – to serve as background preparatory material
for the next Lambeth Conference and those that will follow, by informing
and resourcing the participants – the bishops of the Anglican Communion
and the many ecumenical observers – and all others who will follow the
course of the Conference closely and be affected by its outcomes;
3. to provide scholarly resources and tools for any and all persons who are
or will be engaged in academic research into the history, theology, polity
and influence of Anglicanism, such as journalists, scholars, teachers of
Anglican studies, clergy and church commentators;
4. to promote and assist the revival of Anglican theology, ecclesiology, polity
and historical self-understanding more broadly, setting contemporary
Anglican theology and practice upon the firm foundation of the
Anglican inheritance of faith, in subordination to Holy Scripture and the
ecumenical creeds, as ‘our inspiration and guidance under God’.

Accordingly, this book falls into two parts. The first consists of studies that
deal with the history, theology, constitution and purpose of the Lambeth
Conference. The second, shorter, part consists of more individual, personal and
pastoral perspectives concerning the Lambeth Conference and Anglicanism
more generally. History studies the past, but tradition strives to preserve
something of it. Tradition is a value judgement; it is not the fullness of the past,
but a consciously cultivated continuity that links select elements from prior
ages with our own time. The Lambeth Conference has bequeathed a legacy
 Editorial Preface xiii

in which there is much to celebrate and give thanks for. Its tradition is worth
cultivating.
We are most grateful to all of the contributors, who have given of their
time and talents and shared their scholarship and insights. We also thank the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Justin
Welby, for agreeing to contribute a foreword to this book.
Paul Avis
Church of England

Benjamin M. Guyer
The Episcopal Church (USA)
 Contributors

Paul Avis spent twenty-three years in parish ministry and was then General
Secretary of the Council for Christian Unity of the Church of England,
1998–2011, and Theological Consultant to the Anglican Communion Office,
2011–12 where he produced Becoming a Bishop: A Theological Handbook of
Episcopal Ministry (Bloomsbury T&T Clark) for the bishops of the Anglican
Communion. Paul has been a Chaplain to HM Queen Elizabeth II, honorary
professor in the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Exeter,
and consecutively Prebendary, Sub Dean and Canon Theologian of Exeter
Cathedral. He has been a senior inspector of theological colleges and courses
since 1998 and serves on the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity,
Faith and Order. He is currently an honorary research Fellow, Department
of Theology and Religion, University of Exeter, and honorary professor in
the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Durham; editor-in-
chief of Ecclesiology and editor of the Anglican-Episcopal Theology and History
series published by Brill. Among his books are several on Anglicanism:
Anglicanism and the Christian Church: Historical Resources in Theological
Perspective (revised edition 2002), The Identity of Anglicanism: Essentials of
Anglican Identity (2008), The Vocation of Anglicanism (2016), all published by
Bloomsbury T&T Clark, and The Anglican Understanding of the Church: An
Introduction, published by SPCK. He has written on conciliarity in Beyond the
Reformation: Authority, Primacy and Unity in the Conciliar Tradition (T&T
Clark, 2006). He is also the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Ecclesiology
(Oxford University Press, 2017). Paul serves as an honorary assistant priest in
the Axminster group of parishes, Diocese of Exeter.

Alyson Barnett-Cowan is the President of the Canadian Council of Churches.

A priest in the Anglican Church of Canada, she served as Director for Faith,
Worship and Ministry and as Ecumenical Officer for the Anglican Church
of Canada and then as Director for Unity Faith and Order for the Anglican
Communion and was Interim Secretary General in 2015. Alyson is a canon
 Contributors xv

of St Matteo's Cathedral in the Diocese of Brandon (Canada) and holds four

honorary doctorates. She served as coopted staff for the ecumenical work of
both the 1998 and 2008 Lambeth Conferences.

Donald Bolen is currently the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Regina in

Saskatchewan, Canada. He had formerly served as Bishop of the Diocese of
Saskatoon, from 2010 to 2016. Ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Regina
in October, 1991, he was assigned to pastoral ministry, taught Religious Studies
at Campion College at the University of Regina, and began doctoral work on
the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). In 2001,
he was asked to work at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
in Rome, serving as the staff person for the Catholic Church’s relations with the
Anglican Communion and World Methodist Council. From 2001 to 2008 he
served as co-secretary for ARCIC, and for the International Anglican-Roman
Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM). Archbishop Bolen
is currently a Member of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian
Unity, Co-Chair of IARCCUM, and Co-Chair of the Canadian Anglican-
Roman Catholic Theological Dialogue. He served as the Co-Chair of the Joint
International Commission for Dialogue between the World Methodist Council
and the Catholic Church (2013–16) and as a member of the International
Consultation between the Catholic Church and the World Evangelical Alliance
(2009–16). Don has written and lectured extensively in the field of ecumenism.

Gregory Kenneth Cameron is the Bishop of St Asaph in the Church in Wales.

He holds degrees in Theology and Christian Doctrine from the Universities
of Cambridge and Wales, and a degree in Canon Law from the University of
Wales. Prior to his election as Bishop, he worked from 2003 to 2009 as the
Deputy Secretary General of the Anglican Communion and Director of
Ecumenical Affairs, in which role he served the ecumenical conversations of
the Communion, and was Secretary to many of the Anglican Communion
Commissions set up during his period of office. He participated in all of the
bilateral dialogues of the Communion, and was also appointed as Secretary
successively to the Lambeth Commission on Communion, which produced
the Windsor Report, the Reception Reference Group, the Covenant Design
Group and the Windsor Continuation Group. Gregory is currently Anglican
Co-Chair of the Anglican Oriental Orthodox Dialogue.
xvi Contributors

Mark Chapman is Vice-Principal and Academic Dean of Ripon College

Cuddesdon, Oxford, Professor of the History of Modern Theology in the
University of Oxford, and Canon Theologian of Truro Cathedral, as well
as assistant priest in three rural churches in Oxfordshire. He is currently a
member of the General Synod of the Church of England and is vice chair of
the Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network. He has
published widely in many different areas of theology and church history. His
most recent books are Theology and Society in Three Cities: Berlin, Oxford and
Chicago, 1800-1914 (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2014), The Fantasy of Reunion:
Anglicans, Catholics, and Ecumenism, 1833-1880 (Oxford University Press,
2014) and Anglican Theology (T&T Clark, 2012). Mark’s other books include
Anglicanism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2006). He
is the editor or co-editor of several works, including the Oxford Handbook of
Anglican Studies (Oxford University Press, 2015).

Richard Deadman read Theology at the University of Exeter and Canon Law
(LLM) at the Cardiff Law School. He has served as an assistant and collaborator
to Professor Norman Doe. Richard is currently the Vicar of Saint Matthew’s,
Newcastle.

Norman Doe, DCL (Lambeth) and LLD (Cambridge), is a professor of law at

Cardiff University and Director there of the Centre for Law and Religion. His
books include Fundamental Authority in Late Medieval English Law (1990)
and Christian Law (2013), both published by Cambridge University Press; The
Legal Framework of the Church of England (1996), Canon Law in the Anglican
Communion (1998) and Law and Religion in Europe (2011), published by
Oxford University Press. He contributed to ‘A Statement of Principles of
Christian Law’, issued by the Christian Law Panel of Experts (Rome 2013–16).
He has also written An Anglican Covenant (Canterbury Press, 2008). A visiting
professor at Paris University and KU Leuven, Norman was visiting fellow at
Trinity College Oxford (2011) and visiting scholar at Corpus Christi College
Oxford (2015), founding member of the Colloquium of Anglican and Roman
Catholic Canon Lawyers (1999), and acted as a consultant on canon law to
the Anglican Communion, including the project which led to The Principles
of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion (2008),
served on the Lambeth Commission (2003–4), and is Chancellor of the
 Contributors xvii

Diocese of Bangor. He is director of the LLM in Canon Law at Cardiff Law

School which he set up in 1991.

Andrew Goddard is a Senior Research Fellow at the Kirby Laing Institute for
Christian Ethics, an ordained Anglican based at St James the Less, Pimlico and
the Lancelot Andrewes Honorary Canon of Winchester Cathedral. He is also
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anglican Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary
where he teaches Anglican History and Polity. Andrew has written on
Anglican discussions on sexuality, the Anglican Communion and the Anglican
Covenant online for the Anglican Communion Institute and Fulcrum, and as
a contributor to The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the Anglican Communion,
The Oxford Handbook of Anglican Studies, Pro Communione: Theological Essays
on the Anglican Covenant, and The Anglican Covenant.

Benjamin M. Guyer is Lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy

at the University of Tennessee Martin. He gained his doctorate from the
University of Kansas. He has published in The Sixteenth Century Journal and
The Living Church, and is the editor of The Beauty of Holiness: The Caroline
Divines and Their Writings (Canterbury Press, 2012) and Pro Communione:
Theological Essays on the Anglican Covenant (Wipf and Stock, 2012).

Victoria Matthews was ordained to each of the three orders of ministry in

the Diocese of Toronto in the Anglican Church of Canada. She has served
as Bishop Suffragan of Toronto (1994–7), Diocesan Bishop of the Diocese of
Edmonton, Canada (1997-2007) and Bishop in Residence of Wycliffe College,
Toronto (2008). Since 2008 she has been Bishop of Christchurch in the
Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. She was a member
of the Communications Committee of Lambeth 1998 as well as serving on
the Planning Group for that Lambeth Conference. During the 2008 Lambeth
Conference she was a member of the Windsor Report Continuation Group
which addressed the Lambeth Conference on three occasions. Victoria is a
member of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and
Order. Her academic degrees in theology and divinity are from Trinity College
at the University of Toronto and Yale University.

Charlotte Methuen is Professor of Church History at the University of

Glasgow and an Anglican priest. Her research focuses in three main areas: the
Reformation, the Ecumenical Movement, and the history of women’s ministry.
xviii Contributors

She has published a number of articles exploring the Church of England’s

ecumenical relationships in the aftermath of the First World War, and is
preparing a monograph on George Bell and the Ecumenical Movement,
1918–1937. Before moving to Glasgow, Charlotte taught Liturgy and Church
History at Ripon College Cuddesdon, and Church History at Oxford
University. She has also taught Church History at the Universities of Bochum
and Hamburg, in Germany. Her study of the history of ecumenism is rooted
in her experience of living and teaching in Germany as well as England and
Scotland. She is a member of the Inter-Church Relations Committee of the
Scottish Episcopal Church and of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on
Unity, Faith and Order of the Anglican Communion. She has also served on the
Church of England’s Faith and Order Commission; the Meissen Commission,
which oversees relations between the Church of England and the German
Protestant Church; and the Anglican Lutheran International Commission.

Jeremy Morris is Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and an Affiliated

Lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity. An Anglican priest, he was previously
Dean of Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, Dean of Trinity Hall, and Vice-
Principal of Westcott House, Cambridge. For many years he was a member
of the Faith and Order Group, and then of the Faith and Order Commission,
of the Church of England. He is Director of the Archbishop’s Examination
in Theology. Jeremy is a specialist in modern religious history, including
the Anglican tradition, the Ecumenical Movement and arguments about
secularization. His books include F. D. Maurice and the Crisis of Christian
Authority (Oxford University Press, 2005), The Church in the Modern Age (I.
B. Tauris, 2007), The High Church Revival in the Church of England: Arguments
and Identities (Brill, 2016), and, as editor, The Oxford History of Anglicanism,
Vol. 4: Global Western Anglicanism c.1910-2000 (Oxford University Press,
2017). His current research project is a history of the Eucharist in Western
Europe since 1800.

Martyn Percy is Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, one of Oxford’s largest

colleges. Christ Church is also the Cathedral Church of the Diocese of Oxford.
From 2004 to 2014 he was Principal of Ripon College Cuddesdon. Martyn is
a member of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford, and tutors
in the Social Sciences Division and the Saïd Business School of the University
of Oxford. He is also Professor of Theological Education at King’s College
 Contributors xix

London and Professorial Research Fellow at Heythrop College, University of

London. Since 2017 he has been a visiting professor at the Centre for the Study
of Values, University of Winchester. Martyn writes and teaches on Christianity
and contemporary culture, modern ecclesiology and contextual and pastoral
theology. His recent books include Anglicanism: Confidence, Commitment and
Communion (Ashgate, 2013), The Futures of Anglicanism: Currents, Contours,
Charts (Routledge, 2017) and Thirty-Nine New Articles: An Anglican Landscape
of Faith (Canterbury Press, 2014). He is a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of
Anglican Studies (Oxford University Press, 2015).

Stephen Pickard is Executive Director of the Australian Centre for

Christianity and Culture; Director of the Strategic Research Centre in
Public and Contextual Theology and Professor of Theology, Charles Sturt
University, Canberra, Australia. He has served as a Bishop for the past decade
and is currently an Assistant Bishop in the Anglican Diocese of Canberra
and Gouburn. He has undertaken a range of ministerial and academic
appointments over three decades in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Stephen is deputy chair of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on
Unity, Faith and Order; Chair of the Ministry and Mission Commission
of the Anglican Church of Australia, and a Six Preacher at Canterbury
Cathedral. His teaching, writing and research is in the area of ecclesiology,
ministry and mission and his publications include Theological Foundations
for Collaborative Ministry (Ashgate 2009); In-Between God: Theology,
Community and Discipleship (AFT 2011); and Seeking the Church: An
Introduction to Ecclesiology (SCM, 2012).

Ephraim Radner is Professor of Historical Theology at Wycliffe College at the

University of Toronto. An Anglican priest and former missionary in Burundi,
he has also served in several parishes of the Episcopal Church. He is the author
of several books on ecclesiology: The End of the Church (Eerdmans, 1998), A
Brutal Unity: The Spiritual Politics of the Christian Church (Baylor University
Press, 2012); Anglicanism: The Fate of Communion: The Agony of Anglicanism
and the Future of a Global Church (with Philip Turner; Eerdmans, 2006);
hermeneutics: Time and the Word: Figural Reading of the Christian Scriptures
(Eerdmans, 2016); and Christian anthropology: A Time to Keep: Theology,
Mortality, and the Shape of a Human Life (Baylor 2016).
xx Contributors

Cathy Ross is Tutor in Contextual Theology at Ripon College Cuddesdon, MA

Coordinator for Pioneer Leadership Training at CMS (Church Mission Society)
and Lecturer in Mission at Regent’s Park College, Oxford. She comes from
Aotearoa/NZ. Until mid-2010 she managed the Crowther Centre for Mission
Education at CMS, and was the J. V. Taylor Fellow in Missiology at Regent’s
Park College, Oxford. She is also the General Secretary of the International
Association for Mission Studies. She has previously worked in Rwanda, Congo
and Uganda with NZCMS. Her recent publications include: Women with a
Mission: Rediscovering Missionary Wives in Early New Zealand (Auckland:
Penguin, 2006); Mission in the 21st Century: Exploring the Five Marks of Global
Mission (ed. with Andrew Walls; London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2008);
Life-Widening Mission: Global Anglican Perspectives (Oxford: Regnum, 2012);
Mission in Context (with John Corrie; Ashgate, 2012); The Pioneer Gift (with
Jonny Baker; London: SCM, 2014); Mission on the Road to Emmaus, (with Steve
Bevans; London: SCM, 2015) and Pioneering Spirituality (with Jonny Baker;
London: SCM, 2015). Her research interests are in the areas of contextual
theologies, World Christianity, feminist theologies and hospitality.

Mary Tanner taught Old Testament at Hull and Bristol Universities and
Westcott House, Cambridge. She served as the General Secretary of the
Church of England’s Council for Christian Unity 1991–8. She was a member
of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches from
1973 and its Moderator 1991–8. From 2007 to 2013 she was President for
Europe of the World Council of Churches. She has also been a member of
the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and of a
number of European conversations. Within the Anglican Communion Mary
was a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Women
and the Episcopate, the International Theological and Doctrinal Commission
and the Windsor Continuation Group. She was a consultant to the ecumenical
sections of the 1988 and 1998 Lambeth Conferences and acted as Ecumenical
Dean for the Archbishop of Canterbury at the 2008 Conference. She has been
a visiting professor at the General Seminary, New York, the Tantur Ecumenical
Institute, Jerusalem, and the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas in
Rome. She has published extensively on Anglican and ecumenical matters. She
is a Lay Canon Emeritus of Guildford Cathedral and was made a Dame of the
British Empire by HM Queen Elizabeth II.
 Contributors xxi

Mark D. Thompson is the Principal of Moore Theological College in Sydney,

Australia, and the head of its Theology, Philosophy and Ethics department. He
is an ordained Anglican in the Diocese of Sydney, a member of its synod and
Standing Committee, a canon of St Andrew’s Cathedral and the chair of the
Sydney Diocesan Doctrine Commission. He is also a member of the General
Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia and a member of its Doctrine
Commission. He has been from its foundation a member of the GAFCON
Theological Resource Group and attended both GAFCON I (Jerusalem,
2008) and GAFCON II (Nairobi, 2013). He holds degrees from Macquarie
University, the Australian College of Theology and Oxford University. His
DPhil was awarded for a thesis on the relationship between authority and
interpretation in Martin Luther’s approach to Scripture. He is the author
of numerous books and articles on the doctrines of Scripture, the Trinity,
Christology, and justification by faith, including A Clear and Present Word:
The Clarity of Scripture (Leicester: IVP, 2006).
xxii
 Part One

Theological, Historical and

Constitutional Studies
2
 1

The Lambeth Conference Among the

Instruments of Communion
Stephen Pickard

‘For peace and charity’: Anglican episcopal collegiality

In Archbishop Charles Longley’s opening address to the first Lambeth

Conference in 1867 he said: ‘It has never been contemplated that we should
assume the functions of a general synod of all the churches in full communion
with the Church of England, and take upon ourselves to enact canons that
should be binding.’ Similarly, in connection with the 1878 Conference,
Archbishop Tait ruled out any attempt to define doctrine.1 What Longley and
Tait were seeking to guard against was any suggestion that the Conference
might assume the role of a magisterium that would issue decrees of a doctrinal
nature, which Anglicans throughout the world would be required to accept.2
The invitation extended in 1867 to those bishops in visible communion with
the United Church of England and Ireland was for the purpose of communion,
conference and consultation. Longley’s hope was that this ‘would greatly tend
to maintain practically the Unity of the Faith, while they would bind us in
straighter [= straiter] bonds of peace and brotherly charity’.3 For ‘peace and
charity’ the bishops of the emerging communion of churches in fellowship

1
R. T. Davidson, The Origin and History of the Lambeth Conferences of 1867 and 1878 (London:
SPCK, 1888), p. 18.
2
Towards a Symphony of Instruments: An Historical and Theological Consideration of the Instruments
of Communion of the Anglican Communion, A Working Paper of the Inter-Anglican Standing
Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO); Unity Faith and Order Paper No. 1, for the
Anglican Consultative Council, Auckland, 2013 (ACC15), para. 2.3.1. Hereinafter, Symphony of
Instruments, IASCUFO. http://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/209979/Towards-a-Symphony-
of-Instruments-Web-Version.pdf
3
A. M. G. Stephenson, The First Lambeth Conference 1867 (London: SPCK, 1967), pp. 187–8.
4 The Lambeth Conference

with the ancient See of Canterbury, presided over by the Archbishop of

Canterbury, would seek common counsel on matters of faith, order and life in
the context of prayer and worship.
The idea that such a gathering might constitute an ‘instrument of unity’
would no doubt have seemed odd for an Anglican Communion in its infancy.4
The express desire was to share a deeper episcopal collegiality occasioned by
a number of tensions and controversies in the churches.5 It took well over a
century after the first Lambeth Conference for the invention of the concept
‘instruments of unity’. And in the past thirty years a further two ‘instruments
of unity’ have been added to complement the Lambeth Conference. The status
of the See of Canterbury as an instrument of unity is a subject of discussion
though the weight of opinion seems to regard it as one of the instruments.6
Since the first Lambeth Conference there has been a remarkable expansion
of the fellowship of churches in communion with the See of Canterbury. In
response to the increasing complexity of the Anglican Communion, additional
structures and mechanisms have been created to facilitate conversation,
counsel and communion. The relationships between these different but related
instruments have been at times tense and on other occasions remarkably
life-giving to the Communion and its mission. After 150 years of Lambeth
Conferences a number of questions arise. How might we understand the
Lambeth Conference among the Instruments of Communion? How might
the ‘peace and charity’ of the Anglican Communion be advanced by Anglican
Bishops meeting together at the Lambeth Conference? How might this
gathering serve the Gospel of God and the whole church?

The invention of the instruments of unity

The appeal to ‘instruments of unity’ is a relatively recent invention in response

to a complex political ecclesiastical reality. It is true that Archbishop Longley
envisaged the Lambeth Conference as a means to unity and communion; a

4
It seems that the term ‘Anglican Communion’ was first used in 1847. See C. J. Podmore, Aspects of
Anglican Identity (London: Church House Publishing, 2005), chapter 3.
5
Symphony of Instruments, IASCUFO, para. 16–17.
6
Symphony of Instruments, IASCUFO; see discussion in paras. 3.3.3–3.3.7.
 The Lambeth Conference Among the Instruments of Communion 5

role that was also envisaged for the Archbishop of Canterbury. In this sense
both the Lambeth Conference and the See of Canterbury are not ‘inventions’.
However, the modern deployment of the language of ‘instrument’ for both
these ‘means’ of unity and communion, and the subsequent application
of instrument language to the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) and
Primates has significantly changed the way in which these particular four
structures of Anglicanism are perceived and function in the life of the Anglican
Communion. Instrument-type language is a peculiarly modern feature of
institutional life associated with a mechanical and transactional temper that
runs counter to more organic and relational forms of ecclesial life. The phrase
‘instruments of unity’ is a creature of this modern development. In this sense
it is truly a recent invention which is not unimportant for the ethos and culture
of Anglicanism.
The concept of instruments of unity had its origins in the Ecumenical
Movement in the 1970s. It appears that the term ‘instrument of unity’ was
used in discussions on the ecclesiological significance of the varieties of
Christian councils that emerged in the post-war years. Lukas Vischer
insisted that Christian Councils should be ‘instruments of unity’. By this he
meant that the ecclesial reality should not be sought in Christian Councils
but in the communion among the churches. He argued that ‘as structures,
Christian Councils have only an instrumental ecclesiological significance in the
promotion of this communion’.7 This instrumental and provisional role was
underscored in the 1982 Consultation on the Significance and Contribution
of Councils of Churches in the Ecumenical Movement in Venice and the 1986
Second Consultation on Councils of Churches as ‘Instruments of Unity within
the One Ecumenical Movement’ in Geneva. The adoption by Anglicans of
such language can be traced to the seventh meeting of the ACC in 1987 where
the phrase ‘instruments of unity’ appeared in the report ‘Unity and Diversity
within the Anglican Communion: A way forward’. It was used as a collective
name for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the ACC
and the Primates’ Meeting. Before this, Lambeth 1978 used the term ‘structures

7
For the historical context, see Symphony of Instruments, IASCUFO, para. 6.2.1 footnote 86. This
note quotes from Rev’d Dr Michael Poon’s paper, ‘The Anglican Communion as Communion of
Churches: On the historic significance of the Anglican Covenant’; a paper prepared for the South-
South Encounter, 2010 and made available by Dr Poon to IASCUFO.
6 The Lambeth Conference

in the Anglican Communion’ and in 1984 the Secretary General used the term
‘inter-Anglican organization’ in his ACC-6 opening speech.8
As early as the 1968 Lambeth Conference, the ACC was referred to as ‘an
instrument of common action’.9 The concept of ‘instrument’ was invoked
in the Virginia Report of 1997.10 However it is attached in a rather loose
manner to a range of phrases: for example, ‘Instruments of Communion’;
‘instruments of Anglican belonging at the world level’ (5.28); ‘international
Anglican instruments of unity’ (6.23); ‘worldwide instruments of communion’
and ‘instruments of interdependence’ (6.34); ‘instruments of the Anglican
Communion’ (6.32). Furthermore the report states that the episcopate is ‘the
primary instrument of Anglican unity’ (3.51) and it recognizes the need in
the Anglican Communion for ‘appropriate instruments’ (5.20). The ACC
is identified as ‘unique among the international Anglican instruments of
unity’ by virtue of the inclusion of laity among its members (6.23). While not
specifically noted in the Virginia Report, the ACC, as a consultative body, has
a constitution to govern its functioning. Its creation required the agreement of
two-thirds of the churches in the Anglican Communion. Neither the Lambeth
Conference nor the Primates’ Meeting required any approval from member
churches. Three things are to be noted in the Virginia Report. First, an uncritical
acceptance of the language of ‘instrument’; second, a loose association of
‘instrument’ with a range of phrases relating to matters of ecclesial structure;
and third, ‘Instruments of Communion’ was evidently the preferred general
identifier regarding ‘instruments’.
Certainly since the Virginia Report the language of instruments has become
part of the stock-in-trade of international Anglican discourse. In Michael
Poon’s view the ‘uncritical use of concepts from the ecumenical movement’,
such as the concept of ‘instruments of unity’, aggravates what has been referred
to by some as an ‘ecclesial deficit’ in Anglicanism. The idea of an ecclesial deficit
was discussed in the Windsor Continuation Group Report to the Archbishop of
Canterbury in December 2008. The report noted that ‘a central deficit in the

8
Symphony of Instruments, IASCUFO, para. 6.2.1, footnote 87, quoting Poon, ‘The Anglican
Communion as Communion of Churches’, para. 38.
9
See 1968 Lambeth Conference resolution 69.
10
The Virginia Report: The Report of the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission,
Anglican Consultative Council (London: Anglican Communion Office, 1997). Paragraph references
in text.
 The Lambeth Conference Among the Instruments of Communion 7

life of the Communion is its inability to uphold structures which can make
decisions which carry force in the life of the Churches of the Communion, or
even give any definitive guidance to them’.11 The report then noted that ‘other
commentators will argue that such mechanisms are entirely unnecessary, but
this touches upon the heart of what it is to live as a Communion of Churches’.
The ecclesial deficit concerns both the determination of the limits of diversity
in the fellowship of Anglican churches and capacity to exercise authority to
discipline churches that disregard such limits. What this means is that the
notion of an ‘ecclesial deficit’ is an essentially contested ecclesiological concept.
On the general issue of new terminology, specifically ‘instruments’ language,
Michael Poon’s comments are apposite:

The last decade saw the creation of concepts and structures to uphold
the Communion at international level, without thinking through their
ecclesial implications and their connection to the ecclesial realities of
the particular Churches. So the Communion structures unwittingly set
Anglican Churches worldwide on a collision course with one another. These
terminologies came from specific Protestant denominational settings; but
there was little discussion and explanation of what they mean in Anglican
terms ecclesiologically.12

There is little to suggest that the concept of ‘instruments’ has been subject
to any critical assessment as to its appropriateness or what it might signify.
Instruments are things that you use to achieve certain ends. A hammer is
an instrument for striking a nail in order to build or repair some structure;
a dentist’s drill is an instrument. This tool-like quality is reflected in the
etymology of ‘instrument’, meaning a ‘tool or apparatus’. It was originally
connected with a musical instrument. Interestingly it also included the sense
of ‘arrange and furnish’. The adjective ‘instrumental’ points to something that
is ‘serviceable’ or ‘useful’.13 But how serviceable and useful are the Instruments
of Communion?

11
Windsor Continuation Group Report to the Archbishop of Canterbury 2008, section D, para. 51.
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/100354/The-Windsor-Continuation-Group.pdf
12
Poon, ‘Anglican Communion as Communion of Churches’, para. 38.
13
For further information, see ‘instrument’ in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (London: Guild
Publishing, 1988).
8 The Lambeth Conference

A sympathetic imagination for the instruments

In times of tension and conflict in the Anglican Communion it is common

to find fault with those structures and processes of consultation (commonly
referred to as ‘instruments’) that are designed to sustain and enhance common
life and unity. For some, the instruments have been rendered impotent to assist
in the repair and mission of the Anglican fellowship of churches. As such they
are pronounced useless; to be cast aside in favour of alternative mechanisms
for ordering the unwieldy Body of Christ.14 It seems that the Instruments of
Communion are no longer the subject of a sympathetic ecclesial imagination
that ‘bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things’
(1 Cor. 13.7). A certain ecclesiological amnesia prevails. It is too easily
forgotten that structures and processes for ‘peace and charity’ only work if
they are informed and directed by a spiritual sensibility alive to the movement
of the Holy Spirit. This is the Spirit of God that weaves wisdom through the
forms and structures of ecclesial life and justifies the depiction of the Lambeth
Conference as a fellowship in the Spirit.15
Ecclesial structures and processes ought to function as conduits for the
flow of divine energy. Indeed structures have to be Spirit directed to be
fruitful. Conversely energies of the divine Spirit require a christomorphic
patterning to remain faithful to the Gospel of God. The absence of a spiritually
attuned sympathetic imagination in relation to ecclesial ordering is at heart
a theological matter. And the absence of this quality represents a genuine
‘ecclesial deficit’. At its deepest level it arises from a failure to attend to the
dynamic way in which the Holy Spirit brings to light and action the form of
Christ in the church and the world. As soon as Instruments of Communion are
evacuated of a sympathetic ecclesial imagination it is inevitable that they will
become subject to sectional or personal interests. The Lambeth Conference, in
a unique way among the instruments (to be developed later in this chapter),
provides the optimal conditions for the recovery and nurture of just such a
sympathetic ecclesial imagination informed by the Spirit of Christ.

14
See the assessment of Ephraim Radner, ‘Can the Instruments of Unity be Repaired?’, www.
anglicancommunioninstitute.com, October 5, 2010.
15
The 1920 Lambeth Conference described itself as such: ‘The Conference is a fellowship in the Spirit.’
 The Lambeth Conference Among the Instruments of Communion 9

The gift-like character of Instruments of Communion

The appeal for a sympathetic imagination with regard to the instruments is

counter-intuitive to the general way in which structures and processes are
treated in the Church and more generally in society today. It is commonplace
to regard social structures and processes as debased forms of ecclesial life
operating at some remove from the purity of the Gospel and discipleship, at best
necessary practical means to achieve certain ends. This utilitarian approach
to the Instruments of Communion means they become mere artefacts to be
manoeuvred and used as the will dictates. That will might be an individual,
interest group, party or sectional church interest. The Anglican Communion
urgently requires a positive theological appreciation of the Instruments
of Communion. This needs to be allied with a corresponding spiritual
discernment and energy to dwell in the instruments in a manner that honours
the Gospel. This is important for all of the Instruments of Communion and,
as I will argue later in this chapter, in a quite particular sense for the Lambeth
Conference.
Developing a richer theological understanding of the instruments has been
part of the challenge of the work of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Inter-
Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO). In a
series of reports prepared for ACC15 (2013 Auckland) and ACC16 (2016
Lusaka), IASCUFO proposed a theological approach to the Instruments of
Communion developed (a) in terms of instruments as gifts for deepening
the life of the Anglican Communion and (b) as signs of God’s grace for the
building up the fellowship of Anglican Churches as part of the worldwide Body
of Christ.16 These reports emphasized that the Instruments of Communion
were made up of people with their gifts, graces and frailties. Because of this,
the instruments require the care and attention of trusted servants who act as
stewards of the Instruments of Communion. Extending this line of reasoning
we note a number of things.
The Instruments of Communion are designed to facilitate communication,
conversation and consensus building among the fellowship of Anglican

16
See footnote 2 above re: ACC15; and Resolution 16.21 of ACC16 on the Instruments of Communion,
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/234449/acc-16-resolutions-2016.pdf.
10 The Lambeth Conference

Churches. In short, the instruments provide ways by which the Anglican

Communion seeks the wisdom of the Spirit of God for a deeper communion
and faithful witness to Christ in the world. This suggests that the instruments
may be more appropriately considered as gifts for deepening communion.17
The deepening of communion serves the Anglican Churches’ mission in the
world (Jon. 17.21). The history of the Lambeth Conferences bears witness to
the importance of the Church’s engagement with the world and a deep concern
for the common good as a fundamental element of the episcopal vocation.18
Consequently the Lambeth Conference ought never be regarded as a self-
serving instrument but one orientated towards mission.
The instruments are not states of affairs, nor static entities. Rather – because
the people of God, in different and complementary ways, constitute the
instruments – they belong to the rich communicative networks of Anglican
life in the world. Their function and impact will inevitably become the focal
point for change, controversy and new possibilities. This is all part of a dynamic
catholicity.19 The vulnerability of the instruments to change and development
does not diminish their gift-like character but simply witnesses to the way in
which true gifts actually work in the world.
Concerns have often been expressed that the use of the word ‘instruments’
ignores the human and relational dimensions of the instruments. Certainly
instrumental language can make it difficult to appreciate the instruments as
gifts for an enhanced and dynamic Body of Christ. Accordingly it is vital to
remember that the instruments are living gifts for communion. The gift-
like character of the instruments can be more sympathetically received by
the consistent use of the language of ‘communion’ rather than ‘unity’. In
contemporary usage ‘communion’ has a broader and richer connotation than the
term ‘unity’. Unfortunately, unity has been too easily associated with structural
and legal aspects of the Church. Such things are important but they are not

17
For a more developed examination of the Instruments of Communion in terms of a theology of gift,
see Stephen Pickard, ‘Gifts of Communion: Recovering an Anglican Approach to the “Instruments
of Unity”’, Journal of Anglican Studies, vol. 11.2 (November 2013), pp. 233–55. The Virginia Report
1997, 1.14, referred to the ‘instruments of communion which are a gift of God to the Church help
to hold us in the life of the triune God’. However this brief reference remained undeveloped in the
report.
18
For example, George Victor Browning, Sabbath and the Common Good: Prospects for a New
Humanity (Echo Books, 2016).
19
Communion, Conflict and Hope, The Kuala Lumpur Report of the Third Inter-Anglican Theological
and Doctrinal Commission (London: Anglican Communion Office, 2008), paras 45–49.
 The Lambeth Conference Among the Instruments of Communion 11

the only or the most significant aspects of union with God and each other. The
language of ‘communion’ offers a needed relational balance to the language of
‘instruments’. The emphasis on communion terminology is more resonant with
the role of human agency and theological focus on God that actually underlies
the purpose of the Instruments of Communion. Language, as is well known,
has a significant part to play in changing expectations and attitudes.
The real challenge is to recover the priority of a gift-centred approach to
the Instruments of Communion. The instruments always remain vulnerable
to distortion and misuse. For example, the objectification of instruments
leaves them vulnerable to sectional interests to prosecute their own ideas of
communion, its repair and/or progress. It also promotes false expectations of
what is possible. A gift-centred approach to the structures of Anglican polity is
more resistant to the instruments being deployed to patch up or fix problems.
A gift-centred approach belongs to an environment that fosters consensus-
building, good quality communication and responsible and accountable
engagement. The Anglican Communion is called to bear witness through
common practice to the incarnate Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit. A gift-
centred approach will encourage a reconceiving of the instruments as structures
and forms of embodied wisdom for the Anglican fellowship of churches, for the
purpose of strengthening witness to Christ in the world. The instruments have
to be reassessed, reshaped and reinvigorated against this wider horizon.
I have argued that the instruments are God’s gift for deepening the life of the
Anglican Communion. But this is not an end in itself. Fostering communion
draws people closer to one another and to God the Holy Trinity. This suggests
that the instruments belong to the mission of the Church of God. Indeed
nurturing communion for the inner life of the churches of the Anglican
Communion would cease to be communion in the Gospel of God if it was an
introverted or self-serving communion. The wider horizon for the operation
of the Instruments of Communion is the mission of the Church. Moreover
as gifts, the instruments have a sacramental character. It is in and through
such relational church structures that the people of God may hear the voice
of the living God and discern signs of God’s presence and work in the world.
As the Church is a sign of the coming kingdom,20 so too the Instruments of

20
The Church as sign of the kingdom is developed in The Church: Towards a Common Vision, Faith
and Order Paper no. 214 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2013), paras. 25–7.
12 The Lambeth Conference

Communion can be understood as ecclesial signs enabling the Church to be a

sign of God’s grace and goodness. This sign-like character of the instruments
orientates them towards the future and draws attention to their contingent and
provisional nature. As a consequence they are signs that require the care and
attention of trusted servants who act as stewards of communion.

Stewards of the instruments

This consideration raises an important question: What responsibility do

human agents have for the Instruments of Communion? If the instruments
are received as gifts and signs of communion, then clearly they have to be
treated with respect and care. In this context those responsible for the exercise
of the gifts do so as stewards and servants of the instruments. When this is
undertaken well the Church’s witness to the Gospel of God in the world is
enriched. In this sense stewardship is a broad-ranging vocation set against the
horizon of the mission of God in the world.
The concept of stewardship has been important when considering human
responsibility for creation. The early chapters of the Book of Genesis point to
creation as the gift of a good and caring God. The God of this remarkable and
interdependent creation has the character of the benevolent care and kindly
oversight in the ancient tradition of the shepherd King. Human beings, created
in the image of such a God, are given responsibility to care for the earth and
its creatures. As such the human vocation is to follow the pattern of care and
delight in creation of the God whose image they bear. The human vocation as
a steward of the garden of creation is a delegated responsibility from a good
and kind God. Stewardship is an activity and calling that requires a close,
respectful and responsible relationship with the earth and all living things.
This background of the stewardship of creation may be helpful when we
deploy the idea of stewardship in relation to the Church. This involves a move
from stewardship of creation to stewardship of the community of the new
creation; the Body of Christ. Christ is Head of the Body and bestows gifts on
the people of the Church in order that through the Church the many riches
of the wisdom of God might be shown to the world (Eph. 3.10). Disciples of
Christ, and in particular those called to care and exercise oversight of the Body
 The Lambeth Conference Among the Instruments of Communion 13

of Christ, are called to tend the garden of the new creation, the household
(oikos) of the Lord. And they are called to undertake this vocation after the
manner of Christ in humble obedience to the Gospel. In this vein the Apostle
Paul refers to himself and his fellow apostolic leaders as ‘servants of Christ and
stewards of God’s mysteries’ (1 Cor. 4.1). The new household is the fellowship
in the Spirit, the communion of the faithful in Christ. This household is the
result of the revealing of God’s mysteries, that is, ‘the secret knowledge of
God’s purposes, disclosed in the Gospel’.21 Stewards have responsibility for the
good ordering and common good of the household of faith. As in the first
creation, so in the new creation, stewardship is a delegated and representative
responsibility. Moreover, it is a delegation of trust (1 Cor. 4.2). And this
vocation mirrors the original creation, that is, it requires a stewardship of the
communion of the faithful after the pattern of Christ the Good Shepherd (Jon.
10). Stewards of the mysteries of God, as is abundantly clear from Paul’s letters,
exercise their calling on many fronts as ambassadors of Christ, pastoral carers
of the churches, and as teachers of the spiritual truths of the Gospel.
This move from stewardship of creation to stewardship of communion
provides a fresh way to reconsider the purpose of the Instruments of
Communion. The instruments are intended to strengthen and enhance the
Anglican Communion. But to fulfil this the instruments require the exercise
of good stewardship. This provides a rich theological and missional horizon
for the Instruments of Communion. It also draws attention to the great
responsibility entrusted to the servants of God for the good functioning of
the instruments. It also calls attention to the moral claim upon those called
to fulfil this ministry of stewardship in the life of the Anglican Communion.
The exercise of stewardship is undertaken by frail human beings, called to
repentance and prayerfulness, subject to wilful blindness of many kinds;
especially when it comes to the exercise of power and authority. The servants
and stewards of the Instruments of Communion are called to exercise this
particular vocation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and with openness
to correction and challenge.
Consideration of personal agency and responsibility for the good operation
of the instruments highlights the importance of the careful appointment and

21
See C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle of the Corinthians (2nd edn, London: Adam &
Charles Black, 1971), p. 100.
14 The Lambeth Conference

ongoing education of all those called to high office in the Church of God. It
also calls attention to the need for robust synodical processes for the election
and appointment of bishops. This in turn puts a spotlight on those qualities
that are particularly needful for bishops today. Relevant here are not only
matters of personal character but also of ecclesial intelligence. This latter
quality requires an appreciation of the particular contribution of the Anglican
Communion to the vitality of the Body of Christ. Moreover, in a time of
significant transitions in society and church, a bishop’s capacity to listen,
collaborate, harness conflict and embody spiritual and theological wisdom
becomes critical. Such capabilities are especially important in appointments
to episcopal leadership in order to balance the emphasis on management and
provide a check on political and partisan interests that infect the churches and
mimic their host cultures across the globe.22 Such considerations go to the
heart of the capacity of the Instruments of Communion to function in the life
of the Anglican fellowship of churches as genuine gifts, signs and witnesses to
the coming Kingdom of God.

The Lambeth Conference: What kind of gift?

How might an approach to the Instruments of Communion in terms of gift

and sign contribute to the renewal of the Lambeth Conference in the Anglican
Communion? In this respect, I note that the very language of gift transforms
the Lambeth Conference from mere instrument to achieve an end – in this case
enhancement of the fellowship of Anglican churches – into something that is
fundamentally relational. When the bishops of the Anglican Communion meet
they are already saying something important about the life of the Body of Christ
and their shared care for the churches. Their meeting is an embodiment of what
it means to share in the gift of the Gospel that creates and sustains the Body of
Christ.23 The giving and receiving of the gift of God in Christ is unfolded, ordered
and released through the episcopal body. Through face-to-face encounter,

22
See Martin Percy, ‘Emergent Archiepiscopal Leadership within the Anglican Communion’, Journal
of Anglican Studies, 14.1 (May 2016), pp. 46–70.
23
For example, see Communion, Conflict and Hope, The Kuala Lumpur Report, Appendix 2, ‘The
Anglican Way: The Significance of the Episcopal Office for the Communion of the Church’, Thesis
Nine: ‘The bishop serves the collegial life of the Church through the nurture of strong bonds with
bishops of the Anglican Communion and those who share episcope in other Christian churches’, p. 64.
 The Lambeth Conference Among the Instruments of Communion 15

listening and common prayer, God’s gift of Communion is honoured. And this
dynamic quality of God’s gift is magnified as the bishops of the church recognize
the gift of God in each other and in the churches that they bring to Lambeth.
From this point of view, the Lambeth Conference is not first of all an instrument
to achieve an end. Rather gathering and being bishops together is itself a sign
of the gift of God for communion with the world and its peoples. The gift-like
character of the Lambeth Conference is a check on the natural human default
of misusing the gathering for political ends that tends to undermine the unity
of the Body of Christ.
The remarkable thing about the gift-like character of the Lambeth
Conference is that it is recognized and overflows through a rich and attractive
diversity of episcopal life. Bishops from the Communion display the marks of
different cultural, ethnic, linguistic and Christian ways of being in the world.
The Lambeth gift is a gift of colour and life: a sign of the colour and life of the
Spirit of life and love.
Of course the gift, like all gifts, has to be appropriated. God’s gift of
togetherness remains a task to be undertaken. This requires spiritual maturity,
attention to the virtues and the discipline of the Holy Spirit. This will inevitably
draw bishops into the costly dimension of God’s gift. Sharing in life together,
meeting for prayer and counsel, and learning to behold the face of Christ in
worship: all such activities are a cause for great joy and humble recognition
of the fragile character of the gift of common life. The Lambeth Conference
is that time and place where these dimensions of the gift of communion with
God and one another are tested, wrestled with and patiently endured. This is
why the discipline and steadfastness of the Holy Spirit embodied in common
prayer and Eucharist is the vital energy of the Lambeth Conference.
If the Lambeth Conference is an instrument of communion, it is an
instrument in a very particular way patterned after the gift of God in
Christ. In this sense, first and foremost – and prior to being an Instrument
of Communion – the Lambeth Conference is a sign of the work of God
breathing life and purpose into the Body of Christ. The bishops of the Lambeth
Conference belong to a rich ecclesial ecology nurtured by the infinite identity
of God in Christ. In this sense, the Lambeth Conference is caught up in the
greater mystery of the Church in God’s world. In short it is a participant in
this mystery in micro as it were – having a sign-like character that is future
orientated with an unfinished dynamic quality. There is an analogy here with the
16 The Lambeth Conference

ancient fourfold marks of the Church. Such marks represent both a gift to the
church and an emergent property of the Church; marks that have to be received
as a gift and a task that remains on the agenda. In a similar manner the Lambeth
Conference is not simply something established and secure. Rather it is a mode
of togetherness that requires reconstitution and repetition in order for it to be
a living gift of communion for the churches. The Lambeth Conference is thus
an emergent property of koinonia and as such requires responsible stewardship.

The Lambeth Bishops: What kind of stewards?

This leads to consideration of that other dimension of the instruments previously

discussed, that is, stewardship. Specifically what kind of stewardship is required
of the bishops of the Lambeth Conference? How might the Lambeth Conference
exercise an appropriate episcopal stewardship in the Anglican Communion?
These questions go to the heart of the importance of the Instruments of
Communion. When the bishops of the Anglican Communion meet at the
Lambeth Conference for counsel and prayer, they are gathered as seekers of
a common wisdom in their ‘care of the churches’. How is such wisdom to be
found and lived? Good stewardship of the Anglican Communion occurs when
wisdom emerges through open, generous, truthful and sustained exchanges.
This will inevitably be costly and require great humility. Being stewards of God’s
wisdom may seem too lofty an ideal for the Lambeth gathering. One reason
for this is that wisdom is multifaceted and too often it becomes ensnared in
ecclesial brambles of the party or sectional interest variety. When this occurs,
wisdom quickly evaporates. This requires further explanation.
In the nineteenth century, the famous ex-Anglican, John Henry Newman
republished his essays on the Via Media of the Anglican Church (1879) – first
published as the Prophetical Office of the Church in 1837. Newman identified
theology as one of the three fundamental powers of the Church.24 Theology
(Newman’s system of philosophy) offered a critical stance in relation to
the other two powers, the sacramental and worship tradition (ritual) and
ecclesiastical rule (political power). Liturgy and polity required this third

24
John Henry Newman, The Via Media of the Anglican Church, 2 vols (3rd edn, London: Basil
Montagu Pickering, 1877), vol. 1, Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church Viewed Relatively
to Romanism and Popular Protestantism, Preface, pp. 40 ff.
 The Lambeth Conference Among the Instruments of Communion 17

power (theology) as an essential hermeneutic for the ongoing faithfulness of

the Church to the Gospel. Without this third power the Church was easily
directed into an unhealthy sacramentalism and/or an unfettered abuse of
ecclesiastical power. Church history bore testimony to the conflict that often
occurred between these three indispensable elements of the life of the Church.
Newman considered that the theological vocation was essential to preserve
and foster a critical and reforming spirit.
Newman’s approach to the powers of the Church (theological/critical;
sacramental/worship and ecclesiastical/political) offers a fuller understanding
of how wisdom is constituted and manifests itself. The history of the Lambeth
Conferences indicates that it embodies all three dimensions of wisdom as it
seeks common counsel, prays and breaks bread and engages in thoughtful
dialogue. Moreover, a wise stewardship will seek a balance between these
three dimensions of ecclesial wisdom. The great danger for the Lambeth
Conference is that one element will dominate the others. In times of tension
and controversy the temptation is to resort to ecclesiastical/political solutions.
The sacramental/worship life can become somewhat perfunctory and its
transformative power can be nullified when the overarching concern is for
political/sectional outcomes. Similarly, genuine theological engagement can be
too quickly set aside or dismissed as irrelevant to pressing practical concerns.
The Lambeth Conference works best and fulfils its deepest aspirations when
the delicate balance between theology, worship and polity is pursued for the
sake of the well-being of the whole body.
The foregoing discussion suggests that the Lambeth Conference can
exercise a stewardship of koinonia in the Gospel as it intentionally pursues a
wisdom that draws upon the rich heritage of Anglican faith and order. This
leads to a reconception of the Lambeth Conference in terms of stewardship of
God’s wisdom for the world.

The Lambeth Conference within the symphony

of instruments

The present inquiry into the Lambeth Conference in relation to the Instruments
of Communion points to the significance of the episcopate in the life of the
Anglican Communion. In the normal course of ecclesial life, a bishop in his or
18 The Lambeth Conference

her diocese is the fundamental unit of the ecclesia. The fellowship of Anglican
churches has approximately 1,000 bishops worldwide, exercising episcopal
oversight over 80 million Anglican Christians in 164 countries. We might say
that this phenomenon represents the Anglican part of the Body of Christ in its
spread-out form; in extensity.25 This dispersed body is called to be faithful to
the good news of God in myriad local contexts. Being the Church in extensity
mode is the way in which mission takes place.
When those whose charism is the ‘care of the churches’ are called together to
pray, seek mutual counsel and work for the peace and charity of the churches,
they bring with them the people they serve. They bring them in their hearts
and minds, and by virtue of the office they occupy. The Lambeth Conference
represents the episcopally ordered Body of Christ in intensity mode. The form
of the Church concentrated in the gathered episcopal body is, in an important
ecclesiological sense, the church ‘in micro’. An interesting analogy is provided
by Anthony Hanson who argued that the pioneer ministry of the early apostles
did not create the Church; rather ‘the ministry is originally the Church in
nucleo’.26 Accordingly, the ‘ministry shows in miniature what the Church
should be’.27 In like manner, the bishops of the Lambeth Conference represent
the Church in nucleo and witness to the character and form of the Body of
Christ. This makes sense within an Anglican polity where the Lambeth
Conference can be regarded as embodying a particular intensification of the
Anglican Communion.
This consideration also means that the Lambeth Conference does not live
to itself but is accountable to the whole body from which it emerges and in
relation to which it exercises episcopal oversight and care. Indeed without the
whole ecclesial body and its ministries the episcopate would not have emerged.
In this sense it is the Body of Christ that brings forth the episcopal body. Yet
the episcopate is a genuinely new entity within the complex institutional
nature of the ecclesia of God. In this sense, the episcopate cannot be reduced to
its constituent parts. There is genuine novelty in the ecclesial system.28

25
For discussion of the relationship between extensity and intensity in ecclesiology, see Daniel W.
Hardy, Finding the Church: The Dynamic Truth of Anglicanism (London: SCM, 2001), pp. 109ff.
26
Anthony Hanson, The Pioneer Ministry (London: SPCK, 1975 [1961]), pp. 86, 94, 155.
27
Hanson, The Pioneer Ministry, p. 60.
28
On the novelty of the episcopate, see Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (London: Penguin,
1991), chap. 10, ‘Bishops and Authority’.
 The Lambeth Conference Among the Instruments of Communion 19

The episcopal order and the whole body of the Church release each other
to be the Church. The episcopal body acts in such a way that the energy of the
various ministries is released and directed for the purposes of the whole Church.
Yet even as this occurs, the episcopal body is confirmed in its purpose and
significance as the whole Church lives and ministers faithfully in accordance
with God’s purposes. In this way, the orders of ministry establish each other and
foster each other’s work and purpose. Thus it can truly be said that the ministry
of the episcopate and the ministries of the whole people of God bring each
other into being.29 This fundamental interrelatedness of the whole body with
the episcopate is the reason that the whole body of the Anglican Communion
that comes to the Lambeth Conference, embodied in the bishops.
This discussion, about the relationship between the episcopal body
gathered at the Lambeth Conference and the wider body, may seem somewhat
of a diversion. However, I want to argue that it is straight to the point of the
significance of the Lambeth Conference. In fact this relationship between the
Lambeth Conference and the wider Communion gives to this instrument of
communion a unique significance in relation to the other instruments. How
so? In the first and most obvious sense, the Lambeth Conference

‘mbodies the collective pastorate of the bishops. As the corporate gathering

of the most representative ministers of the Anglican Communion, it has
considerable spiritual, moral and pastoral authority. It includes within
itself the greater part of the other Instruments of Communion – there is
some useful overlapping that points to the communion or harmony of
instruments: the Archbishop of Canterbury belongs among his fellow
bishops as first among equals, and the Primates take their place among the
bishops too; the episcopal members of the Anglican Consultative Council
are also members of the Lambeth Conference.’30

This suggests that, from an ecclesial point of view, the Lambeth Conference has
a particular primacy among the Instruments of Communion. It is the primary
body in which the whole Communion is gathered in its episcopal form. While
the See of Canterbury has historical precedence, nonetheless unlike Rome,
this does not translate into a certain ecclesial and legal priority. Rather, the

29
Stephen Pickard, Theological Foundations for Collaborative Ministry (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009),
chap. 9.
30
Symphony of Instruments, IASCUFO, 2.5.1.
20 The Lambeth Conference

Archbishop who occupies the See of Canterbury is of the episcopal body in

the same way as all other bishops. The Primates, while a further executive-type
elevation of the bishops and archbishops of national churches, do not constitute
another fourth-order ‘extra episcopal’, but are of the order of bishops. The
Primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury may contribute to the achievement
of common counsel among the bishops, yet these more organisationally focused
episcopal levels are always being drawn into the larger episcopal body and the
whole Church which brought them forth. Although such bodies may behave at
times in an executive manner, in fact their authority does not extend that far.
A recent example of the tensions that can arise between the instruments
became apparent in the discussions and subsequent communications arising
from the ACC meeting (ACC-16) in April 2016 in Luska, Zambia. The
issue focused on the status of the January 2016 Primates’ deliberations and
their admonition of the Episcopal Church of the USA (TEC). The Secretary
General of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon,
rejected criticism from six former members of the ACC’s standing committee
of statements they made during and after ACC-16. The comments centred
on Resolution 16.24, ‘Walking Together’, which dealt with how the ACC
responded to the Primates’ Gathering and Meeting in January.31
What then of the Lambeth Conference in relation to the ACC? The ACC
reminds us that the body of Christ is only fully itself when it is seen to
consist of laity as well as clergy. For practical purposes and precisely because
Anglican polity recognizes the dynamic and symbiotic relationship that
obtains between the people and their bishops, the ACC has emerged in time
and space to bring to focus the breadth and depth of all the baptized of the
Anglican Communion. It makes sense within an Anglican polity. It does not
usurp episcopal authority, but it does remind everyone how the Body of Christ
is constituted and the rich and complex pattern of mutual accountability in
the Body of Christ.
The uniqueness of the Lambeth Conference as an instrument of communion
derives from the fundamental relationship between the episcopal body and
the wider Body of Christ. Theologically they inhere in each other and when
the episcopal body meets as the Lambeth Conference then the whole of the

31
For further information, see http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2016/05/secretary-general-rejects-
criticism-over-walking-together-resolution.aspx.
 The Lambeth Conference Among the Instruments of Communion 21

Communion is gathered under the form of the episcopate. This is not simply
a high doctrine of the episcopate; it is a high doctrine of the Church. It also
makes it abundantly clear, at least from an ecclesiological point of view, that
the Lambeth Conference is accountable to the whole body to which it is yoked.
It also means that withdrawing from the episcopal body represents a serious
fracture of the ecclesial body.
It is probably not too much of an exaggeration to state that currently our
ecclesial consciousness is somewhat brittle. This shows itself by the fact that
as a fellowship of churches we struggle to appreciate that Anglican polity
and life is premised on diversity and mutual discernment. When we lack
this understanding it is exceedingly difficult to recover a truly sympathetic
imagination for the possibilities for peace and charity offered to the Anglican
Communion through its instruments. The danger is that we might fail to
recognize that it is only when there emerges a deeper sense of the unity and/
or integration between the Instruments of Communion that the true gift-like
character of the instruments can be properly displayed. It is easily forgotten
that the instruments are interrelated, that they form a true symphony of
instruments. By treating each instrument separately, or by failing to recognize
their interconnectedness, we lose sight of our own essential connectedness
and accountability to each other, and the value of the instruments to deepen
Anglican life. When this occurs the Anglican Communion suffers increasing
fragmentation and disconnection. This in turn breeds greater dissatisfaction
with, and rejection of, those means by which Anglicans maintain the ‘bonds of
affection’ so essential for our common life.
Recovering a sense of the symphony of instruments for the common good
and well-being of the Communion is vital. For example, the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference have a natural reciprocity, as do the
Primates and the ACC. Closer intentional cooperation between these different
instruments nurtures the Anglican ideal of an organic, conversational and
conciliar ethos. The fact that there may be tensions between these different
bodies is natural and to be expected, but this is not a reason for jettisoning
one or other of the bodies or diminishing one and exalting another. This is not
the way of communion in the instruments. In truth, the instruments together
exercise a collaborative ministry in and for the Anglican Communion and
indeed beyond. As such, the instruments are orientated to or ‘lean’ towards
22 The Lambeth Conference

one another, they receive their life from each other and are best able to make
their particular and unique contributions to the whole as they recognize their
indebtedness to each other. In this way, they become living parts of the Body
of Christ intended for God’s glory.

Lambeth Conference: Unfinished gift for

the unfinished church

The fact that the instruments have emerged in history – often in times of
conflict and uncertainty in the Church – points to the fact that the instruments
are contingent and therefore provisional and unfinished. The instruments will
probably undergo change and modification as the contexts and circumstances
of being the Church also change and evolve. So too we can and should expect
the Lambeth Conference to undergo change with respect to its form and
content over time and in response to new circumstances.
The contingent nature of the instruments goes hand in hand with their
gift-like character. The instruments are gifts of the Spirit that have emerged
through a process and within specific historical contexts. This means that, as
stated earlier, the instruments represent both a gift and a task for the Anglican
Communion. Their operation and ongoing value for the Communion requires
active human participation and an imaginative effort to follow what the Spirit
is saying to the Church as the future unfolds. For the reasons outlined in this
chapter, this is a particular vocation and critical challenge for the Lambeth
Conference.
The fact that the instruments are contingent and subject to change also
means that there will be an inevitable messiness about the way the instruments
function as God-given gifts. These considerations reveal the instruments to be
not signs of a steady-state church, but of an unfinished ecclesial body ‘on the
way’. As such, the instruments are signs of work to be done for the sake of the
Church’s mission in the world. The Lambeth Conference participates in this
ongoing work of the Body of Christ. As such, it too can be a means whereby
the multifaceted riches of God’s wisdom in Christ might be manifest in heaven
and upon earth (Eph. 3.10).
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and players. Skilful and amusing. No dice.
Two Players, 1/10 Four Players, 3/8

No. S G 127. REVOLVING RING

BOARD. This is a novel Ring Board. The
centre revolves by the weight of the Rings
thrown on the hooks, and the score alters
every Ring successfully hooked.
A great improvement on the old game. 2/3

No. S G 100. STAR QUOITS. Complete

with Rings. 1/9, 2/3, and 2/9
 1
PETER PAN.

CARD GAMES.
Snap, 0/10; Golliwog, 0/10; Alice in
Wonderland, 0/10; Noah’s Ark, 0/10; Animal
Grab, 0/10; Cheery Families, 0/10; Counties of
England, 1, 2 and 3 series, 1/3 each; Kingdoms
of Europe, 2 series, 0/10 each; Pit, 1/3 each;
Quit, 1/3 each; Mis-fitz, 0/10 each; Sherlock
Holmes, 1/3; Strange People, 0/8; Domestic
Animals, 0/8; In Dixie Land, 0/8; In Castle
Land, 0/8; Scripture Cards, 0/8; Card
Dominoes, 0/5 per pkt.; Free Trader, 0/10;
Transport, 0/10; Happy Elements of Music, 1/9
No. S G 138. The new artistic and amusing game, PETER PAN.
Published by authority of Mr. J. M. Barrie. Per pack, 2/0
 No. S G 141. PRECEDENCE. The New
Card Game. Dedicated (by permission) to
the Speaker of the House of Commons
(The Rt. Hon. James W. Lowther, M.P.),
1/6
No. S G 139. MARRIAGE AUCTION.
Clever, fascinating, interesting and
amusing; also how to tell marriage
fortunes for unmarried ladies, including
widows. 0/10.
No. S G 11. DERBY RACE. The forty-
eight cards show horses with jockeys in
racing colours. It is just the game for
parties, large or small, as it can be played
by any number of players from three to
twelve. The method of the play is original
and exciting. 1/9.
 Pottem! “It can be done”
Produced in 4 different Series
Series 1 Soldiers Series 2 Gollywogs
Series 3 Boy Scouts Series 4 Clowns
The most tantalising Game of the Season. Raphael Tuck & Sons, Ltd.

No. S G 153.—The most Tantalising Game of the Season. Can be

done.
“POTTEM” consists of a board on which there are four
figures which move backwards and forwards. There is also
supplied a glass ball, the object of which is to knock over each
of the figures until none is left standing up. “POTTEM” can be
played by any number of players, each of whom may take an
equal number of turns to knock the figures over. Each time any
of the figures jump up again after being knocked down should
count as one turn. Quite a variety of contests can be arranged
in this way. “Pottem” is made in four different series, each
containing four figures as follows:— “SOLDIERS.”
“GOLLIWOGS.” “CLOWNS.” “BOY SCOUTS.” Supplied in
two qualities, 1/6 and 2/6 each.

[437]
No. S G 53. BOMBARDO. The game of
the day. Exciting from start to finish. No
limit to the number of players and the
result is impossible to foretell, and
appeals to young and old. Prices: No. 1,
round design, 12 balls, 5/6; No. 2,
octagonal, 16 balls, solid oak frame,
coppered fittings, 10/6; No. 3, as above,
nickel-plated fittings, 15/0

No. S G 113. CARD HOUSES. Very

instructive pastime, for it teaches the
children the alphabet, also the names of
animals, etc., which appear on the cards.
0/10½, 1/9 and 2/6
 L’ Attaque!
BREVETE S.G.D.G
No. S G 35. ATTACK. The new war
game. A most interesting game.
Represents different Continental and
other armies. For two players, composed
of 72 pieces, 5/6. Better quality, 7/6.
With aluminium covered figures, 11/6
each.
No. S G 905. AFTERNOON TEA GAMES.
These are not games of playing cards or
chance, but require the exercise of a little
intelligent thought and skill. They will
provide pleasant amusement for your
friends, and are not too difficult for the
children. Twelve cards of each game in a
box (with key), complete with pencil
ready for use, per box, 1/3
The Hive of Busy Bees, Troublesome
Imps, A Perplexing Politician, The Menu
for All Sorts and Conditions of People, A
Geographical Shipwreck, The Rat’s Party,
The Game of the Perplexing Ass, A
“Novel” Letter, A Great Society Bazaar,
Think it Out, Tangled Titles, A Newspaper
Romance, Tangled Towns, An Insect
Romance, an Up-to-date Romance, The
Car Puzzle, Nuts to Crack, The Game of
Ices, Descriptive Ants, A Bird Romance,
Orange Blossom Petals, The Kingly Game,
Musical.
 CAPITAL CONJURING TRICKS
CIGARS
No. S G 12. CONJURING TRICKS.
Each box containing a good assortment,
1/0, 1/6, 2/3, 2/10, 3/9, 4/3, 6/3,
7/3, 8/6, 11/0, 13/3, 14/0 to 22/6
box. Separate conjuring tricks. American
Ball Box and Cup, 2/6. The Dice Box,
2/6; Vanishing Case, 1/0, 2/9; The
Wonderful Egg Cup, 1/0, 1/9; Hammer
and Ball, 1/6, 2/6; Vanishing Coin Trick,
1/3; Vanishing Watch Trick, 3/6; Card
Box Trick, 5/9; Number Box Trick, 2/6

Mahogany Boxes of Conjuring Tricks,

containing nine good tricks, 18/6 box.
Ditto, but containing six better tricks,
18/6 box
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