Lambeth Conference, Ended

The most and right reverend prelates of the Church of England and its affiliates in other countries (including the U. S. Protestant Episcopal Church), after five weeks of secret deliberation in Lambeth Palace, London (TIME, July 14), last week published 75 resolutions which they had agreed upon. Accompanying the resolutions was a surprisingly prosaic encyclical letter by Archbishop Cosmo Gordon Lang of Canterbury.

Some of the resolutions were also unsatisfactory to communicants. The archbishops and bishops, except for advice on marriage, divorce and birth control and recommendation that adherents be permitted to take the sacraments in any consecrated building if an Anglican or Episcopal church were not handy, dealt mostly with general church problems, little with problems of personal belief. In subject the resolutions were general, in tone cautious.

Caution was necessary for two reasons. 1) The Lambeth Conference, a decennial meeting, is purely advisory; its resolutions are by no means mandatory; they reflect the opinions of the majority of the bishops. The secrecy of the sessions is to shroud the often bitter arguments among the bishops. 2) The Church of England is not a unanimous body. Its Anglo-Catholic group has developed a serious rift in its doctrinal observations.

Expected Resolutions. Some of the more conventional resolutions said: Religious standards must control international affairs: "We recognize in the modern discoveries of science . . . veritable gifts of God"; "the ruling of one race [i. e. India] by another can only be justified when the highest welfare of the subject race is the constant aim of the government"; "nobody should be excluded from worship in any church on account of color or race"; etc. etc.

No More National Gods. In every war the priesthood has been the govern- ment's greatest aid in exciting warriors to battle. Every Christian nation has averred that God was on its side in conflict. The prelates at Lambeth made a gesture to eradicate this unchristian inconsistency. Said they in effect: Nations should arbitrate their quarrels. If a nation has agreed with other nations to such arbitration (cf. the Kellogg-Briand pact) and then goes to war without attempting to settle a dispute peaceably, then the offending nation's priesthood should not call on God for national help. There must be no more national gods, only a God of the League of Nations.

(This resolution did not, of course, supply criteria of a refusal to arbitrate. Clergymen are still free to persuade themselves and their people that the enemy "started the war," and to guess on which nations outside the league God is smiling or frowning.)

More promising as pulpit topics for the winter ahead were a dozen cognate resolutions on marriage and sex problems. In part these controversial resolutions read:

Remarriage. "Where an innocent person is remarried under civil sanction and desires to receive Holy Communion it recommends the case should be referred for consideration to the bishop subject to provincial regulations."

Latitudinarianism. "The Church [has] unceasing responsibility for the spiritual welfare of all her members who have come short of her standard. . . . The Church individually and socially [aims for] reconciliation to God and redemption from sin. . . . All bishops and clergy [should] keep this aim before them. ..."

Birth Control. "Where there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood the method must be decided on Christian principles. . . . The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence.

"Nevertheless, in those cases where there is such clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the conference agrees that other methods may be used provided this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. The conference records strong condemnation of the use of any methods of birth control from selfishness, luxury or mere convenience."

Abortion. "The conference further records its abhorrence of the sinful practice of abortion."

Irregular Unions. "In that they [irregular unions] offend against the true nature of love, irregular unions compromise the future happiness of married life, are antagonistic to the welfare of the community and, above all, are contrary to the revealed will of God. . . ."

"The Functions of Sex are a god-given factor in human life and are essentially noble and creative. . . . "

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