Mission, Reunion and the Anglican Communion: The ‘Appeal to All Christian People’ and approaches to ecclesial unity at the 1920 Lambeth Conference

Charlotte Methuen

doi:10.1163/17455316-01602004

Abstract

This article explores the understanding of unity articulated in the ‘Appeal to all Christian People’ issued by the 1920 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops. It first examines the expression of the Appeal’s vision in terms of organic unity and mutual recognition, the way that this developed through the drafting process and how this vision related to later Anglican approaches to unity. It then explores the relationship of the Appeal to the Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888, particularly with respect to the episcopate, arguing that the Appeal took an ambiguous approach to episcopacy which was in tension with the language of mutual recognition. Finally, acknowledging that the overarching theme of the 1920 Lambeth Conference was ‘fellowship’, the article considers the Appeal’s vision of unity in the context of the approach to unity taken by the 1920 Lambeth Conference more widely, including the Conference’s other ecumenical resolutions, and its resolutions on mission and the Anglican Communion and the bishops’ Encyclical Letter, particularly its approach to international relations. The article concludes that, while the vision of organic unity that was articulated in the Appeal was reflected in the conference’s resolutions on mission, in other aspects of its work the 1920 Lambeth Conference tended to take a federal approach to unity and fellowship and was thus not fully consistent.

Highlights

The* 1920 Lambeth Conference is most closely associated with the ‘Appeal to All Christian People’, the exhortation to unity between the churches which was proposed by the Conference committee on ‘Reunion’
It first examines the expression of the Appeal’s vision in terms of organic unity and mutual recognition, the way that this developed through the drafting process and how this vision related to later Anglican approaches to unity
It explores the relationship of the Appeal to the Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888, with respect to the episcopate, arguing that the Appeal took an ambiguous approach to episcopacy which was in tension with the language of mutual recognition

Summary

Organic Union

Of the various categories introduced by Mary Tanner in the article cited above (mutual recognition, organic union, federation, absorption, submission), there can be little doubt that the vision of unity that was articulated by the Anglican bishops at the 1920 Lambeth conference held together aspects of mutual recognition with an aim of organic union. The bishops’ understanding of these ‘systems’ was more closely defined in another, subsequent, redaction of the Appeal: The vision which rises before us is that of a truly Catholic Church within which many groups would retain their characteristic systems of life and worship in one organic, visible friendship, and all the treasures of faith and order, possessed at presently separately, would find full scope, and be available for the whole body.[17] In these earlier drafts, the stipulation ‘retaining their own [characteristic] systems’ echoed the response of Frank Weston, Bishop of Zanzibar, to the 1918 Kikuyu proposals, in which he proposed that ‘non-episcopal bodies accepting episcopacy would remain in full exercise of their own constitution.’[18] the final version of the Appeal moved away from the language of ‘characteristic systems’ to language of ‘distinctiveness’, affirming that ‘within this unity Christian Communions separated from one another would retain much that has long been distinctive in their methods of worship and service’.19. This was reflected in the affirmative approach it took to other churches

Mutual Recognition of Churches

Conclusion