The Record: What did you expect going into the Lambeth Conference?

Bishop Robert Gepert: “I was not excited to be coming to the Lambeth Conference; I sort of dragged myself here because it was an expectation. Once arriving here, my whole attitude about the conference changed.

“The most worthwhile part has been meeting the people and hearing the stories from the bishops that blew me away. We have been hearing stories of dioceses that are being persecuted, where people’s homes and churches are burned because they are Christian people. Those bishops do not have the same concerns that much of the Anglican Communion has about sexuality or crossing boundaries. They are just trying to live. Most interestingly, all of those bishops say, ‘our Church continues to grow.’ That has been an eye opener for me.”

Bishop Wendell Gibbs: “I don’t think I could have been any less enthusiastic than I was, but it has actually been a good place to come … I have been dramatically surprised, partly from hearing the stories from our brothers and sisters around the Communion, but also just getting to know them as people, not as ‘the delegation from Sudan or Tanzania.’

“The stories have been woven so beautifully around the images that John presents in his Gospel. When you hear someone explain the way in which they preach a story, or translate the image of Jesus as good shepherd when they don’t have sheep or shepherds, they have to find another way to tell that story. It became an avenue for our group to talk about how we interpret scripture. It wasn’t so much that we were seeing different things or seeing a different Jesus or seeing a different Gospel—it’s just that in the context of where we were, things had to be reinterpreted to make sense for people.”

Bishop Todd Ousley: “I came to Lambeth regarding this as an interruption. I came because I had to. [But as early as departure from Detroit] I began to see this as an opportunity. Upon arrival, in the welcome with tea and marginal coffee and biscuits in a church with portions built in the 13th century, I began to see the opportunity to come to the place where this whole experiment called the Anglican Communion began to take root.

“At the opening service at Canterbury Cathedral following a three-day retreat led by the archbishop, I was really moved by the sermon of Bishop Duleep de Chickera of Sri Lanka. As Anglicans [he said] we are inclusive, disciplined in self-scrutiny, united in diversity and prophetic. I found through the Bible study, the pints of ale that have been shared, the self-select groups, and the walking and talking on the sidewalks, those four dimensions have framed everything. I realized that as North Americans, our struggle with inclusivity is one of our charisms that we can offer to the larger Church. Our sense of the prophetic is a charism that we can offer. And our attempts, albeit sometimes inadequate, to be united in diversity is something we can offer. But that fourth one—discipline in self-scrutiny—keeps coming back to me.

“[It asks] what am I as an individual bishop, what are we as a diocese, what are we as the province of the Episcopal Church willing to give up? How are we willing to accept discipline, invited discipline, in order that we might have a time to reflect more deeply on how we can balance the call to unity and the profound call to truth? Those two seem to be in tension right now.”

Gibbs: “[This was not a Lambeth] where we had a pile of resolutions that we had to vote up or down. My biggest hope about the reflection [a summary of small groups discussions] that comes out is that it honestly reflects the fact that we are not of one mind as a Communion, but that we are of one heart—one heart in Jesus. And that we do want to stay together as a Communion, we are looking desperately for ways to make that happen, and we are trying to do it in a way in which our brothers and sisters in parts of the world who are being persecuted won’t be murdered every time somebody in another part of the world does something that appears to be inconsistent with traditional Christian teaching. And that is a hard balance.”

[Gibbs explained that a member of his Bible study was a new bishop from Sudan who was preparing to assume office where he had no schools, no church building and no family housing.]

“He also has to deal with Muslims. Every time something happens in North America, they look at him and his church, point a finger, and the persecution begins. And it’s not just name-calling or people walking by General Convention booths with signs. We are talking about homes being burned [and] people being beaten and killed over things that they didn’t even do. I think the [Lambeth Conference] reflection that needs to come out of this needs to say we are struggling with all of that.”

Gepert: “In Western Michigan, there is a sense that the Anglican Communion is superfluous; that we don’t really need the Anglican Communion. That’s [the target of] my message to take back. I have discovered here that we need to have a worldwide Anglican Communion. We need to be a part of it and the worldwide Anglican Communion needs us. That piece has been an eye-opener. I discovered a tremendous amount of respect here. In my Indaba group, everyone listened to what I had to say. No one argued with me. They simply took the comments and I took theirs.

“For Rowan Williams to start the conference with a three-day retreat set the stage for how we could encounter one another through the Gospel.”

Gibbs: “And the reason he did is that he is trying to make us better bishops. What way to be a better bishop than to listen—listen to one another. It was brilliant.”

Ousley: “Where Rowan exercised real leadership was keeping us on track with the notion that this was about equipping bishops; it was not about making some bold statement or solving some problems at a macro or micro level. It was about equipping us for mission. And that we needed to have a time apart in a place of safety where we could share deeply with one another and be stretched and not be held captive by one particular concern.”

Gepert: “The disappointing part for me is that not everyone is here to be in conversation, so the conversation has been taking part with the vast majority of bishops of the Anglican Communion but not all bishops.”

The Record: Gene Robinson was absent as well. He hasn’t been part of what has obviously been a transformational experience for the three of you and other bishops that are now going back into a House of Bishops that does include Gene. How is that reunification going to occur?
Ousley: “My experience of Gene is that he is disciplined enough to do the work to listen and he is going to respect, as he has always, the various places in which we reside. … There were others beside Gene who are not here for a whole variety of reasons some economic, some are retired, some are part-time.”

Gepert: “We all regret that Gene as a bishop was not invited. I don’t want to downplay that. I am still of the mind that Gene should have been part of this [as the] duly elected and consecrated bishop of New Hampshire.”

Gibbs: “Absolutely.”

Gepert: “It was Gene himself who said we could do the most good by coming here and participating.”

Gibbs: “I would ditto everything Bob and Todd have said. I think the design to try to keep [Gene] from being a focus by not inviting him backfired in a number of ways. I also believe that because of the experience that we had around conversation and the fact that by not having a person with whom to interact, it was very difficult for some of our brothers to wrap their minds around this human being Gene Robinson. It would have been far better and far less distracting for some had he been here and people could have interacted with him on a daily basis. I deeply regret and still vehemently disagree with the decision that was made to not invite him.”

Gepert: “We need to do better at talking to people rather than about them. That is an important sign of health when we are able to do that. That is why this conference was so important; we have the opportunity to talk to people, not about them. In terms of the sexuality issue, that was the big regret for me. We talked about gay and lesbian people, but many in our midst have never had an opportunity to talk to gay and lesbian people and hear their story.”

The Record: “What do you want to bring back to Michigan about this experience that could change the way in which our dioceses function?

Gibbs: “Following up on the AMEN conference where we talked about mission. I have a renewed and greater energy around doing mission in partnership [and] having linkages, not because we have something great, grand and glorious to give, but because we have something to learn from each other. The linkages will help keep the conversation going.”

Gepert: “This is an experience that can help the Diocese of Western Michigan break out of parochialism. My hope is that I can help them see not only that they are bigger than their parish, but that we are bigger than the Diocese of Western Michigan and the Church in the United States. I hope I can share enough of my experience here that people can begin to see the larger picture and the importance of that. It has been an eye-opener for me; I could not see this Communion prior to coming and I am able to see it now. That has been a real gift.”

Ousley: “I now have at least one other person that I can call upon when faced with difficult and complex decisions. I have a fellow bishop who has challenged me and the challenge has been good. I want to maintain that relationship.

“I remember another piece from the sermon during the opening service. Eastern Michigan was formed out of the notion that we have diversity and we want to enjoy that. It is diversity of thought—some people call it independence— but I think we need to spend a lot more time in the diocese discovering our unity.”

The Record: The people back home have not had this experience. How tough is it to go home and try to bring this new understanding to people who are anxious or angry?

Gepert: “The Indaba process provided a mechanism by which we could trust one another. I think the message we take back home depends on how much people trust us. There is a relationship of trust that has to exist for me to be believable. I hope that exists at this point in Western Michigan; that people hear what I bring back as genuine and true. It is the same thing that is happening here at the conference. With trust we hear; without trust, we cannot hear.”

The Record: People expected the bishops to come home with a lot of answers, and that was fastidiously avoided. So what questions are you going home with? What do you want to go home and ask in a new way or ask other people to engage?

Gepert: “Well, it is very Anglican to go home from a conference with more questions than answers. ... The primary question is how can we in the Diocese of Western Michigan be more fully part of the worldwide Anglican Communion? We need to have some conversation to enable us to look outside of ourselves and recognize that we are needed and the Communion is needed: that we all need one another.”

Gibbs: “One of our diocesan priorities is to enhance our Anglican identity. We’ve been searching for who we are as Anglicans and I think there are some answers that come out of the Lambeth Conference. That includes a willingness to open our eyes and our ears so that we aren’t simply defining who are as Anglicans by virtue of being Episcopalians, but that we are Anglicans by virtue of everybody else around the world and their experiences and their walk of faith. That is going to be a new way of journeying that may not necessarily be easy. Because it is going to require a bit of slowing down so that we make sure we are not to miss some things along the way.”

Ousley: “[The Diocese of Eastern Michigan] remains the newest domestic diocese in the Episcopal Church. We are 14 years old. That puts us right in the middle of adolescence. The task of adolescence is the development of identity and that is where the Anglican Communion is. This is an adolescence moment, which means it is frustrating: searching for who we are.

“Bringing this experience back to the diocese will help inform the questions we need to be asking about who are we as the people of Eastern Michigan. We need to give ourselves space to ask who are we together. I am comfortable with the idea that we didn’t come up with an answer or a handful of answers. Instead, it got reframed for us to focus on who we know is the answer.”