Bishop Ted and Barbara Gulick on Lambeth

The workdays were long (typically 16 hours) and the temperatures were atypically hot for England, but Bishop Ted and Barbara Gulick have returned from Canterbury excited to talk about the 2008 Lambeth Conference, which both described as a transforming experience.

“I would say that Lambeth 2008 was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. It was profound, and it was deeply converting for me. I feel that I have returned from Lambeth a better Christian as well as a better bishop as a result,” Bishop Gulick reported in a telephone interview a few days after his return to the United States.

The Gulicks were among 670 Anglican bishops and their spouses from 37 of the 38 Anglican provinces who attended the three-week conference, which meets once every 10 years, at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Meeting July 16-Aug. 3, Lambeth 2008, the Gulick’s second, was the first time bishops from across the world gathered in one place since tensions erupted in the Communion in 2003 over the U.S. church’s consecration of a partnered gay bishop and the Canadian church’s approval of blessing same sex unions. Controversy continues over the ongoing moratoria and incidents of bishops’ incursions into other dioceses.

Unlike the 1998 Lambeth Conference, this gathering began with an intense, two and a half-day retreat and its structure made daily Bible study and conversations central to the conference work. Bishop Gulick was the leader of his Bible study group, which included two bishops from the Church of England, two other bishops from America, two from Zimbabwe and one from Malawi. Afterwards the Bible Study groups joined with four other groups in what were called “indaba” groups of 40 members each to discuss their roles as bishops and the challenges they face. At the end, the bishops produced a document of reflections gleaned from the 40 hours of conversations reported daily by the18 indaba groups.

While the bishops met, their spouses had a parallel conference, also structured around daily Bible study groups and plenary sessions.

Like the bishop, Barbara Gulick was the leader of a Bible study group and she also spoke about how moved she was by what she saw and heard. Her group, composed of women from the U.S., Sudan and Ireland, faced challenges because of educational and language differences. Unlike 10 years ago, when many groups “crashed and burned” because of their differences, however, she said, “Our group stayed together to the very end, and we treated each other gently and respectfully.” As a result of their conversations, she said, she corrected some assumptions she brought to the conference.

“I found out that they [the Sudanese women] were very, very young (one of them could have been in her 20s, another in her 30s), and their spouses had only been bishops for a few weeks. But they have experienced war, danger and losing people. They have experienced poverty. They want their children to be educated but there’s no guarantee.... It’s good to have a reality check ... to see the lives my sisters, bishops’ wives, have.”

At this conference she also was surprised to learn that “the Communion was more evangelical than I thought,” and she was made vividly aware that there are Christian martyrs today. The spouses heard from a Melanesian monk, who told them about six monks from his order who “literally put themselves in the no man’s land between two warring factions” and lived there to help negotiate peace. They were found tortured and killed, however. “He showed pictures of virile young men who looked like they should still be alive,” she said. “That was a very moving and eye-opening experience for me,” she said. The bishops later got a “amazing” glimpse of their story, she added. During the closing Eucharist, a group of Melanesians sang a litany for the young men as they processed through Canterbury Cathedral as they carried the martyrs’ names to the Chapel of Martyrs.

Reflecting on the conference in general, Barbara Gulick observed, “it became clear to me that throughout the whole conference...conversations had value. People knew that they could talk, and the talking was accomplishing something.” While some have criticized the conference as just a lot of talking she said, “the fact was, you’ve got people who are very, very different in so many ways and they kept the conversation going, open and thankful. That accomplishes a huge amount.”

Text of interview with Bishop Gulick