Against the Anglican ‘Conscience’: The Analytical Tool from Churches and Moral Discernment Applied to the Discussions About Homosexuality at the Lambeth Conferences 1978–2022

Abstract

Abstract In the recently published document Churches and Moral Discernment the Faith and Order Commission of the wcc offers an analytical tool for moral discernment processes and introduces the concept of the ‘conscience’ of the Church. Applying this tool to the moral discernment processes in the Anglican Communion leading up to the 1998 Lambeth Conference and its Resolution I.10 ‘Human Sexuality’ indicates that the moral discernment processes did not reflect the Anglican ‘conscience’, i.e. the inherited understanding of moral norms and authority. This led to the Resolution being divisive rather than uniting. The success of the 2022 Lambeth Conference in mending these division needs to be followed up by the commencement of a renewed discernment process. But it is also possible that the Anglican ‘conscience’ has changed in parts of the Communion, which would pose new challenges for the instruments of communion.