Conference aimed at addressing social issues

THE Lambeth Conference will “look outwards” at issues such as evangelism, climate change, and economic injustice but will also address matters of sexuality, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby says.
Welby was speaking at a virtual press conference last Wednesday, alongside the organisers of the conference, a joint consultation for Anglican leaders.
He said the “basic aim” of the conference would be “to look outwards”.
He said the church should express its “evangelistic mission and its life of discipleship through engagement with the great challenges that the next 30 or 40 years would impose on the vast majority of Anglicans, especially those in areas of climate fragility and of political and other fragilities”.
“But the knock-on impact of those crisis will reside around the world, and it’s something that all God’s people in this world, all the churches, are called to respond to and to respond to prophetically and also, above all, compassionately with the love of God in Jesus Christ.”
With this in mind, he said, some of the “key themes” of the conference would be “evangelism and witness”, and “reconciliation, both within the church…but also as a reconciling agent in a world torn by war”, he said.
Welby said the conference would also explore “the challenges that will come from science and technology, especially machine learning, and the development in the biological and physical sciences, and the economic injustices that would result from unequal access to technology”.
The conference would also address “the key and immensely important questions that divide us around human identity and especially around human sexuality”.
The conference runs until Aug 8, after postponed from 2020 due to the Coronavirus (Covid-19).