With just one more week left of the Lambeth conference, what has the University of Kent done to support the LGBTQ Anglican community?
The Lambeth Conference is an international meeting of Anglican bishops where the church discusses world affairs such as, climate change, poverty and gender justice as well as the global missions for the Anglican community.
650 bishops and their spouses have travelled around the world to attend this once in a decade conference, hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
Despite the 12-day meeting being postponed twice since 2018, the conference finally began took place on the 26th of July in Canterbury, Kent and is due to end on the 7th of August.
For many Anglican bishops, this has been a long-awaited moment of reunion and a much-needed opportunity for dialogue amongst the conference community.
This year’s opposition has been apparent, as Archbishops of Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda boycott the Lambeth Conference due to divisive debates on sexuality and same sex marriages.
The University of Kent’s Canterbury campus has accommodated the conference since 1978, allowing the bishops to live and worship together.
Ahead of the conference, Archbishop of Canterbury announced that “it would be inappropriate for same sex spouses to be invited to the conference.”
The university of Kent has said: “we warmly welcome the gathering of voices from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and outlooks to the Lambeth Conference and, as a university, we intend to learn from and, where appropriate, add our voice to the discussion of the vital questions under discussion.
Alongside this we are clear that the position of the worldwide Anglican Communion on the place of LGBT+ people within the Church and wider society does not fit with our deeply held values of equality, inclusion, tolerance, and mutual respect. We say that openly and unambiguously”.