A post was circulated on Facebook claiming that South Sudanese bishops were ‘forced’ to sign a document to respect the LGBTQ community to attend the Lambeth Conference in the United Kingdom. This post is FALSE. According to the Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion, none of the bishops was forced to sign a document concerning LGBTQ.
“No Bishop was forced to sign any document against their will. We have a code of conduct. The code of conduct says when you are attending the conference, you have to respect each other’s views; this is what is expected. It is common whenever you come to such conferences to have a ground rule that we all agree with, and in this case, we had a code of conduct which was agreed upon to protect everybody who is here at the conference. It has nothing to do with homosexuality as it is alleged.” the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Adviser on Anglican Communion Affairs, Bishop Anthony Poggo, told Radio Tamazuj.
Nevertheless, the fake post claimed that.
“South Sudanese bishops ‘forced’ to sign documents to respect the LGBT-Q community to attend bishops’ conference
South Sudan Anglican Church bishops headed Justin Badi were forced to sign a document to respect the LGBT-Q community at Lambeth Conference at the University of Kent in Canterbury.
About 60 South Sudan bishops who protested same-sex marriage were invited to attend the conference.
The bishops were presented with a 4-paged document to sign to respect those of diverse sexualities.
They were given the option to sign the document or miss out on the conference.
According to source who was at the conference, the bishops and their wives agreed to sign the document after lengthy consultation.
The fifteenth Lambeth Conference is taking place at the University of Canterbury in Kent and will run to August 8. Its theme is “God’s Church for God’s World: Walking, Listening and Witnessing together.” this post stated.
The Lambeth Conference is a gathering of bishops from across the Anglican Communion for prayer and reflection, fellowship and dialogue on church and world affairs.
This year, the conference will explore what it means for the Anglican Communion to be responsive to the needs of the 21st century.
According to Christian Today, an independent Christian media company, an orthodox fellowship of Anglicans, had asked bishops at the Lambeth Conference to reaffirm Lambeth 1.10 as the “official teaching of the Anglican Communion on marriage and sexuality”.
Resolution 1.10 was passed at the 1998 Lambeth Conference and upheld marriage as a union between a man and a woman for life while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.
At the 2022 Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, Kent, formal resolutions have been replaced by ‘Calls’ on topical issues.