Archbishop Dr Rowan Williams addresses Methodist Conference 2004

On Monday 28th June, for the first time since 1961 the Archbishop of Canterbury addressed the Methodist Conference. The Conference which began on Saturday 26th June and continues until Thursday 1st July aims to give renewed life and focus to the Methodist denomination, and the attendants warmly greeted the Archbishop.

Dr Rowan Williams said, “the signing of the Anglican-Methodist Covenant was an occasion of great hope and will continue to open doors. I hope we become more than just friends,” as he headed the Conference from John Wesley’s chair.

Williams went on and used connections to 1 Peter in his speech; and in encouraging inclusiveness, he posed the question, “What sort of people are we? A Chosen people! That’s to say we are not here because we have decided, but God has. ‘You did not choose me’, says Jesus in the fourth Gospel, ‘I chose you’. ‘Chosen people’ indicates the hospitality of God, and the concept of invitation is at the heart of discipleship.”

"We were made for royalty. Live the Royal life!" Dr Williams stated in explaining that when we accurately exercise our priestly responsibilities, "we make peace between earth and heaven. But the work of making peace and giving thanks will demand of us a very deep letting go of what comes comfortably, a very serious movement beyond our comfort zone as we ask what it is that respect for the world demands of us."

The Archbishop then led the discussion onto environmental issues, which the Methodist Church have been putting forward recently. He said, “We live in a world of colossally organised selfishness in which the environmental crisis that we all face is again and again deferred, postponed for our thinking and praying, let alone action.”

Dr Williams went on, “for the church to be a holy nation is for the church to be that kind of human community which puts a challenge to all other nations; which puts a question mark to all particular loyalties and belongings, saying these are not the ultimate things. In this light, the church is the exemplary nation.”

“If we hear those words from 1 Peter seriously, thoughtfully and carefully, we are left with a very grave, a very urgent challenge to how we are the Church. And whether we hear those words as Anglicans, Methodists, Russian Orthodox or Seven Day Adventists, is for these purposes immaterial,” concluded the Archbishop, “A church that is deeply anxious and depressed about itself is a very poor evangelist. The answer to that is not to send round happiness patrols to try and cheer people up into a false sense of security; it is to encourage ourselves and each other to turn our eyes to the God who calls.”

Conference President Will Morrey expressed the gratitude of the congregation for the Archbishop’s participation in the event, and Morrey testified the ‘solidarity’ that the Church of England and the Methodist Church have with each other, and at the end of Dr Williams’ address the Conference gave a standing applause to the Archbishop.