I just got back from a talk by Bishop Pete Broadbent of Willesden, as advertised here. This was an interesting talk on the subject “United We Stand”, a very positive one in fact but I wonder how realistic this positive attitude is.

In a previous post I pointed out that Broadbent was not among the 21 evangelical bishops in the Church of England who wrote to the Church of England Newspaper urging their fellow Anglican bishops around the world to attend the Lambeth Conference.

At this morning’s talk Broadbent declined to answer a question about whether he would attend the Lambeth conference, the Global Anglican Future conference (GAFCON), or both. He did mention that there were 35 evangelical bishops in the Church of England. Of these, 21 signed the letter to the Church of England Newspaper, and two, Nazir-Ali and Benn, are known to have rejected Lambeth in favour of GAFCON. This leaves 12, including Broadbent, who as far as I know have not made their position public. They are probably wise to do so. Nevertheless, given his general attitude I would be surprised if Broadbent stays away from Lambeth, although he might also attend GAFCON.