Read more of Kim Lawton's interview in Canterbury at the Lambeth Conference with Episcopal Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina:

Q: What is your overall impression of the type of conversation that's been taking place here?

A: Oh my, well, I would say it, you know, we're in a process, and a process like the one we're in always includes a need for prudence and guidance, prudence because you don't want to interrupt the process as it unfolds. You want to be patient, you want to participate, you want to let something emerge. [But] if one senses that we're on a wrong trajectory, if we don't think we're getting where we need to get, then we may need to say something or say wait a minute, I think that unless we correct the path we're on we may get up [at] the end of the day having nothing accomplished -- structured superficiality, and in that structured superficiality we may have produced nothing in the end of the day, though involved ourselves in a lot of time, effort, money, and personal sacrifice. So I'm still testing to see if this is going to produce what we need at the end of the day, and the answer's not there yet.

Q: We've been hearing a lot that this time around Lambeth is a conversation. Do you feel people are really listening to each other and are taking in different points of view?

A: Oh, I think so, at different levels, and I think there's a tendency to kind of peel off, like the layers of an onion, the concerns that each of us brings to the conversation, and then there's a tendency to back off. It's like we've entered into the pain that divides us, and now we don't know if we want to continue this or not. It's getting too tense, it's -- so there is that ebb and flow in this conversation. I would say also that from my standpoint as a bishop, as a new bishop underneath this whole church, the conversations with my brother bishops from Sudan and their wives from Sudan, from Ghana and places of great hardship has broken my heart on more than one occasion and suggested that, though I already have as much weight as I need to have, as many responsibilities as I need to have, do I really need their burdens placed upon me? And yet as God deepens our responsibilities I trust that he enables our shoulders to bear that responsibility as the need is placed upon us, so I've found myself making links with people that I want to continue. How can I forget their problems, how can I forget their sufferings when I return back home? And I need their clarity, their connection, their courage in the midst of persecution, in the midst of difficulties, in the midst of the overwhelming demands that pale -- causes the mind paleness.

Q: Are you getting a sense of the diversity within the Communion?

A: Oh, the cultural context from which people come -- it boggles the mind and expands the heart, and so absolutely.

Q: There has been a lot of talk about Anglican identity and what is it that truly makes an Anglican. Is that up for debate?

A: I honestly have to say that my sense of being an Anglican hasn't changed at all. I would say my grasp -- the breadth has deepened, and the depth of the need for our relationship to continue and to go to that next level of fellowship, but my understanding of Anglican identity hasn't changed.

Q: Do you think it's changing around you, though?

A: I haven't the slightest idea. I would hope that it is, but maybe that's presumptuous. Maybe they have as good a grasp of what they think Anglican identity is.

Q: You're in a diocese that's been uncomfortable with some of the things that have been going on in the US church. How has that placed you here in the conference? How are you fitting into the conversations?

A: Well, it's an interesting experience because on a local level, that is, within the Episcopal Church USA, I'm in a minority position. In a conference like this I find myself in a majority, although not all, when they are introduced to me and then I say I'm from the Episcopal Church -- sometimes they're a little cautious as to where I am. They don't know how quite to deal with me, and as we begin to talk, certain things are said in the conversation that enables them to understand that I'm not with the majority opinion, and then there is an equal level of fellowship that follows. … It's really quixotic, I suppose, that I go from a place in the United States I'm in the extreme minority when I gather in the House of Bishops, but here among bishops from all over the world I'm in the odd position of being in the majority opinion, and that's different, and I kind of like it, actually.

Q: Have you picked up on a lot of concerns from people here about things going on in the Episcopal Church?

A: I find that when I apologize for what we've done, in the midst of the conversation they say thank you, I'm glad to hear that that's how you feel. William Temple, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said that the church needs to be very clear in its public pronouncements so it can be very pastoral in its application. What the Episcopal Church did in 2003 is it made a public pronouncement by action, and that action was contrary, or in contradiction to the teaching of the church, and so what we have is a public pronouncement and an official teaching that [are] incoherent with one another, and that creates, then, a very awkward situation in which what we teach and what we've done are at odds with one another, and there is a profound unclarity on a public level, which means on a local level every individual priest, every individual bishop has to take a stand, and once you've taken a stand then it's difficult to be in a pastoral relationship with those who feel like you've just abandoned them or taken a position that alienates them from where they are. And so it's just the opposite of what the archbishop said years ago, that the church needs to be very clear in its public pronouncement so it can be very pastoral in its application. We've turned the axiom on its end.

Q: A group here within the church has recommended that the moratorium continues and be enforced against a blessing for same-sex relationships, against gay bishops, against the cross-jurisdictional relationships. What is your reaction to these recommendations?

A: Well, I'd say this: that the Anglican Communion is in a process of trying to understand how we live in a global age. … Some of us have come to the conclusion we need some kind of covenant by which we can say this is who we are, this is how we shall live together, this is how we should treat one another. There are limits to Anglican diversity, and these are now what they are.

Q: Is that a good idea?

A: It's a wonderful idea, because this Communion is too important in an age of globalism, in a global church, not to be able to live together with respect, with trust, and with cooperation.

Q: And that can't happen with people doing different things, or believing and looking at Scripture so differently?

A: When I was a kid there was a little toy called Gumby, and you could stretch his arms, but there was a limit to where you could stretch his arms, and so there is a limit as to what diversity can allow for in the midst of a family, a community that has to trust one another.

Q: Why has your diocese made the decision to stick with the Episcopal Church? So many others have left, or parishes have left.

A: I'm not sure we can say so many others have left. Only one has left so far. I believe at this point that to stay the course and bear witness within this community -- God, I believe, is not finished with the Episcopal Church yet, and he certainly isn't finished with the Anglican Communion yet, and so there are those who are called by God to work within, there are those who are called by God to work without the structures. I believe that those who have left and those of us who are staying may, by the grace of God, maybe 20 years, maybe 40 years down the line will be joined together in an Anglican Communion that is sufficient for the 21st century.

Q: Is the Communion reexamining some of its structures and how things are organized?

A: Well, you know, just the other day I went to three sites. I went to Canterbury Cathedral for worship, I went to St. Mark's, the oldest parish in England, and I went to St. Augustine's Abbey. One of those, the cathedral, is functioning in exciting ways, a baptism was taking place at St. Mark's Parish when I was there, and St. Augustine's Abbey is nothing but ruins. Structures have to change to meet different times, different challenges, different opportunities. The structures of the Anglican Communion, the structures of the Episcopal Church were not brought down by Moses in stone tablets. They are flexible, they need to be flexible, and they need to change with the needs of the day. I'm not a structural fundamentalist, but I do respect the Scriptures and their trustworthiness down the centuries, so there's a difference between fundamental truth or essential truth as revealed in the Scripture and the structures we have put around it to guard it in our common lives.

Q: Is the Anglican Communion still necessary in the world? Does there need to be an Anglican Communion?

A: Well, I wouldn't be here if I didn't think there needed to be an Anglican Communion, and I wouldn't be spending my life during these next 20 years, if God gives me that much time, on it if I didn't think there was a need for it. We are a unique body that stretches throughout the world. Seventy-seven to 80 million people call themselves Anglican. In many ways what we're struggling with right now is that we are -- well, nothing fails like success, and we've been successful. We've spread our arms out to every continent of the globe. That success has caused us now to adapt to a global Anglican church. There are some that want to retreat into provincialism. The Episcopal Church at times in some of its statements has seemed to want to retreat into provincialism that would take refuge in its autonomy rather than surrender itself in the greater common good of the Communion and to allow ourselves and the Communion to evolve into a structural format that governs itself in a way sufficient for this age of globalization. It's a unique challenge and a unique opportunity that we have. I, for one, think that it's worth the effort.

Q: Do you go home optimistic? What will you take away with you from Lambeth?

A: I don't know yet. I haven't gone home and it's not over, so at this stage of the game I'm cautious, optimistic. We have a lot more work to do in these next few days, and the proof will be in the pudding.

Q: Were you disappointed that some of the bishops chose to not be here because of their concerns about what's been going on?

A: There are many times that I think, gosh, I wish that Sydney was here, I wish Nigeria was here, Uganda was here, Kenya was here, Rwanda was here. But in a way they are. Their silence speaks volumes, if we'll only quiet ourselves long enough to recognize their voices here in their absence. And sometimes it causes me grief, and sometimes I say I understand.

Q: Has there been a spiritual lesson for you here, something that has resonated with you this week?

A: A bishop asked me last Sunday, when I was sitting in Canterbury Cathedral waiting for the worship to begin, he started saying -- he's an experienced bishop, and of course I've only been bishop for 6 months -- he said what's been your biggest surprise? And I thought for a minute. Then I said the biggest surprise is the way that God has broken and broadened my heart: broken my heart in the depth of need of the church in many parts of the Global South, broadened my heart in that I believe God is calling me to be a part of ministry with him. Not just a ministry of giving but a ministry of receiving. There is a passage in St. Paul which I think here is of relevance, where he says I've yearned to come that I might give you some gift, and it's almost as if he pauses and says, ah, but wait a minute, that we might meet you children edified, strengthened, benefited by our common meeting. So that is something which has been far more than anything I could have anticipated, nor did anticipate.