A Survey of the Work of the General Convention and the Lambeth Conference Considering a Theology for Interfaith Dialogue

Abstract

A review of the historic work of the Lambeth Conference and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church clearly demonstrates that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries interfaith interaction was evangelistically driven. While the motivation might have been equal parts colonialism and non-religious fervor, conversion was the goal of interfaith interaction during this period. As non-Western, non-Christian people began to appear more and more in England following World War II and the US following 1965, the foreign missionary paradigm along with its evangelize-and-convert methodology became less useful.