Anglican Taonga

We arrived a few days late. Our son who had been travelling with us in Italy and France for the month leading up to Lambeth had succumbed to a viral infection and ended up in St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. He was pretty sick, and the worry and physical demands of all of that left us exhausted and unenthusiastic about going to Canterbury for the conference.

As we watched him drag himself through Departures at Heathrow all we wanted to do was go too. On the train from London Victoria to Canterbury we tried hard to convince each other that we owed it to all the good people of Waikato to make the most of Lambeth – and after all, three weeks wasn’t that long!

We arrived as the bishops were coming to the end of two and a half days’ retreat in Canterbury Cathedral. The effect of this retreat, led by Rowan Williams, was palpable; every one we spoke to had been touched by the experience, and that heightened our anxiety.

How could we break in on such a pivotal experience? We would forever be latecomers who had missed the experience of centered prayer and reflection. Brian McLaren, the American evangelist, spent four days at the conference and captured the essence of it in his Monday address:

“I had read many print and online articles about the kind of theological civil war ostensibly going on in the Anglican Communion. Having good friends on many ‘sides’ of the controversy – and really, there are more than two sides – I knew before coming that the situation was complex with truly good-hearted and sincere people differing from each other on a number of difficult issues.

“My dominant impression during four brief days at Lambeth was not of controversy, but rather of the spirituality of the participants. The gathering was full of prayer, Bible study, worship and fellowship. It wasn’t simply a political “us versus them” gathering, as news reports often seem to imply. Instead, the people I talked to all radiated the love of Christ and the desire to move forward together, with Christian love covering differences.

“I sensed … a desire for the main thing once again to be the main thing, so the Anglican Communion can refocus on being and making disciples, in authentic community, for the good of God’s world. Now I’m sure there are people on all extremes who wouldn’t share this spirit, but apparently those people avoided me, because every single person I met shared this irenic spirit.”

The next morning I had my first experience of the Bible studies. Each study group comprised eight diverse bishops. The intimacy and intensity of these small communities is difficult to describe; how do you capture wairua in words?

My group, which had already met for several mornings, welcomed and included me without fuss. This straightforward approach meant that by the end of that first morning I had found my place.

The studies – attending closely to the Gospel of St John and to each other’s insights and experience in an atmosphere of trust and challenge – yielded the best work of the conference. Every day we were brought to silence by something one of the group shared.

We could not have been more diverse: two bishops from Africa (including a primate), two from Japan (together with their translator), two from the United States (including the Presiding Bishop), one each from Ireland, Scotland and England, and me.
There was nowhere to hide, no avoiding the issues facing us, but we discovered that we had the ability and were given the grace to listen and not to run away.

The Scripture itself shaped our understanding and our speaking with each other. We were constantly challenged as we realised the inadequacy of our individual interpretations and the richness of our collective wisdom, scholarship and experience. We discovered, too, how differently we read the Word because of our diverse contexts.

After the best part of two hours each morning our Bible study group joined four others to form an “Indaba” group. This larger group of around 40 bishops worked on the daily theme that had been introduced in the morning Eucharist.

Topics included: The Bishop and Anglican Identity, The Bishop and Evangelism, The Bishop and Social Justice, The Bishop and other Churches, the Bishop and the Environment, The Bishop, Christian Witness and other Faiths, Living Under Scripture, the Bishop and Human Sexuality, and the Bishop the Anglican Covenant.
The Indaba process, from Africa, is an open method of discussion and reflection that allows for the widest possible participation – and it turned out to be both inspiring and infuriating. It was much more structured than anticipated and early in the process many groups reacted to being “managed”. These concerns were voiced strongly early on and most groups seemed to adapt the process to suit.

Certainly, the open way in which our discussions were written up and made available for revision and comment ensured a true summary. These reflections from each Indaba group were gathered by a group of writers, under the leadership of Archbishop Roger Herft, to produce the “Conference Reflections Document”.

In both the Indaba and Bible Study groups we heard stories that will live with me forever. Stories of enormous courage and sacrifice; of living under threat and fear in Zimbabwe, Mayanmar, and Taliban-controlled Pakistan; of poverty, starvation and human tragedy on an unimaginable scale from Darfur; of sectarian violence from many parts of the world; of bishops on both ‘sides’ of the sexuality debate threatened with physical harm because of their stance; of a beach soccer game using a severed human head as the ball.

We also heard stories that inspired: a diocese caring for 10,000 AIDs orphans; risks taken to broker peace; the hard grind of reconstruction after war; and a bishop who walks eight hours to open his email.

And then there were deeply personal stories as bishops – frail, vulnerable human beings – reflected on the demands and privilege of leadership in this extraordinary church of God.

Plenaries and over 250 workshop choices filled the rest of the days, with keynote addresses and special events in the evenings. But it was the worship and prayer that gave real shape and rhythm to the 21 days; it gathered us up, inspired and quieted us. The chaplaincy team, led by Bishop Winston Halapua and drawn from Anglican religious throughout the world, maintained the focus and upheld us in prayer.

The daily morning Eucharist was always familiar and yet always diverse, each province bringing its own nuance, music and insights. It also gave daily opportunity for a bishop to challenge and stimulate us. This regular rhythm of worship was the heartbeat of the conference.

I vividly recall the opening service in Canterbury Cathedral – not just because that beautiful, ancient building, saturated with centuries of prayer and worship, seemed itself to be a participant in our thanksgiving and praise, but also because of an inspirational mix of ancient and modern, diversity of language and culture woven into the liturgy, and the challenge of the preacher, the Bishop of Colombo, whose own life and ministry has been shaped by crisis.

In the gospel procession the Bible was borne in a canoe carried by the Melanesian brothers and sisters in a resurrection dance accompanied by panpipes and drums. Poignantly, the martyrdom of the seven Melanesian brothers seemed also to be borne in that canoe and lifted in that dance; I wept.

The concluding service 20 days later came full circle with the names of the seven martyrs read out in a still and silent cathedral and then carried to the Chapel of the Martyrs of our Own Time by the brothers and sisters, again accompanied by pan pipes.

One of the most inspiring addresses was on the nature of covenant in the Hebrew Scriptures – by Rabbi Jonathon Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Britain and the Commonwealth. After the longest sustained standing ovation I have witnessed, Rabbi Sacks responded to questions. One bishop asked; “Have you anything to say to us in the context of the current difficulties of the Anglican Communion?” After a long pause Rabbi Sacks answered:

“In 1944 the Archbishop of Canterbury whom I regard as the greatest of the 20th century, William Temple, invited the Chief Rabbi of Britain to meet. From this meeting the Council for Christians and Jews was formed and so began the process of transformation in the attitudes towards Jews in this country which has brought us to this point where I, the Chief Rabbi, am standing on this stage addressing the Lambeth Conference and embracing my friend and colleague the Archbishop of Canterbury. No other movement of faith, no other Archbishop could have done this. This is your gift as a church; your ability to live with diversity, your ability to live with difference, and to work with profound disagreement. This is a gift to the world and you must not let it go.”
In this community of Bishops gathered under the wise and Godly leadership of Rowan Williams, I learnt in a new and powerful way that despite division and profound disagreement we are bound to each other not by our own efforts but by the Grace of God in Christ. Bishop James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool and a member of my bible study group captures it well:

“We are in Christ by the grace of God. None of us earns or merits that place. In Christ we find ourselves alongside and at one (whether we like it - or them - or not) with all others who by God’s grace are also in Christ. We cannot take ourselves into Christ, neither can we remove another from being in Christ. It is all by grace. Now it is clear that controversy can impair friendship, can affect ministry and even undermine mission but only Christ can determine communion, with him and through him with one another.

As in the Council of Jerusalem and the controversy over doctrine and practice so today in the Anglican Communion there may be impaired mission, impaired ministry, impaired friendship but as to “communion” that is only and forever in and through Christ alone.”

As one bishops said; “I may believe my brother or sister is wrong but even with this fundamental disagreement when I look at them I see in them the marks of the Church, when I look at them I see the face of Christ reflected back at me”.

I want to belong to such a Church.