wfn.org | Gathering of Afro-Anglican bishops

["Lambeth98" <storm@indigo.ie>]

ACNS LC097 - 7 August 1998

Gathering of Afro-Anglican bishops built
bridges, focused efforts

by Nan Cobbey and James Thrall
Lambeth Conference Communications

As the Lambeth Conference draws to a close, one pre-Lambeth
gathering of Afro-Anglican bishops from Africa, England, the West
Indies and the United States appears to have borne definite
fruit. 

The 68 bishops from four continents can point with satisfaction
to successful resolutions achieved through their pooled effort,
but also to ties of friendship forged across distinct cultural
differences. 

Sponsored by six United States dioceses, the gathering in
Cambridge, England, July 13-15, was open to all bishops of Africa
and the African diaspora-a body significantly larger than it was
at the last Lambeth Conference. Given the growth of the church in
Africa, what were 130 dioceses in 1988 are now 228. 

While the meeting was not able to bridge widely divergent
positions on the issue of sexuality, the bishops did identify
mutual concerns they vowed to pursue during Lambeth. For Bishop
Josiah Idowu-Fearon of Kaduna (Nigeria), meeting with other
Afro-Anglican bishops, especially those who had attended earlier
Lambeths, also offered a chance to get pointers on how to be
heard. 

"The Afro-Anglican conference informed us and prepared us for
making positive contributions in the various sections," he said.
"I personally wouldn't have participated as actively as I've had
the joy of doing."

A presentation to the gathering on the issue of international
debt was particularly helpful, he said. "Had it not been for the
Cambridge meeting, we would have been in the dark," he said. "We
didn't come here with empty heads."

Calling for Decade of Reconciliation

The bishops issued a 10-point statement, "The Cambridge
Challenge," on the eve of Lambeth, calling for a Decade of
Reconciliation that would help "break down the walls which
continue to separate us."

The four-page text also addresses the bishops' key concerns: debt
cancellation, neo-colonialism, the arms trade, Islam-Christian
relations, refugees of war, AIDS, inter-Anglican relationships,
"full humanity," and church growth.

According to Bishop Orris Walker of Long Island (USA), organizer
of the meeting, the statement expresses "a feeling among bishops
of color in the Anglican Communion that there is still too much
business as usual and the focus was on the concerns of bishops of
the First World." Even those in the developed world, he said,
have "felt that . . . our voices were not being heard."

Fifty-one bishops signed the statement, including 20 from
Nigeria, nine from the United States, seven from Kenya, six from
Uganda, three from the Province of the West Indies, two from West
Africa, two from Congo-Zaire, one from Central Africa, and one
from the Church of England. 

"There is a need for a lot of reconciliation," said Walker in
explaining the organizers' motivations. "A lot of things passed
off as reconciliation are really sort of Anglican courtesy.
People have been taught to be courteous and really have not
addressed the issues." Walker suggested a close examination of
South Africa's process of reconciliation "where people have
confessed their involvement in a bad system and seek one
another's forgiveness." 

Forging personal ties

The Cambridge meeting itself offered a moment of reconciliation
for those who attended.

"Despite the things we have heard about the church in America, it
has been very good to meet the bishops," Bishop Idowu-Fearon
said. "And it was good for them to see the number of African
bishops and to listen to how we're doing it in Africa."

The bishops' statement acknowledged the "great diversity and
vastly differing contexts" of the Communion, which "presents its
own inherent difficulties for the development of a common mind."
The statement noted that "our own assembly at Cambridge has
provided us with a fruitful reminder of this reality," but
stressed that "we are in solidarity against the forces and
sources of evil and dehumanisation."

Bishop Idowu-Fearon said reconciliation is a much-needed emphasis
in Africa. "We feel ashamed seeing Christians killing each other
in Rwanda," for example, he said. "We feel ashamed when tribal
loyalties take precedence over loyalty to Jesus Christ."

It is also essential to heal perceived divisions between
different regions of the Communion, he said. "The South needs the
North, and the North needs the South," he said. "We agreed to
extend the right hand of fellowship to those in different
cultures. We've got to listen to each other."

The bishops gathered again in the second week of the Lambeth
Conference to recommit themselves to making their voices heard,
and to continuing to "keep together the Afro-Anglican agenda,"
reported Bishop Clarence Coleridge of Connecticut (USA), one of
the sponsors of the meeting. They also began planning for another
gathering, their fourth, "in the new millennium," he said. Two
previous gatherings of Afro-Anglicans were held in Barbados and
South Africa.

Listening to all voices

Bishop Horace Etemesi of Butere (Kenya) praised the Cambridge
gathering for its openness and dialogue, but, as the Lambeth
Conference began, questioned whether the conference organizers
wanted the same degree of dialogue.

"Some of us attending the conference for the first and only time
were asking ourselves, 'Is it worth spending three weeks in
Canterbury? Will it be a time of genuine dialogue that will
provide a learning opportunity that will positively influence my
remaining eight years in office as a bishop?'" he said. "Or will
it be a stage-managed conference where seniors through the
Secretariat have their will done?"

A major concern for Bishop Etemesi is the opportunity to discuss
"the type of ACC (Anglican Consultative Council) we want in the
next millennium. For instance," he asked, "should the Office of
General Secretary rotate?"

Bishop Etemesi said the personalities involved were not
important, "but the principle that the provinces in the South and
the North are equal before Almighty God."

Relief of debt not enough

Despite a high emphasis on international debt throughout the
conference, the bishops carried concerns right up to the plenary
debate on the issue.

Bishop Neville de Souza of Jamaica (West Indies) and Bishop
Alfred Reid of Montego Bay (West Indies), for example, expressed
concern that neither the Afro-Anglican bishops' statement, nor
the subsection report on international debt sufficiently
addresses their concerns about the root causes of international
debt. Bishop Reid prepared an amendment to the conference
statement that was added Thursday afternoon.

"Debt relief is not sufficient," said Bishop Reid, "it leaves the
system intact and it doesn't address the causes. The reason for
debt in the world has to do with a global economic system in
which eight countries-I'm talking about the G8-reserve the right
to commandeer 90 percent of the world's resources for themselves
and expect the rest of the world, which is the majority of
mankind, to scramble among themselves and scramble with them for
the remaining [10 percent]." 

Reid said the conference must be willing to challenge that
system. "All these other things are, maybe, necessary, but they
are not going to actually change anything in the long run."

Bishop de Souza added another concern: trade rules set up to
benefit international companies at the expense of developing
nations. "The multilateral agreement for investments . . . means,
for all practical purposes, all countries become investment
opportunities over which we have no local control," he said.
"They send in and they take out foreign investment funds as they
like. They control your whole internal economy. They are
destroying for the third world nation their capability to manage
their balance of payments. They are going back to colonialism,
back to pre-colonial days."

The Cambridge statement declares the bishops "deeply appalled" at
the lack of political will of wealthy nations and multinational
institutions "to radically challenge" the causes of the
"disastrous conditions" they see in their countries. 

Support for newly converted Christians

Archbishop Joseph Adetiloye of Nigeria especially appreciated the
Afro-Anglican bishops' suggestion that the Lambeth Conference
encourage economic and social support for Christians in the
Muslim parts of the world, particularly for new converts.

"Sometimes when they get converted, they lose their jobs, they
lose their homes. In some cases their wives are taken away from
them. Their privileges will be stamped out," said Bishop
Adetiloye. The church in Nigeria is doing everything it can to
help them, he said, "giving them aid to be able to withstand
temptations."  Support from the communion would be welcome, he
said. 

Despite difficulties in coming to a meeting of minds, either in
Cambridge or here in Canterbury, Bishop Chester Talton of Los
Angeles said he feels quite sure about the value of Lambeth
Conference. 

"The most important thing for me is the sharing and the learning
and the listening," he said. "It's hard to see how in a meeting
this big we are going to affect very much on the basis of what we
say, but I think we can change one another a great deal by what
we hear from and learn from one another."

For further information, contact:

   Lambeth Conference Communications
   Canterbury Business School
   University of Kent at Canterbury
   Telephone: 01227 827348/9
   Fax: 01227 828085
   Mobile: 0374 800212

   http://www.lambethconference.org