wfn.org | [ACNS] DIGEST 11 March 2005

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

The following is a roundup of the recent ACNS Digest stories, with
reports from England, Malawi, Nigeria, Australia, and the text of a
lecture given by the Archbishop of Canterbury on Tuesday of this week
(item 335). The ACNS Digest can be found here:

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/digest/index.cfm

(339) 11-March-2005 - Chichester aims for Fair Trade status - England

The Church of England Diocese of Chichester has started an initiative to
ensure that all church councils within its boundaries declare themselves
supporters of Fair Trade. Chichester is following the lead set by
Chester, which was declared the UK's first Fair Trade Diocese in March
2003, reports the Spring issue of Chichester Magazine.

Three launch events were held in February across the diocese to tell
parishes more about Fair Trade and to explain how they could sign up on
official pledge forms. It is hoped that enough pledges will have been
made by May 2005 for the Fair Trade award to be made.

For more information on Fair Trade please visit:

www.fairtrade.org.uk
www.tjm.org.uk
www.traidcraft.co.uk

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(338) 11-March-2005 - Synod elects the next Bishop of Newcastle -
Australia

The Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle has elected the next
Bishop of Newcastle at the end of its first day of business.

The Right Revd Dr Brian Farran is currently an Assistant Bishop in the
Diocese of Perth. He is 61 years of age and is married to Robin. They
have three adult children.

He obtained an Honours degree in Theology at St John's College Morpeth,
going on to serve in several dioceses across Australia including
Riverina, Rockhampton and Perth.

In addition to parish ministry, Bishop Farran has served as Dean of
Rockhampton (1983-1989), Regional Director of the Anglican Board of
Missions (1989-1992), and Bishop of the Goldfields within the Diocese of
Perth (1992-1998). He currently serves as a Bishop in the Northern
Region of the Diocese of Perth.

His academic qualifications include: a Licentiate in Theology
[Australian College of Theology 1965]; a Bachelor of Arts [Australian
National University 1968]; and a Bachelor of Letters (HONS) [Deakin
1992].

Administrator Bishop Graeme Rutherford said: "I am pleasantly surprised
that we have reached such a good result in the first day of our Bishop
Election Synod. "Synod members demonstrated a prayerful focus throughout
the Synod. I believe this is part of the reason why things flowed so
smoothly and with a generosity of spirit towards all of the candidates.
"When I spoke to Bishop Farran he was humbled and overwhelmed by the
result.

"We look forward to welcoming Bishop Farran to the Diocese. Arrangements
for his enthronement have yet to be confirmed." Bishop Farran's
appointment has received the required consent of the Metropolitan of NSW
and Bishops of the Province.

Bishop Graeme Rutherford is available for interview, phone 0407 660 083.

Released by Lauren Eyles, Communications Officer, phone 0425 324 974.

A photograph of Bishop Farran is available on request.

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(337) 10-March-2005 - Bishop of Lake Malawi dies - Central Africa

The Bishop of Lake Malawi, the Rt Revd Peter Nyanja, has died after a
battle with cancer, the Nation Online has reported. He was due to retire
in June and had been the diocese's longest serving bishop. More here:

http://www.nationmalawi.com/articles.asp?articleID=10145

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(336) 09-March-2005 - Anglican Observer represented at Commission - ACO

UN Geneva 14 March to 22 April

Members of the Anglican-UN Representation in Geneva will be attending
the Human Rights Commission - a major annual conference drawing together
UN member states, national institutions, international organisations and
NGOs/Civil Society - on behalf of the Anglican Observer at the United
Nations. Topics of vital interest to members of the Anglican Communion
are on the agenda, including: Promotion and Protection of Human Rights;
Rights of the Child; Indigenous People's Issues; Women and the Gender
Perspective; Religious Freedom; the Right to Development; Racism

Those with an interest in the Commission can find out more on
www.ohchr.org

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(335) 09-March-2005 - Lecture: Ecology and Economy - England

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Rowan Williams, gave the
following lecture on Tuesday 8 March at the University of Kent in
Canterbury

Ecology and Economy

1.

The two big "e-words" (ecology and economy) in my title have sometimes
been used in recent decades as if they represented opposing concerns.
Yes, we should be glad to do more about the environment, if only this
didn't interfere with economic development and the liberty of people and
nations to create wealth in whatever ways they can. Or perhaps, we
should be glad to address environmental issues if we could be sure that
we had first resolved the challenge of economic injustice within and
between societies. So from both left and right there has often been a
persistent sense that it isn't proper or possible to tackle both
together, let alone to give a different sort of priority to ecological
matters.

But this separation or opposition has come to look like a massive
mistake. It has been said that 'the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary
of the environment'. The earth itself is what ultimately controls
economic activity because it is the source of the materials upon which
economic activity works. Increasingly, economists have expressed unease
about the habit of thinking of environmental matters as 'externalities'
where issues about economic development are concerned; and Professor
Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge has argued very cogently that we need to
stop measuring wealth in terms of GNP and to include reference to human
and natural capital in any serious measure of national well-being. It is
perfectly possible for a country to show an increase in its GNP and even
its Human Development Index, and in fact to be experiencing overall
economic decline because of the erosion of natural resources and the
rate of population growth. In a paper of 2002, Dasgupta demonstrated
that even in the Indian subcontinent, often cited as a good news story
for gradual wealth accumulation, the pattern is really one of decline in
the light of these factors. In Pakistan, for example, GNP figures
suggest that the national economy grew at a steady annual rate of 2.7%
between 1965 and 1993. But when depletion of natural assets and
population growth are factored in, it appears that 'the average
Pakistani became poorer by a factor of about 1.5 during that period'
(Dasgupta 2002, p.5).

To say this is to identify the tip of an iceberg. And the bulk of that
iceberg is our incapacity to develop a view of economics that takes
account of a sufficient range of factors for really dependable
prediction. The pattern we currently see in the world economy is a sort
of pincer movement in respect of natural resources. We are taking
resources out of the biosphere; and we are contributing to the biosphere
a set of lethally dangerous extras. Both can be illustrated with one
example. Contemporary methods of fish farming (aquaculture) require
large quantities of wild fish as food for farmed fish, so that there is
a further dramatic depletion in the wild fish populations. Fishermen who
still depend on wild fishing have to pull in greater quantities to
compete with farmed produce. Farmed fish contain higher levels of toxins
than wild fish; if they escape, as they often do, they interbreed with
wild fish and introduce those toxins to the wild strains - as well as
introducing genetic complications, since farmed fish, bred for rapid
growth, have poor survival capacity outside controlled conditions (see
Jared Diamond, Collapse. How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive,
p.488). Thus we simultaneously deplete and poison. It is an elegant
metaphor for a very wide range of phenomena. The impact of carbon
emissions is now so well-known that it is hardly worth rehearsing the
problems - though the most recent scientific summit on this matter
convened by the government at Exeter some few weeks ago agreed, to the
dismay of many, that practically all of our estimates of damage in terms
of climate deterioration had been spectacularly overoptimistic. The
measurable rise in temperature - and the hitherto underrated extent of
acidisation in the ocean through carbon pollution - left little doubt
that the predicted rise in water levels would be substantially greater
within the next decade, and that life in the oceans was more at risk
than had been realised. And of course to speak of rising water levels is
not just to predict a gentle advance; melting at or near the poles could
mean vast slippages of ice capable of triggering a tsunami effect. We
know today what that can mean in a way that we could hardly have dreamed
of even a year ago. But we are not only speaking about carbon emissions;
we know something of the effects of pesticides and herbicides, and we
have become more acutely conscious of the chemical cocktails in our food
and water. And the transfer, for economic reasons, of plant and animal
species from one environment to another has had a regularly devastating
effect on the overall ecology of a new environment and its balance.

Economy and ecology cannot be separated. If Dasgupta is right about the
proper definition of wealth, ecological fallout from economic
development is in no way an 'externality'; it is a positive depletion of
real wealth, the 'human and natural capital' of which he speaks. We
should not be surprised; after all, the two words relate to the same
central concept. An oikos is a house, a dwelling-place: ecology is the
science of what makes up a dwelling place, an environment, the way it
works and holds together, the 'logic' of a material setting; and economy
is the law that regulates behaviour in an environment, the active
'housekeeping' that manages what is at hand. To seek to have economy
without ecology is to try and manage an environment with no knowledge or
concern about how it works in itself - to try and formulate human laws
in abstraction from or ignorance of the laws of nature. Much of what I
have been saying so far is indebted to the new study by the American
biologist and geographer Jared Diamond; and he offers a vivid image for
the nature of our ignorance. Why, people ask, should we be bothered
about the survival of 'lousy little species' that appear to have no use?
'The entire natural world,' Diamond replies, 'is made up of wild species
providing us for free with services that can be very expensive, and in
many cases impossible, for us to provide for ourselves. Elimination of
lots of lousy little species regularly causes big harmful consequences
for humans, just as does randomly knocking out many of the lousy little
rivets holding together an airplane' (489).

We cannot continue to pretend to 'keep house' for the human race if we
refuse to pay any attention to where in the house the gas pipes and
electricity wires are laid, which walls are supporting walls, or where
the water is carried off by the guttering. But how many sentences in
lectures on this subject have begun with the words, 'We cannot continue
to...'? Hundreds at least; apparently we can in the short term.  But the
most original and disturbing aspect of Diamond's book is its remarkably
wide-ranging demonstration that failure to manage the environment is a
major decisive factor (though admittedly not the only one) in the
collapse of settled cultures throughout the centuries, from Easter
Island to Viking Greenland; and that collapse is -as with the rising of
water levels - no gentle decline but a bloody and costly disintegration.
Diamond applies his model not only to the distant past but also to the
history of the genocide in Rwanda and Burundi. We know a little about
the way in which economic 'rationalisation' to meet the requirements of
the World Bank at the end of the eighties put pressure on Rwanda,
contributing to the social rootlessness that leads to militarisation. We
are conscious of the poisonous legacy of colonial manipulation of tribal
rivalry (perhaps an issue to which Diamond gives insufficient attention,
as at least one reviewer has argued). But we are only slowly recognising
the role of population growth, environmental degradation and consequent
land shortage in fuelling the conflicts that followed. Such problems
cannot indefinitely drift on; 'sooner or later they are likely to
resolve themselves, whether in the manner of Rwanda or in some other
manner not of our choosing, if we don't succeed in solving them by our
own actions' (328).

Social collapse is a real possibility. When we speak about environmental
crisis, we are not to think only of spiralling poverty and mortality,
but about brutal and uncontainable conflict. An economics that ignores
environmental degradation invites social degradation - in plain terms,
violence. It is no news that access to water is likely to be a major
cause of serious conflict in the century just beginning. But this is
only one aspect of a steadily darkening situation. Needless to say, it
will be the poorest countries that suffer first and most dramatically,
but the 'developed' world will not be able to escape: the failure to
manage the resources we have has the same consequences wherever we are.
In the interim - just as within so much of urban society in wealthier
countries - we can imagine 'fortress' situations, struggling to keep the
growing instability and violence elsewhere at bay and so intensifying
its energy. We can imagine increasing levels of social control demanded,
with all that that means for our own internal harmony or stability. And
we are not talking about a remote future. There are arguments over the
exact rates of global warming, certainly, and we cannot easily predict
the full effects of some modifications in species balance. But we should
not imagine that uncertainty in this or that particular area seriously
modifies the overall picture. On any account, we are failing.

2.

It is relatively easy to sketch the gravity of our situation; not too
difficult either to say that governments should be doing more.
Government is crucial, and it matters a great deal that the UK
administration has declared a commitment to action on climate change.
But governments depend on electorates; electors are persons like us who
need motivating. Unless there is real popular motivation, governments
are much less likely to act or act effectively; there are always quite a
few excuses around for not taking action, and, without a genuine popular
mandate for change, we cannot be surprised or outraged if courage fails
and progress is minimal. Our own responsibility is to help change that
popular motivation and so to give courage to political leaders. And this
means challenging and changing some of the governing assumptions about
ourselves as human beings.

One of the reasons sometimes given for not being too alarmed by
predictions of ecological disaster is that we are underrating the
possibilities that will be offered by new technologies.  Thus the
American economist Nancy Stokey, responding to a very detailed
discussion by another American economist, William R. Cline, of the
impact of climate change and the measures necessary to control it,
describes Cline's picture as 'alarmist': 'he makes no allowance for
technical change in the next 300 years that will allow the world to cope
more effectively with CO2 emissions and their climatic effects' (Lomborg
2004, p.642). Apart from the assumption that we have time to spare in
this matter, what is startling is the appeal to 'technical change' in
these general terms as a messianic resource. Diamond notes at the end of
his book that technical changes introduced to solve environmental
problems have a spectacular record of generating fresh problems (he
instances the motor car and the development of CFC gases as safe
refrigerating agents; pp.505-6). If we simply do not know what
'technical change' might lie ahead and if the history of technological
'fixes' is so unpromising, it takes a great deal of blind faith to think
that we can soften the projections of danger in this way. And if this is
so, one of the areas in which we have to challenge assumptions is in
this matter of reliance on technology to solve problems that are
actually about human choices.

To appeal to a technical future is to say that our most fundamental
right as humans is unrestricted consumer choice. In order to defend
that, we must mobilise all our resources of skill and ingenuity,
diverting resource from other areas so that we can solve problems
created by our own addictive behaviours. The question is whether, even
if this were clearly possible (which is anything but clear; you can't
solve a challenge like this with the mere confidence that something will
turn up), it would be a sane or desirable way of envisaging the human
future. There would always be a case for putting the technical response
to new crises ahead of other human needs - since we should always have
to ensure we had an environment at all. But this sounds suspiciously
like a recipe for perpetuating anxiety and even injustice; we ought not,
surely, to be taking for granted that it is a future to be aimed at. It
has been said more than once that a future of tighter technical control
is also likely to be one of tighter human control. It is not as if we
could simply contemplate a libertarian paradise.

But if this is so, there is no alternative to challenging the underlying
motivation. Dasgupta, as quoted earlier, invited us to redefine wealth
itself in a way that relativises GNP and includes the idea of natural
capital; can the same kind of redefinition apply to our ideas about
individual wealth or security? What if we believed that the wealthy or
secure person was one whose relationship with the environment was one in
which actual enjoyment of and receptivity to the environment played the
most significant part? This suggests something of a paradox. In order
fully to access, enjoy and profit from our environment, we need to see
it as something that does not exist just to serve our needs. Or, to put
it another way, we are best served by our environment when we stop
thinking of it as there to serve us. When we can imagine what is
materially around us as existing in relation to something other than our
own purposes, we are free to be surprised, educated and enlarged by it.
When we obsessively seek to guarantee that the environment will always
be there for us as a storehouse of raw materials, we in fact shrink our
own humanity by shrinking what is there to surprise and enlarge, by
reducing our capacity for contemplation of what is really other to us.

All the great religious traditions, in their several ways, insist that
personal wealth is not to be seen in terms of reducing the world to what
the individual can control and manipulate for whatever exclusively human
purposes may be most pressing. Judaism's teachings about the 'jubilee'
principle stress that the land is lent not given to human cultivators:
it requires 'sabbatical' years, and its value is to be seen not in terms
of absolute possession but as a source of a limited number of harvests
between the sabbatical years (Lev.25). The assumption is that the
environment that is given, the land bestowed by God, has to be set free
regularly from our assumption that it belongs to us; it has to be left
to be itself, to be in relation simply to the God who has given it. A
year of uncultivation, wildness, is not a lot, but it speaks eloquently
of our willingness to organise economy around ecology, to 'keep house'
within the limits of a world where we are guests more than owners.
Similarly, Christianity not only has its challenges in the Sermon on the
Mount to anxiety about controlling the environment, prohibiting us from
identifying wealth with possession; it also has its sacramental
tradition which presents the material order as raw material for the
communication of God's love - the Eucharist as the effective symbol of
God's action in creating a radically different human society, not
characterised by rivalry and struggle for resources. At the centre of
Christian practice is a rite in which all are equally fed by one gift,
and in which material things are identified symbolically with the
self-offering of Christ.  Islam also underlines the partnership of
humanity and the rest of the natural order - and, in a passing
observation in the Qur'an (Sura 16.8) reminds us that some of the
purposes of the animal creation are unknown to us. And a twentieth
century Iranian scholar (Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai) quotes both Muhammad
and the fifth of the Shi'a Imams as commending farming because it is
beneficial for humans and for the animal world as well. Examples could
be multiplied from these and other faiths; but what I have quoted makes
it abundantly clear that religious faith assumes that our humanity grows
into maturity by allowing the material environment its own integrity.
While the detail of this is inescapably complex, the point is plain. The
oikos we inhabit has a logos, a meaning whose fullness is not exhausted
in what we can make of it; the nomos, the law of our behaviour in this
dwelling place, has to work with and not against the larger significance
of a world that stands first in relation to its maker, and so has to be
seen as free from our preoccupations about its usefulness to us.

The jubilee idea has had great currency recently as a focal image for
the imperative of debt remission; I believe it has just as much
importance in this context - and indeed that using it in this context
reminds us of the way in which the issues of economic justice and of
ecological justice belong together. Perhaps we need another 'jubilee'
campaign, concentrated on sabbaticals for overfished waters and
deforested uplands, recognising that the rapacity and short-term
planning that devastate these resources have their roots in the same
blindness that, three decades ago, began to press disadvantaged nations
into debt and then sought to improve their economies by the profoundly
damaging strategies of 'structural adjustment', which deplete the human
- the civil and cultural - resources of a nation.

The unique contribution that can be made to this whole discussion by
religious conviction might be characterised in two ways. Religious
belief claims, in the first place, that I am most fully myself only in
relation with my creator; what I am in virtue of this relationship
cannot be diminished or modified by any earthly power. It is this that
grounds the obstinate belief in the irreducible value of human persons
which animates any religious witness or work for the sake of justice; it
is this that enables religious resistance to even the most
overwhelmingly powerful and successful tyrannies, from the Roman Empire
to the Third Reich, the Soviet Union or apartheid South Africa. But the
implication, secondly, is that every aspect of creation likewise finds
its full value and significance in relation to the creator, not to the
agenda of any other creature. In the environment there is a dimension
that resists and escapes us: to be aware of that is to grasp the
implications of belief in human dignity, in my own dignity or value. And
to reduce the world to a storehouse of materials for limited human
purposes is thus to put in question any serious belief in an
indestructible human value. As writers like Mary Midgley have argued
eloquently, humanity needs to rejoin the rest of creation, to become
aware of the limits that interdependence imposes and of the dangerous
groundlessness of belief in human value when it is abstracted from a
sense of value in all that exists around us.

We are speaking about redefining wealth as 'wealth that builds and
sustains and takes forward the core purpose of our whole human
enterprise' (Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, Spiritual Capital, p.33). If
we have to use the language of rights here - and it is ambiguous in many
ways - we ought to be saying that human persons have a right to live in
an environment that is not only safe and healthy in the obvious sense
but also is itself, not fully determined by human projects. We could
imagine a 'charter' of rights in relation to the environment - that we
should be able to live in a world that still had wilderness spaces, that
still nurtured a balanced variety of species, that allowed us access to
unpoisoned natural foodstuffs. Over the twentieth century, there have in
fact been a good many moves in such a direction - in the UK through
clean air legislation and the maintenance of public parks and the work
of many conservation trusts. It may be that the time is ripe for an
attempt at a comprehensive statement of this, a new UN commitment - a
'Charter of Rights to Natural Capital' to which governments could sign
up and by which their own practice and that of the nations in whose
economies they invested could be measured. But we should make no
mistake: the possibility of anything like this depends on each of us.
Already consumer power has begun to make a difference to the practices
of international business in pressing for signs of environmental
responsibility; governments need strengthening in their commitments and
need electoral incentives to be involved in the sort of internationally
agreed aspirations I have sketched.

But aspirations alone are no use. We return constantly in discussions of
this subject to what sort of structures and sanctions might assist in
making effective a change in our motivations and myths. A charter may be
desirable, but needs institutional backing. Various suggestions have
been advanced; and it is worth noting that very different commentators
have come to convergent views on the sort of thing that is required. Sir
Crispin Tickell has argued in a lecture last year for a 'World
Environment Organisation' comparable to the World Trade Organisation and
capable of working in harness with it. George Monbiot has elaborated, in
his recent book, The Age of Consent. A Manifesto for a New World Order,
the model of a 'Fair Trade Organisation' that would establish both
ecological and economic standards for multinational trading. It would
act as a global licensing body, restricting trade and enterprise across
national boundaries to those companies that were ready to abide by a set
of specified criteria at every stage of their activities. 'If, for
example, a food-processing company based in Switzerland wished to import
cocoa from Cote d'Ivoire, it would need to demonstrate to the Fair Trade
Organisation that the plantations it bought from were not employing
slaves, using banned pesticides, expanding into protected tropical
forests, or failing to conform to whatever other standards the
organization set' (p.228). As he points out, there are already examples
of such regulatory regimes in operation, some voluntary (as with the
existing fair trade movement), some mandatory, such as health and safety
regulations within the jurisdiction of individual nations. Is it
impossible to think of internationally enforceable regulation of this
sort? Monbiot goes so far as to float the possibility of expanding the
remit of the International Criminal Court to deal with companies that
distort or bypass the liberties of elected governments in forcing
environmentally and socially disastrous developments on them (p.230) - a
drastic course of action, which would bring its own complications; but
the idea itself at least underlines the sense in which environmental
disaster can be as destructive as military crimes.

We are looking here at new sorts of structures. Yet through institutions
like the WTO, we already see possibilities. Whether a new regulatory
body should be a partner to the WTO or should be a comprehensive body
dealing with the large issues Monbiot outlines, a sort of combination of
WTO and a 'World Environment Organization' matters less than the
willingness to entertain and acknowledge the urgency of some intensified
international regime to monitor and discipline economic activity in the
ways we have been discussing. A manageable first step relating
particularly to carbon emissions, supported by a wide coalition of
concerned parties, is of course the 'Contraction and Convergence'
proposals initially developed by the Global Commons Institute in London.
This involves granting to each nation a notional 'entitlement to
pollute' up to an agreed level that is credibly compatible with overall
goals for managing and limiting atmospheric pollution. Those nations
which exceed this level would have to pay pro rata charges on their
excess emissions. The money thus raised would be put at the service of
low emission nations - or could presumably be ploughed back into poor
but high-emission nations - who would be, so to speak, in credit as to
their entitlements, so as to assist them in ecologically sustainable
development.

Such a model has the advantage that it seeks to intervene in what is
presently a dangerously sterile situation. At the moment, some nations
that are excessive but not wildly excessive polluters (mostly in Western
Europe) have agreed levels of reduction under the Kyoto protocols, and
are moving with reasonable expedition towards their targets; some
developed nations that are excessive polluters have simply ignored Kyoto
(the USA); some rapidly developing nations that are excessive polluters
have also ignored Kyoto because they can see it only as a barrier to
processes of economic growth already in hand (India and China). A
charging regime universally agreed would address all these situations,
allowing the first category to increase investment aid in sustainable
ways, obliging the second to contribute realistically to meeting the
global costs of its policies, and enabling the third to explore
alternatives to heavy-polluting industrial development and to consider
remedial policies.

This scheme deals with only one of the enormous complex of interlocking
environmental challenges; but it offers a model which may be
transferable of how international regimes may be constructed and
implemented. If Contraction and Convergence gained the explicit support
of the UK government, this would be a significant step towards political
plausibility for the programme, and it is well worth keeping the
proposals in the public eye with this goal in mind. Election campaigns
seldom give much space to environmental matters; but the perceived
significance of these concerns is weightier now than it has ever been,
and the UK's declared commitments on climate change provide an important
lever for bringing them into fuller focus as we move towards the
election. Just as in the realm of consumer pressure, it is up to us how
high a profile a plan such as Contraction and Convergence has in the
questions we raise for political candidates.

3.

But it is because the ecological agenda is always going to be vulnerable
to the pressure of other more apparently 'immediate' issues that it
cannot be left to electoral politics alone. Change in consumer
attitudes, leading to the gradual emergence of slightly more
eco-friendly policies on the part of major retailers, did not happen
primarily as a result of conventional political activism, but in the
wake of a persistent drip-feed of information and the identification of
simple local means of exercising consumer power. As Jared Diamond says
in an appendix to his book, the most effective action occurs when people
have worked out the point in the commercial chain where they can most
constructively bring pressure to bear: 'Consumers...need to go to the
trouble of learning which links in a business chain are most sensitive
to public influence, and also which links are in the strongest position
to influence other links' (p.557). Consumer pressure (for abundant
energy sources, for fast food, for efficient refrigeration, for rapid
travel and so on) has always been a major part of the problem in the
development of ecologically irresponsible economics; the question is now
whether it can be part of the solution.

The indications certainly are that it can. But in a context where
information overload makes us rapidly bored or disoriented or both, we
still need a steady background of awareness and small-scale committed
action, nourished by some kind of coherent vision. Ecologists have
argued regularly that some religious attitudes are part of the problem;
once again we have to ask whether religion is part of the solution.
Certainly, what has sometimes been said about the responsibility of the
Judaeo-Christian tradition for the exploitation of the earth is a
caricature, in the light of the theological resources touched on earlier
in this lecture; nor is it true that premodern or non-Western societies
innately possess a superior wisdom that delivers them from ecological
follies. But there is this amount of truth in the caricature: the
alliance of early modern Western culture in its first flush of energy-
eagerly problem-solving, expansionist, colonialist, functionally-minded
- with a certain kind of Christianity - triumphalistic, rational and
unsympathetic to the idea of a sacred world of symbolism, heavily
focused on ideas rather than acts and relations - has undoubtedly been a
factor in what is so often called the 'disenchantment' of the natural
environment. The slow rediscovery, in and out of the Christian fold, of
that dimension of the environment that is in no way defined by its
relationship with us but exists in its own relationship with God has
posed a proper and grave challenge to what is left of the early modern
rationalist/expansionist alliance.

But it is an open question whether either a simply secular philosophy or
a diffuse 'sense of the sacred' in the environment will fully do the
job. In these reflections, we have come back more than once to the
question of how we define wealth. The historic religious traditions see
it, in one way or another, as bound up in relation with an entire
environment that is understood as given 'in trust'; we are answerable in
respect of our relation with the material world, as we are answerable
for what we make of ourselves. This is more than just an awareness of
'sacred' depth in things; it is recognising that we are bound to be
involved in intervention in our environment, but that this intervention
has to be measured by something more than the meeting of our needs. Thus
religious faith steers us away from any fantasies we may have of not
'interfering' with the environment (the first planting of grain was an
interference), but it tells us that our interaction with what lies
around can never be simply functional and problem-solving. We have to
discover a way of preserving an environment whose freedom from our
anxious and exploiting need becomes a vital contribution to our own
lives and our sense of our dignity. In honouring the freedom of what
lies around us to be more than a storehouse for our gratification, we
give the respect that is due to environment as creation - and thus give
due honour to a creator whose purposes are not restricted to what we can
grasp as good for us alone (remember the important reservation in the
Qur'anic text I quoted about the unknown purposes of God in the animal
creation).

Wealth is access to the 'capital' of the world as it is, access to the
truth and reality that can be discovered when we are set free from our
narrow and self-directed concerns - a discovery that both individuals
and societies need to make. As such it is access to the depth of our own
being, to the rich capacity of the world around to generate in us joy
and amazement as well as practical sustenance, and to the final depth of
reality which is the love of God as the source of all gifts. We shall
not be able adequately to deal with our crisis of 'housekeeping' without
what I earlier called the sense of being a guest in the oikos of our
world, the sense that ought to keep together the logic of the household
and the discipline of the household, ecology and economy. Religious
commitment becomes in this context a crucial element in that renewal of
our motivation for living realistically in our material setting - the
motivation  that is vital if we are to avoid the collapse of civil
discourse, material sustainability, justice and stability which, if
Diamond is right, regularly accompanies ecological degradation. The loss
of a sustainable environment protected from unlimited exploitation is
the loss of a sustainable humanity in every sense - not only the loss of
a spiritual depth but ultimately the loss of simple material stability
as well. It is up to us as consumers and voters to do better justice to
the 'house' we have been invited to keep, the world where we are guests.

ENDS

(c) Rowan Williams 2005

Lambeth Palace press office: Tel: 0207 898 1280 / 1200
Fax: 0207 261 1765
www.archbishopofcanterbury.org

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(334) 09-March-2005 - School named in honour of archbishop - Australia

>From the Anglican Messenger, Western Australia

8/3/2005

During the Archbishop's ministry and under his leadership, the Anglican
Schools Commission (ASC) was formed in 1985 and six new low-fee
co-educational schools were established in the Perth and Bunbury
Dioceses. Today these schools accommodate 7000 students from
Kindergarten -12.

"It is most appropriate that the ASC has announced that, in recognition
of the Archbishop's pioneering role in Anglican education in this State,
it will be naming its new school at Wellard (in the Southern Region of
the Diocese of Perth) the Peter Carnley Anglican Community School. The
Peter Carnley Anglican Community School will open in 2007 and will
provide an ongoing tribute to the Archbishop's service in this vital
aspect of the Church's Mission" says Fr Laurence.

More here:

http://www.anglicanmessenger.com.au/articles.php?id

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(333) 09-March-2005 - Bishop calls for informed debate on Europe -
England

>From the Church of England

The Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Revd Christopher Herbert, who chairs the
House of Bishops' Europe Panel has written today to all senior Anglican
clergy encouraging them to contribute to a more informed debate on
Europe.

In a letter accompanying a copy of the UK Foreign Office's compact Guide
to the EU, as well as details of some other sources of information, the
Bishop of St Albans writes:

'Since the results of the EU Constitutional debate will have profound
implications, one way or another, not only for Europe's development but
also for Britain's role in Europe, it is crucial that this debate is
well informed. .... Yet, for Christians and others to contribute
effectively to this debate it is important to have a working grasp of
the issues involved. The enclosed "Guide to the EU" provides a helpful
introduction to Europe which we hope will be of interest to you and your
colleagues.'

Speaking in support of the initiative the UK Minister for Europe, Dr
Denis MacShane, said:

'I'm delighted that the Church of England has chosen to distribute the
Foreign Office Guide to the EU, and to ensure that its members are
engaging in a full and frank debate. I would encourage any other
organisation, religious or otherwise, who want copies of the EU Guide to
write to me at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.'

This initiative, which followed a meeting with the Minister for Europe,
was prompted following a debate by the Church of England of General
Synod in July 2004 which urged the Church to join in debate and action
for the future of Europe and to work to ensure that the Church can speak
with a common voice on this issue.

Further information from:
Steve Jenkins, Press Office	 tel 020 7898 1326

Anna McCrum
St Albans Diocesan Communications Officer  tel 01727 818143

Notes to Editors
- The Bishop of St Albans' letter is attached below.

- The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office's "Guide to the EU" can be
found at:
<http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowP
age&c=Page&cid=1007029393402>

- The House of Bishops' Europe Panel is a sub-committee of the House of
Bishops. The Panel acts as a point of reference for items affecting the
Church of England's relations with Europe and the European Union
institutions which arise in the House of Bishops and General Synod. The
Panel is committed both to promoting and shaping an open and transparent
Europe close to its citizens and to monitoring the EU institutions in so
far as they affect Church life and practice.

- In 1973 a motion passed by the Church of England's General Synod
affirmed "that British membership of a community which (based as it is
on a common understanding of human rights and liberties) counts among
its aims the reconciliation of European enmities, the responsible
stewardship of European resources and the enrichment of Europe's
contribution to the rest of mankind, is to be welcomed as an opportunity
for Christians to work for the achievement of these ends."

- In July 2004 the General Synod approved a report, The Church of
England and Europe. This report committed the Church "to work locally,
nationally and internationally with other churches to ensure the most
effective presentation of the Gospel, to join in debate and action for
the future of Europe, the harmony and values of its peoples, and the
building of peace and social justice on this continent and beyond".

The text of the Bishop of St Albans' letter

Dear Colleague,

REF: Guide to the EU

You will know of my involvement with the House of Bishops' Europe Panel.
In the course of this work, I have met with the Minister for Europe, Dr
Denis MacShane, and his colleagues at the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office. As a result of that meeting, I agreed to send key Church
contacts a copy of the recent Foreign and Commonwealth's Office compact
Guide to the EU. This is enclosed. Please contact the Foreign Office
directly, either in writing or via the order form at www.europe.gov.uk
<http://www.europe.gov.uk> if you would like further copies.

The subject of the European Union, and the issues around the EU
Constitutional Treaty can cause confusion and misunderstanding, and have
been the focus of intense debate. There are clearly a wide range of
views on the proposed European constitution as illustrated by the array
of competing organisations such as Britain in Europe
(<http://www.britainineurope.org.uk/>) and the Campaign for an
Independent Britain (<http://www.cibhq.co.uk>). Since the results of the
EU Constitutional debate will have profound implications, one way or
another, not only for Europe's development but also for Britain's role
in Europe, it is crucial that this debate is well informed.

The new Constitutional Treaty is a Treaty under international law. Its
purpose is to ensure that the diverse needs of the EU's 25 members will
be catered for democratically and efficiently. It contains new
provisions obliging the EU to maintain an open, transparent and regular
dialogue with churches and non-confessional organisations, as well as
other representative associations and civil society.

As was observed during the July 2004 General Synod debate on Europe, it
is important to ensure that Christian voices are heard in this debate.
Yet, for Christians and others to contribute effectively to this debate
it is important to have a working grasp of the issues involved. The
enclosed Guide to the EU provides a helpful introduction to Europe which
we hope will be of interest to you and your colleagues.

Yours sincerely,

Bishop of St Albans

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(332) 09-March-2005 - Funeral of Archbishop Agbaje - Nigeria

By Peter Onwubuariri in Ibillo

March 5, 2005 - Past and Present Bishops of the Anglican Church were
among thousands of people who attended the funeral of Archbishop Albert
Agbaje at St James Anglican Church Ibillo, Edo State.

The church was filled to the brim and every other space outside was
occupied as sympathizers came to pay the last homage for the pioneer
Archbishop of Bendel Ecclesiastical province and Bishop of
Sabongidda-Ora.

Agbaje's coffin was brought from his residence in Ibilo where it was
laid in state since Friday afternoon.

The Governor of Edo State Dr Lucky Igbinnedion, the Traditional ruler of
Esanland, His Royal Highness MA Akhimen and the Christian Association of
Nigeria Edo State Branch were among the many that sent in condolences.

The Holy Communion service was celebrated by the Most Revd Ephraim
Ademowo, Archbishop of the Ecclesiastical Province of Lagos, with other
senior clergymen leading responsorial bible sentences and prayers of the
faithful.

The homily was said by Archbishop Maxwell Anikwenwa, Dean of the Church
of Nigeria, who took his text from John 1: 47 "Jesus saw Nathaniel
coming to him, and said of him, behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is
no guile."

The preacher said "Albert was a man of himself. He told you what was on
his mind. He was in love with service... in this age of sycophancy the
clergymen have a lot to learn from Albert's life... what he won't say in
the open he can't utter in the dark." Archbishop Agbaje's tomb is at St
James Church compound (the new site), a few meters away from the altar
wall where a palm tree towers beside the grave.  The chosen hymns
included "For All The Saints", "Guide me, O thou Great Redeemer" and
"Sleep On, Beloved, Sleep and Take Thy Rest". The Primate of All
Nigeria, the Most Revd Peter Akinola pronounced the commendation at the
graveside after the first daughter of the Archbishop, Yemisi Adedeji
(Nee Agbaje poured dust into the grave.

Biography

Archbishop Agbaje was a seasoned academician. He was among the pioneers
of the University of Nigeria Nsukka where he obtained a bachelors degree
in Arts in 1966. He was ordained priest in 1973, eleven years after he
was deaconed.According to the preacher, Archbishop Anikwenwa, "Albert's
quest for knowledge and education led him to study more before being
ordained a priest.'
He got married to Mabel in 1968, a marriage blessed with many children
and grandchildren including two sons Albert (Jnr) and Ayo, who have
tolled the line of priesthood. A biography of him said "Archbishop
Albert Agbaje believed in the success of everybody. He always said that
nobody should be a failure; all that was needed was hard work and
encouragement. He did this often among his priests through preferment as
a reward for hard work." The burden to bring out the best in people led
to the establishment of Ezekiel College of Theology, the Archbishops
brainchild, which was built and donated by Sir Ezekiel Ainabe.

Tributes

"He was a very outstanding personality. Luckily he had a very good
background, a wide horizon especially in the educational sector. He
blended his experience in education with that of priesthood, later on
the episcopate and the Archbishop of Bendel ecclesiastical province. We
definitely will miss him a lot because he is such a person who was
unassuming but ready to help anybody who was in need. He made useful
suggestions even when you did not ask for it. We definitely have lost a
gem in the house of Bishops and in the church of Nigeria, ' Retired
Bishop of Lokoja George Bako eulogized.

Archbishop Samuel Abe of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ondo described
him as a very open-minded and generous man. "He didn't mince words when
he talked, he didn't hide his feelings. He was a man one would like to
meet with. I liked him personally."

Asked by newsmen what becomes of the vacant see of Sabongidda-Ora-
Archbishop Abe commented, "We will leave that meanwhile and we will
commit it to the hand of God for prayers. We just don't rush into
things, more so Archbishop Albert died on active service. The House of
Bishops has not said anything and we are not saying anything yet."

Archbishop Agbaje was born on 31 December 1937. He died on 31 January at
about 730am in the Archbishops Palace Sabongidda-Ora Edo State, Nigeria.

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