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ACNS 1877 · 15 September 1999 · Dundee [ACC-11/12]

SCOTTISH PRIMUS CHALLENGES THE CHURCH
"The Church has the impossible task of being an organisation, with an
unavoidable power structure, that exists to preserve the memory of one whose
mission was to oppose the processes and sacrifices of power, because they
are almost always exercised at the cost of the individual," the Most Rev
Richard Holloway, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, said. Bishop
Holloway was preaching in St. Andrew's Cathedral Aberdeen, at the Opening
Service for the 11th Meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council.
Bishop Holloway delivered a challenge to both literalist biblical
interpretation and the institutional church. He stressed that "if we want to
understand the bible properly, we have to read it in its own literary
convention." In other words, Scripture can not be taken literally and/or
divorced from the context in which it was written. Rather the truth of the
Gospel can only be known through the life and interpretation of the ongoing
body of Christ. Bishop Holloway thus affirmed that "it has been through the
Church that the meaning and message of Jesus has been shared with the
world."
Bishop Holloway, however, was not sanguine about the role of the Church in
demonstrating the meaning and message of Jesus. He continued that "there is
something about Jesus and organised institutions that do not marry well."
The Bishop said that the truth that inspires the Church "cannot be perfectly
routinised or institutionalised, so the very process that gives
(institutions) continuing life also begins to kill them." Critiquing
clericalism, he emphasised "that the people who are brought in to supervise
the routine are usually more interested in the process than in the purpose
or vision. People like us who get ordained become fascinated with the
process. We get into church and its structures rather than what it is meant
to serve."
What the Church is meant to serve, according to Bishop Holloway, were the
individuals for whom Jesus lived and died, "those who had been beaten up by
the world's power systems, those outside the great institutional
enclosures". "He always went after the lost . . . the broken ones, the
excluded ones, the lost sheep," "We are supposed to express that same
unconditionality and acceptance of all; while knowing that the system we
have invented to do the job is not up to it, because it is run by us and not
by Jesus." Bishop Holloway maintained, however, that "the truth of God's
unconditional love does get through the Church, in spite of its own
compromising timidity." So, he concluded, Jesus, "will be encountered in our
meetings as the Anglican Consultative Council this week, as we struggle to
be faithful to the mind of Christ, knowing full well that we all encounter
it in different ways. He will be mysteriously present as we struggle in our
weakness and fallibility to respond to the challenge of his burning love."
The packed congregation echoed his words when they sang "Love that binds us
all together be upon the Church outpoured; shame our pride and quell our
factions, smite them with your Spirit's sword; till the world, our love
beholding, claims your power and calls you Lord."
The impressive service with its solemn pageantry was held in historic
Aberdeen, which has its own place in Anglican history. It was where Samuel
Seabury was consecrated bishop in 1794 for the emerging Episcopal Church in
the United States, marking the advent of the modern worldwide Anglican
Communion.
Representatives of the University, churches and schools, together with the
Lord Provost of Aberdeen and political and City Councillors joined the
Episcopal Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney in greeting the members of the
Anglican Consultative Council, who represent the provinces of the worldwide
Anglican Communion. The procession was led through the streets of Aberdeen
into the Cathedral by the Loretto School Pipers and during the service ACC
members were welcomed in Gaelic, Old Scots and English languages.
After the Eucharist, at which the Archbishop of Canterbury was the
celebrant, ACC members enjoyed the splendid hospitality of the Lord Provost
Margaret Smith at a reception and dinner in the Town Hall. She was warmly
thanked on their behalf by Archbishop Carey and Bishop Simon Chiwanga, the
Chairman of the ACC.
Communications Team
ACC-11
Ian Douglas, Margaret Rodgers, Jim Rosenthal and Manasseh Zindo