wfn.org | Episcopalians: Forum to name options for engaging God's global mission of reconciliation

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

July 15, 2003

2003-159

Episcopalians: Forum to name options for engaging God's global 
mission of reconciliation

by Joe Bjordal

(ENS) Global dialogue will return to an historic space during 
General Convention 2003 as Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold hosts 
"The Presiding Bishop's Forum on Global Reconciliation" at St. 
Mark's Cathedral in Minneapolis on Thursday, July 31, from 7:00 
to 9:00 p.m.

The purpose of the forum, according to Griswold, is to "lift the 
vision and perspective of the General Convention and the wider 
Episcopal Church beyond ourselves and our limited experiences 
and concerns within the United States." The forum will also 
offer practical "options, avenues and incarnational witnesses" 
for alleviating global suffering.

"I see the Forum on Global Reconciliation as an offering to the 
convention--giving us a deeper sense of both the challenges we 
face as global citizens and the enormous potential there is for 
us to make a positive contribution to the healing of our world 
as members of the Anglican Communion," said Griswold.

Meeting in a sacred space

The Global Reconciliation Forum will take place in the same 
locale where the first World Anglican Congress to be held 
outside Great Britain took place in 1954. "It is a sacred and 
historic place that played a pivotal role in raising global 
awareness in the Anglican Communion," said the Rev. Ian T. 
Douglas, professor of world mission and global Christianity at 
the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is 
a member of the team assisting Griswold in planning the forum.

Douglas wrote about the significance of the 1954 Congress in his 
book, Fling Out the Banner: The National Church and the Foreign 
Mission of the Episcopal Church. What resulted from the 
Minneapolis Congress, according to Douglas, was nothing short of 
a "new understanding of the commonality" of the Anglican 
Communion.

"I was convinced that such an event as this Global 
Reconciliation Forum, held during a General Convention in 
Minneapolis, simply had to take place in the very room where 
global dialogue in the Anglican Communion received such a 
boost," said Douglas. "I am delighted that the Diocese of 
Minnesota has decided to play host to history again. There will 
again be a theme of global commonality in St. Mark's on July 31 
as we attempt to look beyond ourselves and our country in 
understanding the realities of the wider world."

Reconciliation activists on the global stage

The two primary presenters at the forum are internationally 
acclaimed for their leadership in combating global suffering, 
especially that resulting from the HIV/AIDS pandemic and 
escalating debt in Third World countries.

Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of the Province of Southern 
Africa, successor to former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is the 
foremost Anglican leader working to confront these issues. In 
2001, Ndungane was asked by the primates of the Anglican 
Communion to develop a consensus report on the nature and scope 
of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. The purpose of 
the presentation was to report on progress made and persuade the 
Anglican leadership of the critical situation caused by the 
pandemic in Africa, to eliminate stigma and to call for the 
creation of a global Anglican response to HIV/AIDS.

The reaction to the HIV/AIDS ministries strategic planning 
process and the results it produced were striking, according to 
the Anglican Communion Office in London. In April 2002, Ndungane 
not only received praise and support from the primates of the 
Anglican Communion for his report but was also re-commissioned 
to continue leading the worldwide Communion in tackling the AIDS 
pandemic.

Ndungane has also declared the international debt crisis a 
"human rights emergency--a matter of life and death," in remarks 
made to the 2001 Primates Meeting in the United States. "Vast 
sums of money are pouring out of impoverished African countries 
into the coffers of those in the so-called first world,'" said 
Ndungane. "The direct result is that governments of impoverished 
countries have wholly inadequate funds to address basic human 
needs for food, clean water, health and education. Wealth is not 
trickling down from the rich to the poor, as people like to 
think. In order for us to effectively deal with the challenges 
of globalization, we need to work towards a world in which human 
values take precedence over material ones."

Also featured in the forum is Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, director of the 
Earth Institute and Quetelet Professor of Sustainable 
Development at Columbia University in New York. He is a special 
advisor to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on a 
group of poverty-alleviation initiatives called the "Millennium 
Development Goals." He also serves as an economic advisor to 
governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet 
Union, Asia and Africa. He became internationally known in the 
1980s for advising these governments on economic reforms. 

At a symposium at Episcopal Divinity School last year, Sachs 
estimated that one penny of every 10 dollars earned in the 
world's wealthiest nations would save 25,000 lives every day. 
"We can do this," he said. "We can do this for health, we can do 
this for education, we can do this for hunger, we can do this 
for access to clean water and sanitation--if the rich and the 
poor of the world will be partners."

Emerging leaders

The Global Reconciliation Forum will also introduce three 
emerging young leaders who have dedicated their lives to global 
reconciliation. "They are three young people who embody the can 
do' spirit of a new generation of church leaders," said 
Griswold. "They represent those many incarnational witnesses who 
can truly help us engage God's mission globally."

Presenting responses to the forum's major presentations will be:

--The Rev. Sabina Alkire, an Episcopal priest and 
Oxford-educated economist, former coordinator of the Culture and 
Poverty Learning Research Program for the World Bank and 
currently a researcher for the United Nations Commission on 
Human Security;

--Ranjit Matthews, current intern in the Office of the Anglican 
Observer at the United Nations and former assistant to the 
HIV/AIDS Office of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa, where 
he was an organizer for HIV/AIDS youth activism in Cape Town; 
and

--Abagail Nelson, current director of Latin American Programs at 
Episcopal Relief and Development, who formerly worked with the 
government of Ecuador on its coastal management program.

The forum will be streamed live to the Internet through the 
General Convention Website at www.episcopalchurch.org/gc2003.  
Complete webcast details will be announced during General 
Convention.

Because of limited seating in St. Mark's Cathedral, tickets will 
be required for admission. The free tickets will be available at 
General Convention at the Information Booth and the Diocese of 
Minnesota Exhibit. Shuttle buses will begin departing the 
Convention Center at 6:15 p.m. but the cathedral is also within 
walking distance of the Convention Center.

A reception will follow the event where forum guests can meet 
the presenters. A Service of Compline, presented each night of 
convention at 10:00 p.m. by the General Convention Young Adult 
Program, will have a theme of global reconciliation.

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--Joe Bjordal, manager of e-communications and special projects 
for the Diocese of Minnesota, is also a member of the planning 
team for the Presiding Bishop's Forum on Global Reconciliation.