wfn.org | ACNS3683 Archbishop of Cape Town responds to Nigerian Bishops'

["Anglican Communion News Service" <acnslist@anglicancommunion.org>]

ACNS 3683     |     SOUTHERN AFRICA	|     23 NOVEMBER 2003 

Archbishop of Cape Town responds to Nigerian Bishops' statement

The Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane, has issued a
statement responding to the reported severing of ties with the Episcopal
Church in the USA by the Anglican Church in Nigeria. The full text of
the statement follows:

[ACNS source: Church of the Province of Southern Africa] "If these
reports are accurate, my prayer is that the Nigerian bishops will come
to reconsider their action and await the outcome of the commission
established by the worldwide Communion.

Christians don't just believe in life after death, we also believe in
life before death. Jesus builds his kingdom day by day, in us, and
through us to his world.

Jesus came to bring us life in all its fullness, and calls us to share
in that life now, and to share it with one another and with all around
us. Christians are theologically bound together and ours is a ministry
of reconciliation.

This is what it means to be the Church, 'members of the household of
God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ
Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined
together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are also
built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God' (Eph 2:20-21).

Everyone who is a child of God is a 'member of his household' and, just
like human families, in the Church we often find ourselves alongside
people with whom it is all too easy to disagree. But God says 'they are
your brother and sister in Christ!'.

Sometimes, of course, we mistakenly think we can choose our family and
we talk of schism. When any human family falls apart, it causes
heartbreak, and when brothers and sisters in Christ try to go their
separate ways, it grieves the heart of the Lord.

But God is the God of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:19) and in reality there
is only one Church, only one body of Christ. The Church is not a club of
the like-minded, a group of those who are happy to agree. We belong
together whether we like it or not, and ultimately we cannot get away
from one another.

We should not be daunted or downhearted by this. For it is God's good
will and pleasure that his Church should be this way. One of the main
characteristics of our worldwide Anglican Communion down the centuries
has been an element of creative diversity. We have lived with and
disagreed on different issues at different times. These have ranged from
slavery, to economic sanctions, the ordination of women priests and
women bishops and, more recently, the gay issue. We have achieved this
by modelling that diversity on the Trinitarian nature of God.

The Church, like all of creation, reflects the life of the Godhead, rich
and abundant in its unity and diversity. Three in one and one in three -
God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Inextricably
together, yet each distinctive in who they are and in how they operate.

Each of us is a member of the body of Christ, each with our own role to
play. We are enriched and empowered by our common life and impoverished
and weakened when we are divided. When we are tempted to think life
would be easier if we went our separate ways, we must remind ourselves
that Christ died for each one of us and the Holy Spirit wants to give
something through each one for the sake of all the others - 'to each one
is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good' (2 Cor
12:7).

This Gospel imperative urges us to hold together as we work through
disagreements. We must face the challenge to develop an ethic of
together-in-difference. This is a particular challenge to the Anglican
Communion worldwide at present.

Yet Anglicanism has great strengths and experience to draw on in facing
this challenge. We have never been a denomination based around a single
statement of faith or set of rules. Rather, we are held together through
a shared past of deep historic roots, and through the maintenance and
development of these relationships as the Anglican Communion has spread
through the world into its many and still changing cultures.

That is what Communion is all about. Relationship, not rules. We are a
federation, a family, of 38 ecclesiastical provinces, bound together by
bonds of affection and mutual commitment. We know that unity, especially
unity in diversity, is often hard to maintain but Jesus would not have
prayed for unity as he did at the Last Supper if it were easy."

The Statement from the Bishops of the Anglican Church of Nigeria can be
found at:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/36/75/acns3679.html

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