Here is an excerpt from the Presidential address today by the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, to the Church of England General Synod:

As a church, we need to learn once again to become risk-takers, people who take risks for the Gospel, who take risks for Christ, who take risks in the service of God and one another. We have to take risks, in order to make the journey. We discover courage by doing courageous, God-like actions. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son”. An act at a particular time and place. It is the sin of the world that Christ takes away. Action!

So what are we afraid of? And what are the consequences of our fearfulness? The result of fear can be dangerous, fear itself can create its own risk. Because often when we’re reacting out of fear we don’t behave with courage and determination and grace, we become defensive, we behave badly.

And this Bad Behaviour doesn’t only afflict us as individuals but at every level, as churches, as nations. The language of fear has become the language of international relations; worldwide, a new book on terrorism is published every 6 hours!

Fear has begun to shape the minds and the decisions of those who take counsel for the nations. As Jim Wallis has noted, “The politics of fear can have disastrous results in both foreign and domestic policy. To name the face of evil in the brutality of terrorist attacks is good theology, but to say simply that they are evil and we are good is bad theology that can lead to dangerous politics. The threat of terrorism does not overturn Christian ethics.” It’s mercy, loving-kindness, deeds of mutual charity, reciprocal solidarity, walking in God’s ways of love and justice.

And our fear of terrorism can lead us to false conclusions about our Muslim neighbours.

The challenge we face isn’t about moderate Muslims versus so-called radicalised Muslims; the challenge is about Islam being used for quasi-political ends at whose heart is getting into paradise now by suicide bombing propelled by a hatred of the West and its way of life. Attempting to avenge past hurts by piling them on present problems.

Therefore the question is in fact about our discernment between those Muslims who, being loyal to the holy Qur’an, are dedicated to a vision of Allah who is merciful, holy and kind – in contrast to those who tendentiously make Allah vengeful, violent and merciless ”“ promising paradise now through acts of brutality and mass murder. In remaking God in their own image, they commit the ultimate act of blasphemy.

In the same way we Christians must beware of taking the holiness of God to imply that his wrath and judgement are out to destroy sinners instead of redeeming them, loving them and forgiving them. For those who follow the man of Galilee who was crucified, self-righteousness must die at his Cross. It’s from the Cross that the light of God shines forth upon the world in its fullest splendour. And as David Bosch has said (in Transforming Mission) “The Church is an inseparable union of the divine and the dusty.”

We are still human and the chorus to the song ”˜Anthem’ by the Canadian writer, Leonard Cohen reminds us that there can be a point to our lack of perfection:

“Ring the bells
That still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”

We must resist the temptation to abandon Christian principles of justice to those who suggest that fear is a better teacher than Christ Himself. For us, the opposite of fear isn’t courage, but the gift of wisdom, knowledge, discernment and insight from the Holy Spirit.

Sin harms the individual believer. Heresy (the wrong understanding of God) harms the Church. Idolatry destroys both the believer and the Church and is the cause of both sin and heresy. Our mission, like that of Jesus, is to confront idolatry.

So, what are we afraid of? Are we afraid of the loss of identity? Of a diminished sense of who we are and what it means to be us? You might think so, given the amount of time our society at present devotes, in its public conversation, to the question of what it means to be British.

And as a church, are we afraid of the future? Are we afraid of change? Are we privately content with the comfortable certainties of decline?

Or are we afraid of the public square? Of the public conversation about faith and society, difference and identity? In a space which we once confidently thought belonged to us as of right, how do we preach the words of life afresh in our communities of diverse ethnicities, cultures and peoples of other faiths present; and in a generation that is sceptical, cynical, fearful?

The full text is here (Church of England website)

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Update: The audio of this speech is here:

I know Kendall already posted the link to this speech in his post on the passage of the Covenant resolution (2 entries below), but now having read Bp. Michael Nazir-Ali’s speech, I wanted to post it in full to ensure wide readership. The text is from Anglican Mainstream:

Bishop Michael Nazir Ali’s (Rochester) speech to synod on the Anglican Covenant.

I speak as the Chair of the House of Bishops Theological Group which has the task of preparing the response to the Draft Covenant sent out by the Primates.

I shall vote for this motion when the time comes. It seems to have some rules for living together and if a Covenant is to embody them, then so be it, even if the nature and extent of it have still to be determined. But a Covenant “imposed from above” will not answer every question we have about our Church and Communion.

The Church becomes ”˜church’ by the working out of the Faith ”˜once and for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3). Our common mindedness has to do with having the mind of Christ (Phil 2:5) and the Spirit, leading us into all truth, continually reminds us of the words and things of Jesus and glorifies him (John 15.26, 16: 12-15). The ministry of truth and unity is grounded squarely on the word of God (”˜Consecrate them in the truth, your word is truth’ John 17.17) said Jesus and such a ministry makes sure that the Apostolic Teaching is passed on from person to person, community to community and down the ages.

The self-organising power of the Gospel produces a truly evangelical church. Those who are called to preaching and teaching have the positive task of bringing the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27) to their people. But they also have a negative task which is to maintain the Church in its indefectibility, so that the gates of hell do not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). They must make sure that the Church does not lose the core of the Gospel.

We have to ask, whether this ”˜self-organising power of the Gospel’ has ever been allowed full expression in the Anglican tradition. Philip Turner and Ephraim Radner, two American theologians, have said that Anglicans have always been compromised by ”˜unsanctified council’. Their Erastian tendencies have allowed the State and the culture to constrain the freedom of the Gospel in forming the Church. The tendency to capitulate to culture has been exported to other parts of the world. Both here and elsewhere the idea of the national Church has obscured the primacy of the local and the universal. But the logic of catholicity has also been retained and the question is now whether it will be allowed full expression in its own integrity.

Will the instruments of Communion be effective and united in their gathering and working? Will decisions made by the Primates be upheld or repudiated immediately afterwards? If the Lambeth Conference is not a council or synod of Bishops, what is it and why should anyone come to it? What kind of authority does it have? We are looking here not so much for juridical or legislative authority but for spiritual, doctrinal and moral. We should want our leaders to lead and for spiritual leaders to lead spiritually.

It may be that Anglicanism is not a confessional body but it certainly should be a confessing one: upholding, proclaiming and living the Apostolic Faith. Its weaknesses need to be recognised and it should be strengthened in its vocation. We are looking then for a covenant which will express the Apostolic Faith, enable us to come a common mind which is that of Christ, and free us to proclaim the good news of salvation to the world. The Covenant may be the first step in recovering our integrity, but it cannot be the last word.

The Bishop of Rochester’s Speech is here.

Update: Simon Sarmiento has the text of the carried motion:

‘That this Synod:

(a) affirm its willingness to engage positively with the unanimous recommendation of the Primates in February 2007 for a process designed to produce a covenant for the Anglican Communion;

(b) note that such a process will only be concluded when any definitive text has been duly considered through the synodical processes of the provinces of the Communion; and

(c) invite the Presidents, having consulted the House of Bishops and the Archbishops’ Council, to agree the terms of a considered response to the draft from the Covenant Design Group for submission to the Anglican Communion Office by the end of the year.’

From this morning’s perusal of Anglican Mainstream, we find this.

“Marriage is to do with the church’s relationship to her redeemer. What could be more core doctrine than that?” Nazir Ali

At the fourth Chavasse Lecture at Wycliffe Hall on July 4, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester responded to a question about the recent motion at the Canadian General Synod.

Q. Can you comment on the motion that the Canadian General Synod has passed asserting that blessing of same-sex relationships is not a matter of core doctrine?

A. First, the Book of Genesis affirms that humanity is made in God’s image, male and female together, and is given a common mission which they fulfil in distinctive ways. As Karl Barth said, this makes marriage and the family the most visible sign of that image.

Secondly this is clarified further in the teaching of Jesus. Mark 10 1-9 (“The two will become one flesh”) is set as the gospel for the wedding service, and when I preached at wedding services in Pakistan many Muslim women used to come to enquire further about it as they had never heard about this way in which the relationship between men and women is ordered.

Thirdly, Ephesians 5.32 (“This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church”) is the only place where the word ”˜sacrament’ which is the translation of the Greek word ”˜mysterion’, is used in the New Testament. It affirms that marriage is a sacrament of Christ and the church. Fundamentally this is to do with the Church’s relationship to her redeemer. What could be more core doctrine than that?

AFTER WEEKS of speculation Prime Minister Gordon Brown this afternoon unveiled a range of constitutional changes that will see a change to the way that bishops in the Church of England are appointed.

Speaking in the House of Commons, the new Prime Minister announced a raft of changes, in a manner reminiscent of the radical changes announced in 1997 the day after Labour came to power.

At that time the most significant change was giving power over interest rate changes to the Bank of England. But today’s proposals go much further….

Read it all.

Fire also is a reality check. It uncovers the extent of the progress we have made towards loving and helping our neighbour or it displays the lack of trust among people who live cheek by jowl.

It is deeper than that of course. Why does an all loving God permit such destructive events like the Great Fire to happen, if we really cannot stomach the idea that He dooms the relatively innocent to illustrate a point about the over indulgent. It seems that God is either not loving or falls short of being all powerful.

Here the role of fire in visions of the end-time can help us. Such was the chaos of the obstinately metaphysical 17th century that sensible people recoiled from speculation about the end time. Enthusiasm in religion became suspect. At the end of the 17th century Archbishop Tillotson who had been a City Rector said “Stirring up men’s passions is like the muddying of the waters you see nothing clearly afterwards.” He had a point but the anaesthetising of the Christian community was only too successful. Christians became largely satisfied with the way things were. They gave up looking for a denouement, for what the New Testament calls ”“ The Kingdom.

Ultimately this raised questions about what the Church was for and whether God himself was just a piece of antique cultural baggage. I was in conversation last night with a group of spiritual searchers called Moot, serious and imaginative young people who find the church stale and oppressive. One of them said very reasonably, has the Anglican Church got a vision?

This is the beginnings of the answer which is being given by many Christians in London today. One of the Biblical truths which has been brought to light by the scientific discoveries of the past century is that we live in an unfinished universe. The universe is full of pain and travail as Paul says in his letter to the Romans. It groans in all its parts. It is sufficiently distinct from God both to have the potential of being suffused with love for the Creator but also the potential for disaster, for the fire which destroys but also reveals. We cannot see the future of the human race and the climax of the creation of which we are a part. They are out of our sight with God at the Omega point to which we are travelling.

What we know however as people of faith as we look back over the story so far is that there is disaster but also rescue. There is tragedy but always promise and hope. God as we see him in Jesus Christ, the human face of God, is not a nanny who keeps a tight grip on us lest anything untoward happen. He gives us freedom and has himself accepted the suffering that such freedom entails. God was in Christ full of promise loving the world into loving.

The Christian community is composed of those who have consciously made themselves a part of this story. They are building on the vision of human life that we are given in the life death and resurrection of Jesus. They are called to become his body on earth. They know that happiness and fulfilment does not come by having but by loving. They know that human life flowers not when it looks after number one but when it takes risks for the sake of my neighbour. They know with the ancient writers that we fall alone but we are saved together.

—The Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres, Bishop of London

From Religious Intelligence:

Under legislation expected to receive Parliamentary approval and Royal assent this summer, a national body will be given sweeping powers to recommend the closure or reorganisation of dioceses and the scrapping of suffragan or assistant bishop posts.

The legislation was initially drawn up three years ago, partly in response to criticism that the Church was becoming increasingly top-heavy, stifling grass-roots growth.

With many parts of the Church shedding staff — and the numbers of stipendiary clergy shrinking at a rate of about 100 a year — critics have long complained that dioceses and episcopal posts appear almost immune from such cuts.

This is primarily because the only people who can permit them are the bishops themselves — the ecclesiastical equivalent of turkeys voting for Christmas.

The newly-constituted Dioceses Commission will, however, be able to initiate reforms, though the final decision will be left in the hands of the General Synod.

Read it all.

Our proposals for a new province were designed to permit all in the Church of England to flourish, and represent the only solution thus far suggested which would enable women bishops to exercise their ministry without hindrance in their own dioceses, thus fulfilling the aspiration lying behind Canon Jane Sinclair’s amendment to the motion passed by General Synod on 10 July, 2006. The proposals were, of course, set out in forensic detail in 2004 in Part Two of Consecrated Women?; we would respectfully submit to the Legislative Drafting Group that, two and a half years on, they would repay careful re-reading.

In particular, we would ask the Group to note the following key features of the solution which we proposed:

Ӣ a province which would be an integral part of the Church of England
Ӣ a province which would provide a stable and secure solution to the problem
Ӣ a province the bishops of which would have ordinary jurisdiction
Ӣ a province the boundaries of which would be entirely permeable
Ӣ a province in which only male priests and bishops would minister sacramentally
Ӣ a province in which orders would derive from the historic episcopate as traditionally understood
Ӣ a province which would thus provide the necessary sacramental assurance
Ӣ a province which would enable renewal in mission and evangelism
Ӣ a province which would bring peace to the Church of England

Read the whole proposal.

The Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, Anglican Bishop of Reading, is stopping commuters in their tracks today to hand out egg timers at his local mainline train station with this challenge: take three minutes of silence a day to transform your life.

Bishop Stephen is urging the country to discover what happens when we simply stop and rest, in a passionate plea for the nation to ditch endless ‘to do’ lists, constant streams of emails, and an increasingly ’24/7′ culture.

Instead, by binning instant tea and coffee in favour of traditional methods that create time for reflection during their preparation, appointing a ‘happy hour’ when all televisions and radios in the house are switched off, baking bread, or simply enjoying a lengthy lie-in, the bishop’s book encourages readers to appreciate the need to create pauses in daily life – for our own, and society’s, health and wellbeing.

Read it all.

Church of England bishops have drawn up plans for a “rule book” of beliefs that would expel liberals who refuse to abide by it.

The proposals to introduce Papal-style laws come despite warnings that they could lead to a split in the Church.

The confidential document from the House of Bishops, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, claims that a “narrower definition of Anglican belief” is crucial to prevent the Anglican Communion from becoming embroiled in future disputes over issues such as homosexual clergy.

The paper reveals the determination at the highest levels of the Church to impose powers to quash dissenters, backing a covenant – or set of rules – that would block Anglican clergy from pursuing liberal and potentially divisive policies.

There is no official policy that governs the clergy’s behaviour, but instead each of the world’s 38 Anglican provinces is autonomous.

Read it alll.

There is a burgeoning literature of Muslim views of Jesus. Nazir-Ali discussed the view of Jesus as presented by Rageeh Omar in his TV Series The Miracles of Jesus. Omar believed that Jesus’ miracles were presented as a sign of his divine authority and of God’s victory over evil. Omar claimed however that the Quran does not emphasize the miracles of Jesus because this could lead to him being seen as divine. Nazir-Ali asserted contrary to Omar that the Quran does affirm that Jesus’ miracles occurred by God’s leave. For the Quran Jesus is a prophet, apostle, the Word and spirit of God, and even mentions his death in 19.33 and 3.55. He hoped that Omar can address in a future series what he has learnt from Christian tradition about Jesus and what his Muslim background has taught him. To understand Jesus and his movement, we have to look at the Jewish people for information and inspiration. To the Jewish community Nazir-Ali asked how far the Jews can within the integrity of their own faith see the marks of the coming messianic age in the figure of Jesus. Hindus and Hinduism itself has been changed in surprising and important ways by the encounter with Jesus. The criticism of caste, the emancipation and education of women and the tendency to ethical monotheism took place under explicitly acknowledged Christian influence. But the key question in Hinduism has to do with the uniqueness of Jesus as the Word made flesh whose death enabled human beings to have open intimacy with the God who is the source of their being. Jesus presented himself as divine wisdom in the search of the excluded, disreputable and the lost. The female form of wisdom affects our understanding of women as in God’s image sharing in a common mission with men but distinctively. Redemption in Christ does away with false distinctions, oppression and subordination which result from the Fall and human sinfulness but not with a similarity in difference which is an aspect of God’s will for humanity.

Read it all.