Transcendent grace enables us to hold both to the necessary project of pursuing God’s justice in the face of any and all injustice even as it simultaneously enables us to participate in the immediate and desparately urgent pastoral work of healing and of reconciling.
And so my sisters and brothers what is it that we are to do? Are we to continue to draw our lines in the shifting sands of ecclesial aggression and blaming, of accusing and judging? Or are we to shift our emphasis to embrace simultaneously and in sufficient measure, grace filled mutual affection and uplift of one another, together with boldly reconciling behaviour? Can we exemplify the very best of God’s grace even as we continue to name decisively and to act boldly and courageously against all of those things, which we know to be unacceptable in God’s sight? Can we stand more confidently together as members of the family of Christ, on the common ground of God’s world, on the basis of a newly apprehended indigenous model of unconditionally inclusive relationality?
Can we do all of this as people connected as adversaries and as friends, across the villages, towns, cities and nations into which we are blessed to be born ”“ a people who know and are known by the ancestors; who know the rivers and lakes and mountains which shelter and nurture us all; a people committed to the full participation and flourishing of all in God’s world; a people unafraid of simplicity or of suffering, a people instinctively attuned to heartfelt wisdom, to forgiveness, to unconditional belonging, to God’s grace and peace with and for us all? I am confident that we will, we can and we must . . . in Christ’s name. Amen.
A good screed for eliminating clerical orders completely. If they get in the way, then get rid of them. What JTP seems forget though is that the criteria for accession into such orders is scripturally based. But if the cost of keeping up the old church clergy orders is just too much, then we ought to base a new church on the norms of North Island Maori family traditions and accountability.
No surprises here, are there? I-N-C-L-U-S-I-V-I-T-Y ! (Sung to the familiar tune M-I-C …) at all costs, even, perhaps especially, at cost to the Gospel. The authoress elides the indigenous peoples warfares and bitter inter-tribal feuds. One would think from her address that the Gospel message added little to her people. I do not think that a position she can really hold effectively, especially in view of her condemation of other tribal policies she finds less-than-congenial. Exegesis of Paul may have been of benefit. Inclusivity is not a virtue that can stand solitarily.
Man this really sounds good. I think it could replace Dr. Wayne Dyer’s “Wisdom of The Tao Te Ching” or “The Power of Intention” on PBS pledge week.
Such dreadful writing is a symptom of those who have given up thinking.
The result in this case is a shallow sentimentality, and she has managed to mix this with the notion of the Nobel Savage. This is as empty as it is effusive; that is, it contains no genuine thought and uses bathos to take its place. This is the sort of emotionality, typically female, that reminds me why I do not want women as priests. LM
In a tribe the bond is blood or other close relationship. The problem in the Anglican Communion is that is that the left and right cannot agree why they are (or should be) in relationship. While Dr. Te Paa offers many fine sentiments, are they not equally compelling for Roatary, Kiwanis, etc.? What is there that bonds us together if not the Biblically-derived faith in a God-incarnate, Jesus Christ. I believe she overlooks the fundamental point of why we are together in the first place.
“I could so easily have used good and possibly even impressive theological discourse to justify my employment of Paul’s words but instead I have chosen with humility to simply open my heart to you all and to share with you deeply and passionately what it is that I believe we might each find reason to ponder afresh….”
Such humility indeed from one who, on her own admission, has been restlessly jetting around the world from one confab to another, thereby pressing her carbon footprint ever more deeply into the biosphere (but sometimes, I guess, you have to destroy the global village in order to save it …).
The myth of The Noble Savage does come fairly close to describing her ramblings. You might never guess that pre-European Maoris (before c. 1815) – like most Polynesian societies, though Maoris were cut off from others – were patriarchal, hierarchical and commonly involved in warfare against other tribes, slaving and cannibalism. They were a pre-literate, stone age people who worshiped a local version of the Polynesian pantheon. It is no surprise that the changes brought in by British colonialism (of which Anglicanism was such a significant part) would be painful and difficult, though very many Maoris sincerely embraced the Gospel. The absurdity – nay, the blasphemy – of recent years has been to see Te Paa’s college reintroduce the worship of Maori gods in the name of ‘inclusivity’. Left-liberals like Te Paa fetishize a romantic and false view of the past, to a degree that earlier generations of Maoris would have found appalling.
I understand that orthodox believers in New Zealand have no confidence in her seminary and the tripe it peddles and are planning to establish an alternative.