No church, said Bishop Nazir-Ali, can have any other basis of authority than scripture. “The Bible is the norm by which we appreciate what is authentically apostolic. That is the reason for the Bible being the ultimate and final authority for us in our faith and our lives and this is the reason why Anglicans have taken our study of the Bible so seriously.”
Authentic Anglicanism is also a confessing church, said bishop Nazir-Ali. From the very beginning, being Anglican has meant confessing the faith that Christians have held always, everywhere and by all. “We have to be clear that we are a confessing church. Some people have the mistaken idea that Anglicans can believe anything, or that Anglicans can believe nothing. I don’t know which one is more serious,” said Bishop Nazir-Ali.
In a news conference that followed his lecture, Bishop Nazir-Ali, who has been a student of Islam for 30 years, clarified his comment related to the Christian’s right to witness to all, including to Muslims. “Just as Muslims have a right to invite others to join Islam [referred to as Da’wa], Christians have a right to invite others to Jesus,” he said. He added that he supported Christians serving Muslims in such practical ways as in schools and hospitals.
Church councils with the authority to teach and to make decisions are necessary for authentic Anglicanism. “We need to be a conciliar church. In the last few years I have been frustrated by decision after decision after decision that has not stuck. We cannot have this for a healthy church,” said Bishop Nazir-Ali.
This is gratifying to hear someone else say that the church needs a central council for making clear decisions. I remember saying this a dozen times, but I didn’t know anyone else thought so too. Is this what must come from GAFCON? It is one vit al thing, in my judgment.
Larry
Michael Nazir-Ali, in his very interesting address, focused on the concept of inculturation. On this issue, see the [url=http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/news/2004/20040528lambeth.cfm?doc=66]Fulcrum Submission to the Lambeth Commission[/url].
In the appendix to that submission, we quoted Philip Jenkins on the Global South and North and church expectations. Jenkins wrote in his article, ‘After the Next Christendom’, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol 28, No 1, Jan 2004, pp. 20-22:
[blockquote]I would make a caveat about what we might call the usefulness of the rising churches of the global South and their relevance to the ecclesiastical debates in the North. As I tried to argue repeatedly in the book [The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford: OUP, 2002)], the Southern churches will define themselves according to their own needs and interests. In understanding recent rhetorical uses of the Solid South – for instance, within the Anglican Communion – I describe what I call the “two dreams” that have dominated Western Christian approaches over the past half century or so. One is the Liberation Dream, the idea that the new Third World Christianity would deploy the radical texts of the biblical tradition in the service of insurgent liberation theology. The other is the Conservative Dream, the more modern idea that the conservative churches of the South would cling to fundamentalist readings of the Bible and help restrain liberal trends in the North, especially in matters of gender and sexual orientation. My argument is that both expectations, liberal and conservative, are substantially wrong. Each in its different ways expects the Southern churches to reproduce Western obsessions and approaches, rather than evolving their own distinctive solutions to their own particular problems.[/blockquote]
Wise words worth pondering…
You know, if the lights went out at Lambeth for a few minutes, with some quick shuffling and muffled protests following, and then came back on with +Nazir-Ali sitting there with the ABC’s mitre on, I wouldn’t mind one little bit.
Graham Kings (#2),
I welcome the way you have called attention to the cautionary remarks of the judicious and ever-informative Philip Jenkins. I appreciate the prolific Jenkins’ many fine books and articles. And I’d agree with you that the particular remark you’ve highlighted is worth pondering. And for that matter, so is his warning that while many leaders in the Global South are very conservative theologically, they are also more inclined than we northerners often realize to favor an activist approach to the role of governments in solving the desperate social problems that abound in their countries. Thus, they aren’t nearly as negative about the UN and its famous or infamous MDG’s (Millenium Development Goals) as most of us orthodox Anglicans in North America are. There are doubtless hidden sources of tension and even conflict that are likely to surface over time as this new alliance between theological conservatives in the North and South is tested by future challenges.
But let’s be fair to Jenkins. I think he’d celebrate GAFCon, hailing it as a remarkable milestone in the unstoppable shift of power from the inexorably declining Global North (i.e., churches with a European culture, even if below the equator like Australia and New Zealand) to the thriving and growing Global South. Out of the 280-300 bishops said to be at GAFCon, I’ve read that only 19 or so are from North America. Clearly the Africans are in charge and they are relishing being in the driver’s seat at last. And it wasn’t all dependent on western money either, even though this conference is costing millions of dollars when you include the expenses of all the participants.
This is truly a historic event. It’s momentous. The Anglican Communion will never be the same. On the other hand, I expect very little of any value or lasting significance to come out of the Lambeth Conference next month. It’s highly and aptly symbolic that this GAFCon event is taking place outside England, and far from European civilization altogether. GAFCon represents a return to the roots of the Christian faith and life, it marks a fresh beginning by returning to the fountainhead.
That is what Reformations always seek to do. But sometimes the forces of change that are unleashed prove difficult to control and they result in more radical, or even revolutionary, transformations than anyone anticipated or intended. That could easily happen this time.
But I for one hope and pray that Archbishop Kolini is right and that a “second Reformation” is indeed underway. The old wineskins of the AC are too stiff and brittle to handle such powerful new wine as we see fermenting like crazy in Jerusalem. And I see this exciting, audacious conference as an unmistakable sign that some new wineskins are beginning to emerge at last. Furthermore, I see this as very much a cause for rejoicing. Although the end result can’t be foreseen, this New Reformation is long overdue. Ad fontes.
Let goods and kindred go.
David Handy+
David Handy+
1. Larry, I’ve said the same thing for many months!
IF we are a Catholic church, our faith should be limned by the seven ecumenical councils of the undivided Church, and our Confession, if you want to have one should be the Nicene Creed.
Ch
Larry (#1) and Cennydd (#5),
It’s a matter of public record at both SF and T19 that for months now I’ve been calling for a new Instrument of Unity to emerge that I keep calling an Anglican “Supreme Court.” I suspect we’ll need other new Instruments as well, as the present ones have failed. But that is one of the chief challenges of the new “Global Post-Colonial Settlement” that +Bob Duncan the Lion-Hearted rightly called for in Jordan.
It always comes down to the authority issue in the end, doesn’t it? WHO gets to decide, when there is a fierce, protracted dispute? And who has the authority to make their decisions stick?
Bp. Michael Nazir-Ali was absolutely right yesterday. The fact that the Primates have not been able to make the agreement forged at Dar es Salaam stick has been DISASTROUS. The fact that the Lambeth Conference Resolution 1:10 from 1998 has not been able to stick is likewise CATASTROPHIC. The AC as we know it won’t survive this crisis intact.
It’s high time to bite the bullet and face reality. We can’t survive as a coherent worldwide, “post-colonial” COMMUNION of churches without some kind of centralized Instruments that have binding juridical powers. That is what being truly “conciliar” means. Councils worthy of the name can’t be merely “advisory” or for consultation and fellowship. Our great danger is NOT Roman style tyranny but Congregational style anarchy *(see Judges 21:25).
Don’t worry, Larry. You aren’t alone. We are Legion. Or if we aren’t quite numbered in the thousands yet, we soon will be. The movement symbolized by GAFCon is unstoppable. The majority of the world’s practicing Anglicans are already on board.
A new day for Anglicanism is dawning. The best is yet to come!
David Handy+
Go git ’em David! Why has this conciliar argument been so hard and so slow to advance? Somehow, it seems rather obvious to me. So true about the disastrous effects of being unable to make DeS stick. But who has the power now? The ABC? This development, the conciliar body, must be one necessary result of GAFCON.
C: Anyone with a Welsh name has to be rightedy right right right. May I ask your real name? Larry
Bishop Nazir-Ali is “right on!”
I have listened to the bishop preach ‘in the person,’ at Truro Church, and he is as impressive ‘in person’ as he is in writing.
NRA
[i]Thus, they aren’t nearly as negative about the UN and its famous or infamous MDG’s (Millenium Development Goals) as most of us orthodox Anglicans in North America are. [/i]
I don’t think the Anglicans in North America are negative about the MDGs — in and of themselves, they are worthy goals. But rather, we are cautionary about their use as the be-all and end-all of TECs focus on them, almost as a replacement for proclaiming the Gospel/Evangelism.
libraryjim (#10),
OK, but my point was really that many of us conservative Anglicans in North America (or the English-speaking world) are far more skeptical about an activist role for the government in solving the desperate social problems of developing nations than are many of our fellow Anglicans in the Global South. This is quite apart ferom the issue of substituting the “Social Gospel” for the real gospel (as the PB does).
Now granted, not all orthodox Anglicans in the West are also politically conservative, and not all orthodox Anglicans in the Global South are politically liberal (in the sense of pro-UN and in favor of an activist stance for the government in solving social problems). I was just acknowledging that, speaking in broad general terms, significant differences of opinion do exist on some matters outside the realm of theology when you compare the orthodox Anglican leaders in the Global South with our leaders in the western world. Here in the West, I think it’s fair to say that we have the luxury of being more jaded because so very often, we’ve seen that liberal political solutions to endemic social problems have only made those problems worse. The welfare system in America is a good example, where the supposed liberal cure has actually (and unintentionally) made the disease worse, fostering a very unhealthy dependency of government aid and undermining the family and the role of fathers in providing for their families etc. I say we have that luxury of being more critical, because our problems aren’t nearly so overwhelming in scale, and our available resources are greater in the private sector.
Now admittedly, I speak as a so-called “neo-conservative,” which has been described as “an ex-liberal who has been mugged by reality.” I used to subscribe to the journal Sojourners. Now I read First Things instead. I’ve been forced to recognize that simply throwing money at deeply entrenched social problems (in the usual liberal fashion of the Democratic or Labour parties) rarely works. I think Ronal Reagan got it right back in the 1980s. The government isn’t the solution to our social problems. The government IS the problem, or a major contributor to making those problems worse, not better. And like many Americans, I’m extremely skeptical of the real value of the UN. I just don’t trust the organization at all.
But many leaders of Anglicanism in the Global South aren’t so critical of the UN. The overwhelming social problems they face in their poverty-stricken, often brutally repressive countries seems to predispose many primates to being more open to the efforts of the UN to help than are many of us here in the US who are cynical critics of the UN and of liberal government activism in general. They tend to welcome any help they can get, from any source, in the face of such dire, massive, urgent needs. And I don’t blame them.
David Handy+