Michael Poon: The Long Road to Full Inheritance: Anglican Communion, Anno Domini 2007
It is not a time for elation for Global South Primates at Dar es Salaam in February 2007. If indeed what Global South churches have strived for all along is more than a mere demand for realignment of ecclesiastical power and inclusion in the inner circles, the present calls sober reflection and costly discipleship. This is no time for letting up. If the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the Anglican Communion is our chief concern, then as Bonhoeffer put it, ‘we are fighting to-day for costly grace”. Narrow and hard is the way ahead.
Global South churches have indeed made significant progress since the Kigali Meeting in September 2006. Their inclusion and leadership in the Anglican Covenant processes is a case in point. There may even be signs of a growing cordial partnership between Global South leaders and Canterbury. These encouraging signs, however, should not distract us of a more fundamental revolution that must take place in world Christianity and in the Anglican Communion in particular.
The present struggle is neither merely about isolated issues (on sexuality and alternative primatial oversight), nor just about positions that individual provinces and personalities take vis-à-vis Canterbury and Lambeth 2008. Even if the Global South were to “have it their way” in the coming two years (which would be short of a miracle), such “victory” would still be superficial. No juggling of the Communion structure after Lambeth 2008 on its own can meet the demand for discipleship that is required of us all. Therefore here I take a different view from my good friend Graham Kings and others who continue to interpret and classify the diverse positions in the Communion according to their (purported) attitude to particular Communion issues.
Contrary to the charge of schism and ultra-conservatism, the crises over the past decade have awakened Global South churches to their calling as part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. They are increasingly confident in connecting their discipleship to the historic faith and in governing their churches according to the sociopolitical realities of their own nations.
Global South churches are in fact inheriting and continuing the tasks their forebears two generations ago left behind. Let me explain. The end of the Second World War was supposed to usher an era in world Christianity. Churches outside the Christendom were meant to emerge from their colonial and missionary past. During the early preparation of the World Council of Churches in the late 1940s, national churches were to take centre stage. In the event, missionary societies and confessional groups (now called “World Christian Communions”) argued for their continued influence in world Christianity.
posted by t19elves at 10:10 AM
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