"Jesus Christ is the standard for discerning the path between authentic cultural expression and flawed syncretism, between ensuring we do not quench the Spirit and yet properly testing what we believe may be the Spirit's leading," said Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town and Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.
He was addressing the USPG Annual Conference in Swanwick, England, on the theme of "Mission Realities for Southern African Anglicans and their Wider Implications".
The Archbishop of Cape Town described how agreement about who Jesus is and the salvation he brings enabled Anglicans in Southern Africa to see Christ in one another and be held together by him, despite differences over human sexuality.
"When we meet, we feel sharp pain and great distress, yet none of us feels called to turn to another and say 'I no longer consider you a Christian, a member of the body of Christ – I am no longer in communion with you'," he said.
Rather "sharing our pain has left us feeling more closely bound to one another – it is as if we see the marks of the living Christ, the suffering Christ, in one another and in our common life, as we await together the power of the resurrection within our painful circumstances."
In his address, Dr Makgoba said it sometimes appeared that The Episcopal Church had not listened sufficiently to the rest of the Communion, and acted in ways that communicated a lack of care about the consequences of their actions, especially in the Global South. The continuing dominance of debate on human sexuality "undermines our witness and dissipates energies that should be spent on mission," he said.
He also criticised others who had breached the moratoria, and everyone who failed to act with "gracious restraint", and pointed to St Paul's warning that not everything that is lawful is necessarily right to pursue.
The Archbishop urged greater effort in building mutual understanding across different contexts. "No-one is without culture," he said, and "all cultures must be open to both the judgement and hope which the gospel brings." While some cultural practices might more easily be aligned with the gospel than others, all needed to be "baptised" – dying to the assumptions of surrounding society and being reborn "within the perspectives of Jesus, his incarnation, cross and resurrection".
He pointed to the Spirit as the key to the translation of the gospel across different languages and cultures, with dunamis, power, rightly being understood not as just "brute force" but the full range of "subtle gifts" of Isaiah 11, including wisdom and discernment, which together enable the achievement of God's purposes.
He therefore warned the Communion about unthinkingly relying overly on "parliamentary" styles of debate which exacerbated polarisation around motions that encouraged "for and against" stances, and explained, with extensive parallels from Scripture, how also using "appropriately baptised Indaba" could help Anglicans "reconnect with more gospel-shaped approaches, that better reflect theologies of the work of the Spirit, and the body of Christ".
Dr Makgoba commended the Continuing Indaba project, to assist better mutual listening within the Communion. '"Surely we can never give up on each other – for God never gives up on any of us," he said. "Differences of opinion are inevitable, schism is not."
A video of Dr Makgoba's address can be found here
Issued by the Office of the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town
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Click here for the full text of the Archbishop's Address on Mission Realities for Southern African Anglicans and their Wider Implications given on 10 June 2010 at the USPG Annual Conference, Witnessing to Christ Today, in Swanwick, England.
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