December 2007: \u00a0by\u00a0Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa\u00a0\u00a0|<\/p>\n
Notes for the Chicago Consultation conference
\nFull Inclusion in the Anglican Communion<\/p>\n
Some thoughts about Communion\u2026<\/p>\n
My friends let me firstly bring you all very warm greetings from the \u2018true\u2019 global south! Greetings
\ntherefore from those of us who are even more \u2018south\u2019 than Sydney and the Southern Cone!!<\/p>\n
Seriously though, I am profoundly honoured to be with you all at this timely and significant event.
\nThank you most sincerely for your very kind invitation.<\/p>\n
I am not big on using quotes to reinforce my own voice but by way of demonstrable cultural
\nsensitivity, here is one from Abraham Lincoln which does seem quite apt in the current
\ncircumstance.<\/p>\n
\u2018The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate in the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we
\nmust rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves .
\n. . We cannot escape history . . . We shall nobly save or meanly lose, the last best hope of the earth . . . The way is
\nplain, peaceful, generous, just – a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.\u2019<\/p>\n
Over the past few months I have been with global Anglicans at various meetings and gatherings to
\ndo with, the role of the Church in the South Pacific (Sydney, Australia) the future of the
\nCommunion; to do with preparing Lambeth Bible Studies material (in London); the Doctrine
\nCommission, (in Malaysia); the Peace and Justice Network (Rwanda, Burundi and in North & South
\nKorea); developing a model for \u2018doing hermeneutics the Anglican way\u2019 New Zealand); I have met with
\nThese remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
2
\nWomen\u2019s Studies representatives; farewelled a much loved Archbishop (South Africa); and just last
\nweek I was with an extraordinary first ever national gathering of Inclusive Church members in
\nDerbyshire in England.<\/p>\n
There I participated with so many of God\u2019s good people in sharing and listening, in speaking, in
\npraying, in laughing and weeping, in seeking with urgency and deep sincerity for ways of being even
\nbetter disciples, for ways of being ever more readily present and attentive to those whom we are
\ncalled to serve. The theme of the gathering was \u2018drenched in grace\u2019 \u2013 I continue to find that imagery so
\nevocative, so compelling, so utterly magical in its possibilities? The conference was a stunning
\nsuccess and its parallels with this one are not merely coincidental \u2013 they are I believe entirely
\nprophetic.<\/p>\n
As I gazed about me at the Derbyshire gathering, I began to think again about communion – I saw men
\nand women who reminded me so much of my own Anglican relatives at home in New Zealand \u2013 a
\npeople intensely committed to, \u2018the church and in particular to advancing God\u2019s mission in and through the
\nChurch\u2019; a people somewhat rigidly ordered in their sense of ecclesial propriety; a people utterly
\ndevotional, (transported by the sacraments, the hymns, liturgical rituals, by the unique sanctity of Eucharistic
\nworship); a people likely ferociously controlling of their Priest in charge and even more likely, a
\npeople ridiculously submissive to their Bishop!<\/p>\n
The week before Derbyshire, I was in Seoul, Korea (together with a large peace delegation from the Presiding
\nBishop\u2019s office) and there in the small inner city house church to which I was taken for Sunday worship
\nwere those same Anglican relatives of mine and of yours.<\/p>\n
Actually you know, these \u2018relatives\u2019 of ours are there in South Africa, in California, in Sri Lanka, in
\nSamoa, in Derbyshire and in Kigali. One of the most precious and privileged insights that one gains
\nfrom being able to move across the global communion is that no matter the continent, the language,
\nthe socio-political or cultural context there is at a profoundly important level, actually very little that
\nThese remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
3
\nreally matters, which radically differentiates the ways in which the ordinary, every day Anglican people of
\nGod gather in abiding faith and witness.<\/p>\n
Actually it occurs to me that if we were capable on any given Sunday of undertaking to do one of
\nthose Google earth satellite type snapshots of global Anglicans, what we would inevitably see is
\nourselves as the great earthly cloud of witnesses at our local incarnational best; what we would see at
\nwork and at prayer is deeply, profoundly, indissolubly, communion.<\/p>\n
Here too are we now gathered, as a small portion of the global tribe of God\u2019s imperfect, vulnerable,
\nambitious, generous spirited, self-serving, sacrificial, complex, contradictory, faith filled and to the
\nlargest extent, indecently obedient Anglicans.<\/p>\n
Communion, as I witness it and as I have experienced it throughout my lifetime, is us, embodied in and for each other
\nacross the endless chasms of distance and difference. Communion is both noun and verb \u2013 it names both who we are
\nand what we do. Communion is thus simultaneously the recognition of our common humanity, and the relationality
\nthat that presupposes \u2013 it is about us all being created equally of God, equally as it is our responsive embrace of God
\nin each other. It is therefore our way of loving and our responsibility for loving, just as we ourselves are loved so
\nunconditionally by God. Communion is thus us living out in the deepest and most intimate forms of Christlike
\nrelationality what we say, even as we pray, that we deeply, truly believe in one God, in one Lord Jesus Christ, in one
\nholy and apostolic church.<\/p>\n
Well what then are we to make of all that with which we are currently confronted and which comes
\nto us inscribed beneath the word Communion, capital C if you please?? And to what extent then, if
\nat all, do the current tensions, fights and flights, claims and counter claims, bruising and blaming,
\npetulance and pettiness, bullying and bribing have to do with the other gloriously precious small \u2018c\u2019,
\ncommunion of saints in waiting??<\/p>\n
These remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
4
\nBig C Communion (which is usually the one we talk about and fret over) is rapidly assuming a nebulous and
\nelusive form \u2013 even as it purports to be the macro-institutional framework within which all the
\nmicro-Provinces reside.<\/p>\n
But is there really any difference between the two? Is the distinction I am endeavouring to draw that
\neasily made? Does it even matter? Or is it that big C Communion has been subtly elided with little c
\ncommunion, thus deftly, but for the purposes of some, very conveniently rendering invisible the
\ncloud of witnesses, readily depersonalizing, in fact, sort of perversely dis-embodying the actual body
\nof Christ.<\/p>\n
Now as I followed my own impeccable logic, I began to see how much easier it becomes therefore
\nin a depersonalised context, for some in institutional leadership to speak aggressively, to act
\npunitively, and to invoke disciplinary exclusions. In the absence of deep and intimate Christlike
\nrelationality, it does become not only possible, but also highly likely that human opportunism with
\nall it\u2019s failings and unfettered ambitions will inevitably arise.<\/p>\n
I began then to think of the doom filled schismatic rhetoric and of those who use it most frequently,
\naround, \u2018breaking Communion\u2019, about \u2018tearing the fabric of Communion\u2019, about \u2018the Communion falling apart\u2019,
\nabout \u2018the irreparable divisions in the Communion\u2019, about \u2018breaching Communion\u2019.<\/p>\n
Notice how none of this is directly humanized, none of this is language popularly or commonly used
\nto describe people, after all we are not fabric to be torn, anymore than we are irreparable.<\/p>\n
We are human beings, those created in the image and likeness of God. This rhetoric is surely all big
\n\u2018C\u2019 stuff. None of this is to do with us ordinary Anglicans, loving as we are loved by God. None of
\nthis is about \u2018us\u2019, it is about \u2018it\u2019, the \u2018inanimate\u2019 institutional form. It is all abstracted away from my
\nrelatives and yours, from men and women, girls and boys, old and young, rich and poor, black and
\nwhite, pretty and perhaps not so, handsome and wishful, but people nevertheless, Anglican people,
\nme and you, people of God, devoted, committed, controlling and submissive, and yet people who
\nThese remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
5
\nare undeniably at our heart of hearts simply yearning always for that state of God\u2019s grace, that
\nportion given freely to each one of us . . .<\/p>\n
Friends we have to recover with real urgency the images, the names and the smiles of those known
\nto us all whose dedication, sacrifice, service and commitment to God\u2019s mission has not altered and
\nwill not ever be altered one tiny bit no matter how many threats, no matter how many tantrums are
\nbeing undertaken at the level of male church leadership struggles.<\/p>\n
I am being constantly reminded by these exemplars of witness and mission that none of this bitter
\ninfighting can possibly disrupt or compromise their truly servanthood lives given over freely,
\nunquestioningly to the care of the poor, the feeding of the hungry, the release of the captives, the
\nrecovery of sight to the blind.<\/p>\n
And so from now on when we each speak of \u2018communion\u2019 will we have in mind the capital \u2018C\u2019
\ndepersonalized institution or will we have in mind the small \u2018c\u2019 communion of saints to be – your
\nrelatives and mine, people with faces and names, people with hopes and with doubts, people with
\nhistories, lives and loves?<\/p>\n
None of this is to say that I haven\u2019t listened with profound sadness to so many Anglicans drawn
\nfrom virtually every autonomous Province and from the Church of England express feelings of
\npowerlessness and despair at the apparently insurmountable odds against the survival of \u2018the
\nCommunion\u2019.<\/p>\n
There is indeed an all-pervasive malaise readily apparent across the entire Communion but I do
\nthink there needs also to be a far more realistic sense of proportion developed.<\/p>\n
I happen to believe that the vast majority of small \u2018c\u2019 Anglicans \u2013 our relations drawn from all over
\nGod\u2019s world (and coincidentally who happen to comprise the vast majority of global Anglicans by anyone\u2019s
\nThese remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
6
\ncalculations) are not in any significant way either directly involved in and nor are they especially willing
\nto become involved in the current tensions\/controversies affecting our beloved Church.<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t because they are not interested or indeed because they are unaffected, they are, we all are but it
\nis also true that by far the vast majority of global Anglicans are simply getting on with addressing
\nwhat they see as their prior call to respond to the myriad demands for God\u2019s mission in the towns
\nand cities, in rural villages, in war zones and in places of poverty and natural disaster, indeed
\nwherever there are God\u2019s people in need.<\/p>\n
You too must also have heard the plaintive cry of the women of the Communion, the indigenous
\npeople of the Communion, the young people of the Communion, all of whom have at some stage
\nexpressed their collective sense of outrage at the way in which mission has been and is now the first
\ncasualty of the political struggles swirling around us all.<\/p>\n
The cries of these groups are of course less easy to discern for they are not among the Primates, they
\nare not among the powerful moneyed lobby groups at work within the Communion, they are not
\nable to bring to bear critical influence at leadership levels of the global Communion. It is to our
\ncollective shame that we fail to hear their cries for priority attention to be paid to the suffering of
\nthose who are the least among us all.<\/p>\n
As I have listened to the grief, the outrage, the sadness, the bewilderment, the fears being expressed,
\nyet still I have been challenged to think about just who is involved and just what exactly is at stake. It
\nisn\u2019t simple. If for example this were simply a matter of fundamental difference over scriptural
\ninterpretation and that therefore the so called precipitate action in New Hampshire could indeed be
\nconstrued as being of such a profoundly, irrevocably, irreconcilably doctrinally, morally horrific
\nnature (and I do not believe for a moment that it can be), then why is only one gay Bishop being singled out
\nand not all the others? Is his \u2018sin\u2019 to be that he told the truth at all or just too publicly?<\/p>\n
These remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
7
\nIn a related manner, why single out one so-called \u2018moral\u2019 question and not any number of others
\nknown to be irrefutably spiritually and physically damaging?<\/p>\n
Speaking of hypocrisy why are two Provinces continually being singled out and held to a \u2018higher
\nstandard\u2019 of accountability than any other member of the ecclesial family by bodies who do not
\nactually even possess the mandated authority to demand such accountabilities in the first place and
\nsecondly why is it that some Provinces continue to be able to mask their own practices regarding
\nmatters now deemed to be in the realm adiaphora?<\/p>\n
And so unavoidably I am being challenged to think beyond the presenting circumstances and to ask
\nabout just who or just what exactly is at stake here especially in terms of prevailing power and
\nauthority. Who stands to benefit and who is set to lose in the current circumstance?<\/p>\n
Even as I acknowledge the political agenda so clearly indicated I do not for a moment want to assert
\nthat as a priority for our attention \u2013 that would be in so many ways, theologically unfortunate.<\/p>\n
As I said last week in Derbyshire, \u201cI like many of you can\u2019t help myself at times when I want so
\nmuch to cry out in rage, about anyone who dares to \u2018fuss\u2019 about who is worthy of participation in the
\norders and offices of the Church while so many in our shared family are suffering and dying
\nneedlessly. I want to rage on about what a travesty of faith this kind of attitude and behaviour
\nrepresents, about what an abuse of the gift of God\u2019s grace all of this is and then I am reminded that the
\nmore I focus upon blaming and judging, anticipating and reacting, the less I am present and able
\ninstead to give witness to what Thomas Cahill describes as the narratives of grace, \u2018the recountings of
\nthose blessed and inexplicable moments when someone did something for someone else, saved a life, bestowed a gift, gave
\nsomething beyond what was required by the circumstance.\u2019<\/p>\n
And this I realize is what being \u2018drenched in grace\u2019 is calling me into \u2013 is calling us all into. We are being
\nchallenged to find within ourselves renewed appreciation of all that is good and true and kind, of all
\nthat is life-giving and life-sustaining, of all that is merciful and humbling.
\nThese remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
8<\/p>\n
We are I believe being challenged in the current circumstance not so much to focus too intently and
\nsingularly on the bad behaviour of the few, but rather to focus anew the very good behaviour of the
\nmany whose exemplary regard for the sacredness of all others whom God has created points us all
\ntoward that way in which God would probably say that grace is to be truly expressed.<\/p>\n
This is not to say we ignore the political struggles swirling all around us, not for a moment, but
\nrather it is to say we need always to pause and to consider whether or not our approach to these
\nmatters is primarily one of self-righteous admonition or one of transcendent grace?<\/p>\n
If it is true that our new identity in Christ is one utterly transformative of our relationships with one
\nanother then it follows that to the largest extent our speaking and our behaving must also be
\nradically re-inscribed firstly in our hearts and then and only then, in our minds.
\nTranscendent grace enables us to hold both to the necessary project of pursuing God\u2019s justice in the
\nface of any and all injustice even as it simultaneously enables us to participate in the immediate and
\ndesperately urgent pastoral work of healing and of reconciling.
\nAnd so my sisters and brothers what is it that we are to do? Are we to continue to draw our lines in
\nthe shifting sands of ecclesial aggression and of blaming, of accusing and judging? Or are we to shift
\nour emphasis to embrace simultaneously and in sufficient measure, grace filled mutual affection and uplift of
\none another, together with boldly reconciling behaviour?<\/p>\n
Can we exemplify the very best of God\u2019s grace even as we continue to name decisively and to act
\nboldly and courageously against all of those things, which we know to be unacceptable in God\u2019s sight?\u201d<\/p>\n
Can we begin as global Anglicans to imagine and to discuss ways in which we might stand more
\nconfidently together as diverse members of the family of Christ, on the common ground of God\u2019s
\nworld, on the basis of a newly apprehended model of unconditionally inclusive relationality?<\/p>\n
These remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
9
\nNow it occurs to me that maybe there are a number of imaginative possibilities, which emerge. Big
\n\u2018C\u2019 is clearly in need of radical transformation, it requires to be re-humanized, it requires re-imaging,
\nrestoring. It my friends, is nevertheless also us.<\/p>\n
If we are to recover our sense of perspective and our mutual confidence we need somehow to firstly
\npause and refocus.<\/p>\n
I am suggesting with greatest humility just the smallest and simplest of steps, first things first.<\/p>\n
So how best to recover perspective? Well this has of necessity to do with how we now see,
\nunderstand and appreciate ourselves both as global Anglicans and local Anglicans, as small \u2018c\u2019
\ncommunion, as sisters and brothers, as relatives in Christ, inextricably connected across the oceans
\nand homelands which make for space between us, and simultaneously therefore how we see ourselves
\nas God\u2019s people \u2013 each created in the divine image, each equally precious, deserving and worthy.<\/p>\n
Firstly, I believe we need to invoke a global Anglicanism recovery plan. We need with great urgency
\nto return once again to our ecclesiological roots and to acquaint ourselves far more intimately with
\nthe beauty and goodness inherent in so much of our deep shared histories and traditions. Look at
\nwhat happened yesterday when Stacey Saul\u2019s paper was read and we were all collectively touched by
\nthe \u2018recall effect\u2019 it had when he made mention of the \u2018fundamentals\u2019 of autonomy, toleration and
\nlay participation.<\/p>\n
We do have a shared Church history of which we can and should all be mightily proud even as we
\ncan continue to delight in the different approaches and regard we each have toward certain
\nresources in common \u2013 e.g. the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Discovering something of the
\nreasoning and embedding of these benign differences can yet prove mutually enriching for us all
\nespecially in the current circumstances.<\/p>\n
These remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
10
\nWe must with urgency strategise ways of intentionally creating and supporting a small cadre of
\ninternationally representative scholars of Anglicanism \u2013 those who can trace for us with unerring
\naccuracy and sensitive insight the complex trajectories along which the global churches of the
\nCommunion have in fact emerged.<\/p>\n
These scholars need also to bring to bear the kind of theological critique of so much that is being
\nclaimed in the name of Anglicanism and yet which carries little or no resonance with the sacred
\ninclusive ecclesial traditions grounded in the, the Prayer Book, the Sacraments, the Creeds and the
\nhistoric Episcopate, let alone being grounded in scripture, tradition and reason. I don\u2019t believe we
\nare according our shared ecclesiological history the priority it is due and thus in the current clamour
\nfor ascendancy we too, have often turned to \u2018street fighting\u2019 as a first line of defense.<\/p>\n
It is my contention that Anglican ecclesiology has been the greatest inadvertent casualty,
\nintellectually and spiritually, of the post-colonial era in theological education. And in this I believe
\nboth TEC and the CofE have to accept a large measure of culpable responsibility, leading and
\ncontrolling as you have done for the longest time the best of Anglican theological educational
\nresources seen anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n
Fortunately I do see signs that you are both learning that \u2018cultural cringe\u2019 is not the most helpful
\nresponse for you to be making in the current circumstance. You must however learn to see that
\nthose of us from the \u2018underside\u2019 have a valuable, timely and willing contribution to make to the
\nredemptive project before us all. What is required is increased mutual respect and recognition of the
\nlegitimacy of differing ways of knowing but without in any way capitulating to an essentialist
\nparadigm.<\/p>\n
Very early on in my time in theological education as an indigenous scholar I saw the warning signs
\nof diminished and or very uneven teaching of ecclesiology and thus missiology, within the academy
\nbut I never fully appreciated the global danger it represented. We must now salvage the situation
\nwith dignity and with grace so that the integrity of teaching and learning and speaking of what it is to
\nThese remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
11
\nbe Anglican can once again be undertaken with confidence and clarity across all of the humanly
\nconstructed zones of cultural difference.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s once again across the global Communion find ways of giving radical support to those who
\nwe will in future entrust the sacred responsibility of teaching and honouring the genius of
\nAnglicanism; let us teach and celebrate \u2018generous orthodoxy\u2019 in our understanding and practice of
\nmission; and let us with courage and honesty take up the unavoidable challenge of interrogating all
\n\u2018culturally based\u2019 claims purporting to be Anglican but which are in fact often proving to be nothing
\nmore than dangerously destabilizing and personally violent dogmas.<\/p>\n
Secondly, just as hermeneutics has recently risen appropriately to the fore as a necessarily urgent
\ncollective project, I think as we approach that task there needs also for attention to be given to
\nreclaiming and living out a creation theology which apprehends God\u2019s unconditional delight at all
\nwho were and are and all that was and is created, as being not just good, but very, very good.<\/p>\n
It is only in this way that I believe we can first gain a necessarily expansive worldview of just how
\nspectacularly diverse we all are across the entire spectrum of God\u2019s beautifully created human difference
\n\u2013 geographically, ethnically, sexually, every which way imaginable. Following on from this it would
\nbe so good if we could simultaneously begin to explore ways of gaining deeper understanding of
\nwho we are as God\u2019s Anglican people across the entire spectrum of global ecclesiological development.
\nAcross the Communion I do encounter the most extraordinary naivet\u00e9 about differences on both
\ncounts, from expansive creation theology to global positioning!<\/p>\n
It is only in this way that I believe we can begin to confront the current unspeakably cruel
\ninferences being drawn that somehow gay and lesbian people are a less worthy aspect of God\u2019s very
\ngood creation. The blatant and indefensible theological contradiction in terms here is simply
\nstunning in its persistence, (as of course are the enduring twin evils of racism and sexism).<\/p>\n
These remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
12
\nMine may well be an utterly na\u00efve theology. But in my limited understanding, there simply is no
\nlesser category of human being in God\u2019s creation. I am concerned that if the hermeneutics project
\nproceeds from a point of understanding an already differentiated common humanity then it cannot
\npossibly succeed.<\/p>\n
I do think we need to make a little more theological fuss about that fact but to do so not as
\npoliticians determined to make or worse to score points, but to do so as God\u2019s people in all things
\nwith grace filled clarity, with patience and with abundantly dignified charity \u2013 remember it is after all, the
\nsmall \u2018c\u2019 we have to keep in mind for it is they\/we who look also to those in leadership, for example at every turn.<\/p>\n
Inherent in all of this is as I alluded earlier, is the need to participate also in the very contemporary
\npolitics of both race and identity. These twin projects have at once boldly and rightly endeavoured
\nto address historic injustice but I suspect they are now both stuck in the secular quagmire of purely
\nintellectual analysis.<\/p>\n
Single identity, indeed any identity politics needs theology for its ultimately transcendent solutions
\nand yet our own academy has not ever really taken seriously its responsibility in this regard.<\/p>\n
We have only to consider how little attention has been paid to addressing let alone redeeming the
\ncomplex and enduring systemic issues arising from institutionalised sexism and racism within our
\nown ecclesial environment. Let\u2019s not extend the list endlessly by simply adding sexual identity issues,
\nbut instead let us get back to Galatians 3:28 and begin to think critically and afresh about what
\nachieving, appreciating and sustaining this idealised but undeniably prophetic body of Christ will
\nrequire of us all.<\/p>\n
In case you think part of this is simply an opportunistic dig on my part at past colonial imperialism,
\nit is not. Many of those of us unduly affected by that ambivalent past are now all grown up and quite
\ncapable of engaging with confidence and charm across virtually any sphere of academic discourse,
\nThese remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
13
\nincluding theology and we do so now by way of hoping always to redeem that inglorious past which
\nirrefutably, reduced us both.<\/p>\n
One of the critical contributions now emerging albeit very tentatively among those of us who
\nhappen to be indigenous (and a whole lot of other \u2018identities\u2019 besides!) and who are proud to call ourselves
\ntheologians, is our insistence that the new and perverse tribalisms emerging across our beloved
\nChurch are also seriously in need of \u2018outing\u2019 and of solid critique. One of the more obvious and
\nalarming examples of this is ironically the factions and subsequent behaviours emerging within the
\nPrimates meetings.<\/p>\n
Thirdly, even though I probably would rate this one of the highest priorities, could we please all stop
\nand reconsider the extent to which we are relying on electronic media for so called information and
\nalso the ways in which we are now tending also to use this as our first means of so called
\n\u2018communicating\u2019 with or about one another. I am not saying desist altogether because that would be
\nimpossible and besides, used well and with proper integrity, the internet can be and will continue to
\nprove an invaluable means of transferring data and information.<\/p>\n
What I am pleading for is simply a cautionary re-consideration of the extent to which we are
\nallowing it\u2019s unconstrained power to unduly affect our hearts and minds and thus to delimit our
\nprevious preference for tangible, tactile relationality instead!<\/p>\n
Could we for a start re-consider the places from where we are sourcing our information and what
\ninformation we are giving high priority to. Following on from the experience of the Lambeth
\nCommission where internet communications became so problematic, so vile actually,<\/p>\n
I want to re-urge us all to no longer allow that hideously, spiritually bereft and too often anonymous
\ntechnological medium to bombard us with predominantly negative, often vitriolic, depressing,
\nsometimes personally violent and often wildly inaccurate material \u2013 it isn\u2019t information if it doesn\u2019t better
\nThese remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
14
\nform us for God\u2019s mission and it isn\u2019t critical information if it doesn\u2019t inform us truthfully and yet with appropriate
\nhuman courtesies such as we expect and enjoy in face to face contact.<\/p>\n
I know it is the communication tool of preferred choice and often of professional necessity but we
\ndo also have individual control over the keyboards and \u2018mice\u2019 before us . . .<\/p>\n
Fourthly, I also believe many of the Bishops and Primates need our help and our direction in all of
\nthese matters. They are after all \u2013 of us and for us \u2013 they are not single-handedly, or mindedly, aloof or
\ndetached from small \u2018c\u2019 communion. Certainly they are needed and they deserve to be treasured within our
\nglobal communion in a very special way.<\/p>\n
I suspect that in the current circumstance we need to assist some in either overcoming or resisting
\nthe inevitable and at times crushing institutional pressure many feel as they are either forced or
\nheavily persuaded to conform, to mask, or to act in uncritical solidarity with each other rather than
\nfeeling free to act in critically prophetic ways always on the side of justice.<\/p>\n
Fifthly, and with the greatest respect, I want to remind us all of the tireless and truly selfless work
\nwhich is being done on behalf of us all by the only group which does indeed work on behalf of us all
\nacross the entire Communion. While their institutional context may well be the \u2018macro\u2019 Communion,
\ntheir professional approach and their pastoral practice is without exception most definitely within a
\nprofoundly humble small \u2018c\u2019 communion framework.<\/p>\n
I am speaking of the staff of the Anglican Communion Office in London, those currently working
\nwith such consummate professionalism and dedication under the most extraordinarily difficult of
\nconditions. I am speaking of a group of individuals whose endeavouring is always to be the
\nwelcoming, co-coordinating and resourcing base for the entire global Communion even as they are
\nvery much often undeservedly caught in the impossible crossfire of the prevailing tensions. I believe
\nthe entire ACO office merits far more global appreciation and indeed support than is often currently
\nshown.
\nThese remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
15<\/p>\n
These then are just some immediate thoughts. The entire recovery of perspective project is
\ndoubtless far more vast and unpredictable than I can begin to imagine but my friends, we are I
\nbelieve a people of hope and of loving capacity and this is not a time for resiling from the significant
\nand complex challenges before us all. Either we are committed to recovering and upholding the full
\nhumanity of each other or we are not and if indeed God\u2019s justice and mercy are to be a feature, let
\nalone to characterise our shared future google earth landscape then I have no doubt we will do what
\nwe know we must.<\/p>\n
Together right now we are all headed into Advent \u2013 the time when we come again to the realisation
\nthat God is not just at the end, nor simply in the beginning, but is with us for all eternity. If Advent
\nis about living fully in the present and about being active at the edge of expectation of what is yet to
\ncome, it is therefore a time for us to reevaluate our commitments to reading the signs of our times
\nparticularly those of injustice. It is a time for us to get to work in the tasks of advocacy and
\ncompassion for those who are the lesser among us.<\/p>\n
In the darker moments of our fears about what to do, who with, what for, surely we must trust in
\nGod (and not the internet) to break in with messages of special concern. We can I believe only do this
\nif we can bear to think beyond our own interests, our own selfish needs. We can only do this if we
\nhave embedded in our hearts and imprinted in our imaginations an expansive and breathtaking
\nvision of the small \u2018c\u2019 communion \u2013 a vision at once of incomprehensibly diverse beauty and tradition, and yet
\nsimultaneously a vision of mysterious common aspiration and commitment to simply be as God\u2019s good and
\nunconditionally inclusive Anglican people.<\/p>\n
It may well be timely for us to be reminded of just who we Anglicans are and as I did last week in
\nDerbyshire I offer this sublime and yet appropriately humorous piece from former Archbishop
\nRichard Holloway, \u2018The Anglican Church is a tolerant, faintly detached and amused mother of lazily permissive
\nstandards. But she is a real mother nevertheless. She does not hector or bully her children. She expects them to be
\nmature and independent. There are certain house rules she likes observed in her home, a sort of minimal but important
\nThese remarks were made by Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007. The Chicago
\nConsultation thanks the author for permission to republish. For more information, visit us online at
\nhttp:\/\/www.ChicagoConsultation.org.<\/p>\n
16
\nstandard, but if her children break them she doesn\u2019t go into an operatic tantrum. She merely raises her eyebrows and
\nwishes they had better manners. Anglicans are not persecutors or excommunicators. We tend to agree with Montaigne,
\nthat is rating our conjectures too highly to roast people alive for them\u2019.<\/p>\n
In Archbishop Rowan\u2019s Christmas sermon from 1999 he quoted Frederick Buechner: \u2018Where will our
\nfollowing take us? God only knows, and we can be sure only that it will take us not where we want to go necessarily,
\nbut where we are wanted, until by a kind of alchemy, where we are wanted becomes where we want to go and that will
\nbe a place of wonder\u2019.<\/p>\n
So in all of this I am wondering at the possibilities of us all recommitting not only to imagining the
\nseemingly elusive place of wonder, but to beginning this day in our own spheres of influence to seeing,
\nunderstanding, living and celebrating communion as being the sum total of all of us as faith filled
\nordinary Anglican men and women whose lives and whose loves are prescribed by a prior sense of
\nsacred belonging to God and thus to one another. In this we share therefore in an unbreakable
\ncommitment to the indisputably inclusive Gospel of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
Can we do all of this then as people connected as adversaries and as friends, across the villages,
\ntowns, cities and nations into which we are blessed to be born \u2013 a people who know and are known
\nby the ancestors; who know the rivers and lakes and mountains which shelter and nurture us all; a
\npeople committed to the full participation and flourishing of all in God\u2019s world; a people unafraid of
\nsimplicity or of suffering, a people instinctively attuned to heartfelt wisdom, to forgiveness, to
\nunconditional belonging, to God\u2019s grace and peace with and for us all? I am confident that we will, we can
\nand we must . . . in Christ\u2019s name. Amen.<\/p>\n
These remarks were made by Dr. Jenny Plane Te Paa at the Chicago Consultation conference held at\u00a0<\/em> December 2007: \u00a0by\u00a0Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa\u00a0\u00a0| Notes for the Chicago Consultation conference Full Inclusion in the Anglican Communion Some thoughts about Communion\u2026 My friends let me firstly bring you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sexuality-and-scripture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chicagoconsultation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chicagoconsultation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chicagoconsultation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chicagoconsultation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chicagoconsultation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chicagoconsultation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135,"href":"https:\/\/www.chicagoconsultation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chicagoconsultation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chicagoconsultation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chicagoconsultation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSeabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, December 6, 2007.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"