Stephen Bates has written about the sermon preached at Southwark Cathedral by Njongonkulu Ndungane the Archbishop of Cape Town. You can read the sermon itself in full here. Please do read it all.
The comment piece is published under the headline Harvesting intolerance. It covers the sermon, but also several other current events. It’s also worth reading all the way through.
Update
The BBC Sunday radio programme’s Jane Little also interviewed the archbishop:
Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane
The slow and painful story of the disintegration of the Anglican communion continues to unfold. The divisions over homosexuality have pitted church leaders from the south – largely in Africa – against liberals in the west for condoning something they see as unbiblical. But one prominent African archbishop has long called for tolerance and has now broken with his fellow archbishops accusing them in turn of standing on the brink of destroying Anglicanism. Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane joins Jane in the studio.
Listen (5m 52s)
Ndungane is such a wise soul. While some souls are trying to entrench lines and make some souls saved and the balanced scheduled to burn in hell, others such as Ndungane are trying to look past the stereotypes and drives for power. It reminds me of this article http://www.beliefnet.com/story/200/story_20024_1.html The article has a go at the anti-religious right, but comments that it is worth looking at the issues that they are raising. For example, fostering theocracies risks being idolatrous. Monolothic power mongering theocracies rightly should have a curse of babel placed upon them to limit the amount of damage they… Read more »
Stephen Bates makes a good point about the many ‘blessings’ which clergy are able to, and do, give to all manner of things, which contrasts with the difficulties encountered when a blesing is administered to two people committed to one another in relationship. (Here, in the Church of Ireland, one of our bishops has decreed that it is not appropriate to bless Civil Partnerships as this would be to depart too far from services prescribed in the Prayer Book, and this in a church where a colleague was recently called upon to bless a new motorway. If I were in… Read more »
What is it about Capetown?
The tradition of courageous voices speaking out against injustice and hypocrisy goes back at least to Joost De Blank, patron of this monastery whose death on 1 January 1968 we commemorate every year (Holy Name takes precedence).
I posted the links to the sermon & the Bates piece at Fr Jake’s — I do hope peopel clicked through to read them both (& many thanks for the links here — this is a wonderful site & we appreciate it).
Can it be that God is raising up alternative church leadership from the whole of South Africa, to help bear global witness to the traditional Anglican leeway/comprehensiveness?
Thank goodness, thank God.
Canada’s still on the journey, too, apparently. Are we not all still on the Anglican journey? Is not that call and that pilgrimage nourished by all of the Anglican heartlands as well as challenged by the cutting edge peripheries?
Just goes to show that the Southern Cone is not the monochrome fundamentalist dead end that it has been portrayed as! At last we are hearing voices other than Akinola and Malango and they are voices than bring hope and joy to all who still love being Anglican Christians in the most generous sense. Hallelujah!!
To Stephen and others: I would just like to say that, as a Gay Christian who has lived and worshipped in Toronto for the past 30 years, I have enormous respect for Archbishop Finlay, a respect which has grown over the years. Since Jim Ferry affair, and perhaps, in part because of it, Archbishop Finlay has done what all were asked to do but few have,namely, to “listen” to the experiences of gay people. His views have changed as a result. As I’m sure many gay people do, I find this “debate” enormously painful. Painted, as it is, in such… Read more »
Southern Cone? Didn’t you mean Global SOuth (or some such similar)? Or has Capetown been towed away by US special forces and anchored near Tierra del Fuego?:-)
It could be said that we stand at crossroads between choosing to pursue righteousness or being concerned only about reputation. Being obsessed about reputation can lead to indifference to environmental degradation, abuse, true justice. Such souls’ endeavours are focussed on avoiding accusations of consorting with unsavory elements, which can then entail institutionalising suppression. Being concerned about righteousness often means being prepared to lose one’s reputation for the sake of the greater good. These are souls who are confessing their sins and coughing up from their coffers to end poverty, find cures for AIDS, mitigate environmental desecration, restore dignity and mercy… Read more »
Southern Cone? Didn’t you mean Global SOuth (or some such similar)? Or has Capetown been towed away by US special forces and anchored near Tierra del Fuego?:-)
Oops! Yes indeed thanks David for the correction Never was good at Geography 🙂
Did anyone catch Terry Gross’s “Fresh Air” program from 3 Oct on NPR?
Religion professor Philip Jenkins talks about his latest book, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South. The book is a follow-up to his 2002 title, The Next Christendom: the Coming of Global Christianity, which was named on of the top religion books of that year by USA Today.
link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6188150
Re ‘The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South’ – Thanks for the link Jay – book sounds very interesting. Ordered it last night on Amazon.