| AD CLERUM - April 2007 |
Dear Friends
Having attended two conferences in as many months I feel as if I am experiencing an 'information overload' and now need space to process and absorb all that I have heard. Nevertheless, as with the Rosalind Brown conference, it was a throwaway comment that was made at the TEAM (Towards Effective Anglican Mission) Conference that has lingered in my mind. There were some outstanding presentations, most notably the one made by Archbishop Rowan Williams, but the throwaway comment that has stuck with me was one made by a speaker from Uganda. He said, 'You can have the finest constitution in the world, you can pass the finest laws, but unless you have the political will to apply it, it is all just so much window dressing and rhetoric.'
Much of the reason why those have stayed with me has been because of recent events in the political arena that highlight the truth of those words. For example:-
Our government has made much of its stand on gender issues - including the issue of rape, violence against women and that of sexual harassment. But despite the rhetoric, there is little evidence of any plan to curb the incidence of rape and violence within our communities. And now, in the face of all that they have said about sexual harassment, we have recently been presented with a situation in which a person who was fired by a government department after being found guilty of more than 24 counts of sexual harassment over an extended period of time over many years has been appointed to a senior political position.
There is widespread discontent about a crime rate that seems to many to be spiralling out of control. While seeking to minimise the extent of the problem State officials, including our State President, have assured us that the matter is receiving urgent attention and that every effort is being made to address the problem. And yet … there would seem to be clear evidence that certain people receive preferential treatment within our prison system, and allegations of misconduct and corruption are simply ignored and dismissed without investigation. The latest salvos in the battle against crime are the instruction of the ANC to its members of parliament to vote against a report of its own parliamentary processes that questions the truthfulness and integrity of the Department of Prisons, and our State President's allegation that the allegations of rampant crime are racist in origin.
Our State President speaks eloquently about issues of justice and human rights and we are all proud that we have a constitution that enshrines human rights for all. And yet, despite owing so much in our struggle for liberation to the support and pressure brought by other countries on our apartheid government, our President has maintained a deafening silence to the blatant abuses of human rights in Zimbabwe. Our policy of 'quiet diplomacy' has yielded little if any fruit and looks identical to the former American policy of 'constructive engagement' that the ANC rightly condemned. And the problem lies not only outside of our borders, but within our own land in the cavalier way the grievances of the people of Khutsong are treated.
In a recent document on corruption and unethical behaviour the National Executive Committee of the ANC said: 'If this trend continues, then the real casualty will become the character of the ANC.' How right they are, and I need to say that, for me, that point has already been reached - the ANC in its inability or unwillingness to rise to the challenge and address the critical issues that confront us stands compromised and will, I believe, be judged accordingly by history.
However, the purpose of this meditation is not to bash the ANC or any other political grouping, but rather to help us reflect on what it means to be the Church of God in these troubled times. In her book 'The Sense of the Call,' Marva Dawn comments on the words in 2 Timothy 4:1-5 and says:-
'Why should it matter so much whether people will stomach healthy doctrine? It is indeed critical that all of us who serve the Church should recognise how much our culture's inability to digest wholesome dogma is the source of its ills. If people have no sense that there is a truth larger than themselves, their individual self-interest reigns supreme; without ethics the social fabric of society deteriorates, and random violence and polarising rhetoric, sexual obscenity and public incivility, rampant greed and disregard for the common good escalate; without a workable philosophy of life beyond themselves people find no lasting meaning; without purpose there can be only intensifying anomie and passivity and rage that erupts into more violence.'
I find those words terrifying because, written in a different context and for a different country, they so accurately describe what is happening in our own land. She goes on to say,
'However much society in general is characterised by the lack of any morality, the real problem … is that the effects of this ethos in our culture have invaded Christian communities. … When churches lose or fail to develop their doctrinal bones, such disjunction between spirituality and ethics becomes possible. Moreover, parish conflicts escalate because there are no standards larger than personal opinions; the working philosophy of the congregation can easily become mindlessly utilitarian; the lack of genuine mission engenders anomie and passivity. Then the members resemble the people described by 2 Timothy 4, with "twitching ears," who "accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires." '
That brings me back to those words at the TEAM Conference. We may (and do) have gospel for the world, we may have words of eternal life, but unless we have the will to live it, it is all just so much window dressing and rhetoric and we become a part of the problem within our society. One might go even further and suggest that, because we have failed 'to develop our doctrinal bones' and failed to form our people in the faith, we have in fact contributed to the problems that beset us.
Contrary to much modern preaching, the primary focus in Jesus' teaching was not God's love, but God's kingdom - God's plan of salvation which is already unfolding and being realised in the world of everyday experience. Our call as Christians is to actively participate in what God is doing in the world and to make God's rule visible in our lives and in our dealings with others. Only as we reclaim the centrality of the concept of kingdom in our teaching will we recover a sense of being a kingdom people - a people whose lives are different because we march to a different drum and recognise and respond to signs invisible and unnoticed by others, signs that proclaim God at work in the world and in our lives. Only by seeking God's kingdom above all else will we begin to relax our hold on the idols of this word: money, sex and power. And when that happens, then resurrection life will begin to shine through in our lives, transforming us, and our church and the world.
May the gift of resurrection life fill your hearts this Easter,
+ Brian