Sewanee's School of Theology among six sites chosen to host communion-wide Bible project
Episcopal News Service. March 17, 2010 [031710-03]
Matthew Davies
The School of Theology at Sewanee: The University of the South has been chosen as one of six sites worldwide to host the Anglican Communion's "Bible in the Life of the Church" project.
The project, which was launched in December 2009 during the steering committee's first meeting in London, "aims to explore how Anglicans in different contexts actually use the Bible by exploring Scripture together and reflecting on the encounter; to produce resource materials for use at all levels of Christian education; and to re-evaluate the ways in which Anglicans have heard, studied, and received Scripture," according to a news release from Sewanee, an Episcopal Church-affiliated seminary in Tennessee.
"The School of Theology will host the North American group that will be part of a new exploration of the ways the Bible functions in the life of the church," the release says.
The Rev. Robert MacSwain, instructor of theology and Christian ethics at Sewanee and a member of the Bible project's steering committee, has been named the coordinator of the regional group, which will organize the project's case study work within Canada and the United States.
The Very Rev. Dr. William S. Stafford, dean of the School of Theology, said, "With our faculty, who all think hard and care deeply about the Scripture's use in the church, and with Education for Ministry spreading particularly effective ways for adults to reflect on the Word and their lives, Sewanee is a natural site for a project such as this. We are honored to serve the Anglican Communion in this way."
The other regional groups are located in East Africa (St. Paul's University, Limuru, Kenya), Southern Africa (University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Anglican House of Studies), Southeast Asia (Trinity Theological College, Singapore), Oceania (drawing on the resources of the theological colleges in Melbourne, Australia) and Europe (Queen's Foundation, Birmingham, England).
Each regional group will be presented with a case study with a core task: "to enable processes of biblical engagement with the Fifth Mark of Mission: ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.'"
The project's steering committee, at the conclusion of its first meeting, said it hopes that, "through exploring together a selection of key biblical passages which relate to this theme -- widely acknowledged as one of the most crucial challenges facing the churches and humanity today -- we will be able to offer evidence of the way in which we, as Anglicans, actually handle the Bible and to identify principles of biblical interpretation."
A reference group will appraise the ongoing work of the project and user groups will test out material that emerges from the work of the regional groups and the steering committee.
Project manager and administrator Stephen Lyon told ENS that "while the groups are being hosted by institutions the project is not only about academia but seeking to look at how we handle the Bible at every level of church life."
The project was mandated by the Anglican Consultative Council, the communion's main policy-making body, via Resolution 14.06 passed during its Jamaica meeting in May 2009. The project will run initially for a period of three years, reporting back to the ACC at its next meeting in 2012.
Calls for such a project were cited in the 2004 Windsor Report, a document that presented several recommendations on how the communion could maintain unity amid differing viewpoints, especially in relation to human sexuality issues and biblical interpretation. The report, which called in Paragraph 61 for "the whole Anglican Communion to re-evaluate the ways in which we have read, heard, studied and digested scripture" underscored the need for "mature study, wise and prayerful discussion, and a joint commitment to hearing and obeying God as he speaks in scripture."
Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Brisbane, primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, told the ACC last May that in debates about the proper use of Scripture "we see the others as not understanding Scripture properly, as not taking Scripture seriously, as applying Scripture in ways it shouldn't be applied, or all three of those." The project that the council endorsed, he said, has been developed "in order to build understanding, trust and respect" among those who take different approaches to the Bible in the life of the church.
Lyon told ENS that the present tensions within the Anglican Communion concerning human sexuality issues "have shown that while we acknowledge the Bible is central to our life together, experience suggests we handle it in different ways. This project is seeking to explore what those differences are so that we can better understand the positions we hold. Our hopes are that this understanding will enable us to talk more meaningfully across some of the diversity within the communion."
Reflecting on the steering group's December meeting, Lyon said, "Those involved left London excited by the possibilities of the project. It will involve the grass roots as well as scholars; encourage an excitement in exploring the Bible; take seriously the diversity of our communion while acknowledging the foundational place Scripture has always played in our common life."
Clare Amos, the Anglican Communion's director for theological studies, echoed this commitment to ensure that the project takes seriously the widest possible range of Anglican experience. "At our meeting in London we shared both our high hopes for the task, and a range of creative ways of taking this work forward," she said. "We want the people of the Anglican Communion as a whole to share the sense of urgency and importance that the project is generating. It is vital that different regions of the Anglican world are empowered to make their distinctive contributions."