Anglican Leaders in Southern Hemisphere Call for New Mission Strategies and Self-reliance
Episcopal News Service. April 21, 1994 [94088]
Anglican leaders from the Southern Hemisphere have declared that their churches depend too heavily on the "North" and have called for more sharing among churches in the developing world.
"For too long we have been too dependent on funds and other resources from the North to keep our churches going...We wish to commit ourselves to simpler ways of being the church, to learning to live within our means...," the church leaders said at their meeting in Kanuga.
More than 70 representatives of 23 Anglican provinces from 22 nations in Asia, Africa and South America met to develop strategies for mission in their part of the Anglican Communion.
At the end of their meeting, the representatives released a pastoral letter described as "A Trumpet from the South," contending that Christians in the South need to achieve self-reliance, although "without negating the biblical notion of koinonia."
"We have noted the continuing effects of colonialist exploitation on some economies, and believe that the economies of the North -- and the churches which are part of them -- have a responsibility to make some restitution," the statement said. Nevertheless, the leaders expressed anguish over the foreign debt which is crippling the economies of many nations in the South and they appealed "to the churches in the North to sensitize their respective governments to the plight of the South."
They also said that, just as they were once "objects of mission," they now want to offer themselves for mission to the rest of the Anglican Communion. "We in the South believe that God has given us distinctive gifts to offer the communion. Prime among them is our commitment to God's mission, a dynamic commitment forged in our experience of suffering, poverty, pluralism, violence, marginalization, opposition and oppression -- but also in our rich cultural diversity.
In addition to financial concerns and mission strategy, the participants addressed fundamental questions regarding faith and culture in the Southern Hemisphere. "How can we be Anglicans in our various contexts without imitating Anglo-Saxon ways?" they asked.
"In the South we express our Anglican identity in a great variety of ways with varying degrees of attachment to "traditional Anglicanism." While we value our traditions, we have often allowed them to harden into inflexible and unchangeable ideologies...We also recognize that "being Anglican" is not our final goal; rather, it is to work towards greater unity with other Christians for the sake of the reign of God," the participants concluded.