Anglican Consultative Council Gathers in Panama City for Triennial Meeting
Episcopal News Service. October 17, 1996 [96-1581]
(ENS) The 75 members of the Anglican Consultative Council opened a 10-day meeting in Panama City in mid-October to confront the challenge of charting a course for the church's future under the restriction of limited finances.
The representative bishops, priests, deacons and lay people from the 36 major provinces of the Anglican Communion meet every three years, and constitute one of main focuses of authority and unity in the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Setting the over-arching agenda for the meeting, Archbishop Brian Davis, primate of Aotorea, New Zealand and Polynesia, asked, "What kind of church is God calling us to be for the third millennium?" And retiring chairman Canon Colin Craston of England said that the church "has to react to the changing context of the times," keeping in mind the "good of the past to build for the future."
Throughout the meeting, participants raised their concerns about parts of the Anglican Communion plagued with turmoil. Prayers were offered in particular for the Sudan, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Burundi and Rwanda.
In his opening address, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey referred to Rwanda, "a church deeply divided physically... and spiritually," and the Holy Land, where, he said, "we have watched with horror the latest outbreaks of violence in Palestine."
Carey stressed that all members of the church are called to participate in its mission, and that they must not ignore the reality of people's experience.
"Evangelism which fails to address the physical situation which people are in borders on escapism," he said. "True evangelism is always holistic and addresses the whole of life, . . . and all our structures exist to serve the mission of the people of God."
Picking up on the same theme of mission, the Rev. Canon John Peterson, the ACC's secretary general, challenged the church to get its own house in order quickly so that it can carry out its mission work throughout the next millennium.
"The world is starving," he said. "Some places have literally no food, no medicine, no nothing. But the world is also starving spiritually. People are bound by fears, distrust and compromise."
The church, he said, can share "a faith that broadens the horizons, opens the heart and mends the wounded soul."
Peterson noted that Anglicans are already deeply involved in helping to meet the world's problems, and that demands on the Anglican Communion office to assist member provinces in their mission are increasing substantially. He said that sense of partnership throughout the Communion is crucial, he said. Even though each Anglican province is autonomous, "scripture calls us to be part of a whole body," he said. "Are we ready to be God's hands, feet and eyes in our global family to help others?"
At the same time, he reported, not all members can pay their fair share of expenses to support that shared ministry. "We are living by faith, but the reality is that our faith is being tested."
The increasing burdens on the Anglican Communion Office staff have made the existing office space increasingly inadequate, and incomplete funding has threatened the mission of the Anglican Communion's United Nations observer in New York, Peterson said.
He announced two fundraising initiatives -- an Anglican Investment Agency and an Anglican Communion Friends program -- to help restore financial stability and to provide development funds that "will help provinces and dioceses to be more self-sufficient, and at the same time to have outreach programs in local communities."
The investment agency would be a mutual fund that would allow Anglicans to make ethical investments, while the Friends program would encourage support from individuals and congregations.
Council members found their attention turning repeatedly to the next Lambeth Conference less than two years away.
"The next Lambeth Conference will be a defining moment for Anglicanism," said Archbishop Robin Eames of Ireland in a report on the work of the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission. "It will stand or fall on our sense of unity and vision."
The commission, which he chairs, is trying to "discover more what it means to be an Anglican," while also seeking to understand the inter-relationship of the four Anglican "instruments of unity," or the Anglican Consultative Council, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the regular meeting of Anglican primates, and the Lambeth Conference.
"As Anglicans we accept the concept of unity in diversity," Eames said. "It lies at the center of the raison d'etre of Anglicanism." The commission's work, which is being compiled in a document called the Virginia Report, "attempts to relate our understanding of that principle in the light of theological and practical experience of the 'instruments."'
The report maintains that the Lambeth Conference epitomizes the fundamental importance of face-to-face communication for the healthy life of the Communion, he said.
Bishop Simon Chiwanga of Tanzania was named the new chairman of the ACC on the first round of balloting, October 14. Bishop John Paterson of Auckland in the Province of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia was elected vice chairman after a series of closely contested ballots.
Chiwanga, who is the former minister of education in the Tanzanian government, has been vice chair of the ACC, and is a long-time member of the ACC and its standing committee. Elected bishop in 1991, Chiwanga has been director of the National Institute for Rural Development, sponsored by the United Nations Development Program, and provincial secretary of the Church of the Province of Tanzania. He said he hopes to bring his strong calling to the ministries of evangelism and teaching to his role as ACC chairman.
Paterson, who is fluent in both English and Maori, said he intends to raise the concerns of indigenous people throughout the Anglican Communion. Elected bishop in 1995, he has held a number of prominent positions in his church, including secretary/administrator for the Maori Church and provincial/general secretary.
"The election of these two outstanding leaders will bring breadth and vision to the work of the Anglican Consultative Council," said Peterson. secretary-general of the Anglican Communion. Bishop Chiwanga, he noted, "comes from the African continent where Anglican witness is courageous, lively and fast growing," while Paterson "will bring an important voice from Aotorea, New Zealand and Polynesia as well as from the Asia Pacific and Melanesian regions."
Bishop Mark Dyer, ACC representative from the Episcopal Church in the United States, called Chiwanga's election "representative of the growth of the Anglican church in Africa, as well as indicating the Communion-wide perception of Africa's spiritual and theological maturity."
Panama City traffic came to a standstill when 2,500 members of Anglican Church in Panama joined ACC delegates in a procession to the Gimnasio Nuevo sports hall, the site of Sunday morning Eucharist, October 13. Accompanied by police and youth bands, the procession included members of 27 parishes carrying banners.
After reaching the hall, they joined in a three-hour service incorporating the variety of languages reflected in the Anglican Communion.
Bishop Clarence W. Hayes of Panama served as celebrant for the "Gran Misa" service, while Carey preached.
In his sermon, Carey stressed that leadership in the midst of privation, poverty, suffering and persecution can be exercised by either clergy or laity, and marks an essential factor if the church is to stand firm in the face of oppression. "There can be no effective leadership worthy of the name that is not steeped in the calling to serve," Carey said. He contrasted that daring model of leadership to "bureaucratic" leadership resigned to "shoring up an institution rather than inspiring people for adventure."
Sixteen bishops and archbishops joined in distributing the host, and 16 priests of the Church in Panama administered the chalice.