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Archbishop of Canterbury Brings Strong Evangelical Message on First Official Visit

Episcopal News Service. October 1, 1992 [92197]

On his first official visit to the United States, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey swept through six dioceses on an intense, coast-to-coast whirlwind trip, preaching and teaching and listening to a wide variety of Episcopalians. Wherever he went, he met with the curious and the pious, charming them with his delightful sense of humor, stirring them with his forthright evangelical preaching.

First stop on the two-week visit was the House of Bishops meeting in Baltimore where he joined a day-long discussion on the authority of Scripture on September 11. Carey said that "a new world order requires a new church -- outward looking, vibrant and confident." He warned against an "introverted" view of the world that ignores those "who are persecuted for their faith on the frontiers of human existence." And he warned that too much emphasis on maintenance of the institution and too little emphasis on mission can lead to "wallowing in our own little world."

"We cannot engage with Scripture or interpret it without entering into a dialogue with the word of God," Carey said in a prepared speech. "We are not simply sponges who soak up the word of God, nor are we vessels simply waiting to be filled." Instead of assuming "an authoritarian teaching office," ready to "dispense answers to every question," Carey urged bishops to be "a living canon -- a focal point where dialogue with issues of Christian belief is invited."

Sounding a theme that he would use throughout his visit, the archbishop said that he envisioned a "diaconal church, reaching out and relating the faith in communities where the needs are real."

Laity are Christ's mission in the world

The following day, Carey addressed a consultation on lay leadership in Washington, D.C., sponsored by Trinity Parish of New York. In a message beamed by satellite to about 6,000 Episcopalians gathered in 55 sites across the nation, Carey said that "it is the lay members who are unquestionably those with the keenest perception of the needs of our world... with countless opportunities to make Christ known in the world."

The church does not adequately affirm the role of laity in the world, Carey contended, and the church therefore "loses out on the very resources God has provided for the church's well-being and growth." The archbishop said the church is finally "waking up to the fact that its task is too big and too important to be left in the hands of the few -- especially the few whose training and experience is mismatched when set against many of the needs of today's world." He reminded his nationwide audience that "Christ came to bring us a kingdom, not a church" and that the church "has been and must always be a vehicle of mission to the world so that many may be initiated and come into the kingdom." That may require a revolutionary attempt to move the church beyond survival as an institution to "a truly prophetic church."

In efforts to empower laity for their ministry in the world, "the local church and its structures must come second to the needs of those serving Christ in the world and the real needs of the communities in which we live."

Then for an hour Carey answered questions via satellite from a half dozen dioceses, leading him to expand on his strong support for lay leadership during a lively exchange.

Minds as well as hearts

Returning to the Diocese of Maryland, Carey preached at the festive Eucharist to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Anglican presence and the 200th anniversary of the first bishop consecrated on American soil. He urged the congregation to follow Bishop Thomas Claggett's example, to be an "outward-looking church, confident that our Gospel has a word to say to the perennial questions and daily predicaments of human life."

"People hunger and thirst for righteousness, for justice -- but they also hunger for a faith that will feed their minds as well as their hearts," Carey continued. "True evangelism will always stretch the minds, as well as satisfy the hearts and souls of those who seek the bread of life."

At a Sunday Eucharist at Washington National Cathedral, Carey warned against allowing single issues to detract from the central calling of the church to preach the Gospel. The issues of the day must not allow "the Gospel basics of trust, forgiveness, love and joy to be obscured by contemporary problems," Carey said.

Carey applauded the Episcopal Church's "exemplary record in its action for the world's poor" and said that the church "must not betray its calling to bind up the broken-hearted and heal the sick" as the miseries of the world continue to deepen. "Americans, on the whole, I have found, are not disturbed when leadership takes them into areas of risk, where tough decisions have to be made and adventurous faith exercised."

Setting a pattern that he would follow throughout his visit, Carey didn't allow himself to be confined to pulpits but insisted on mixing with a variety of people. Underscoring his deep commitment to the role of youth in the church, Carey joined youth on the lawn of the cathedral in the afternoon and said that "Jesus has a special place in his heart for young people. Enjoy your Christianity -- and never let grown-ups tell you that you are the church of the future; you are the church of today."

Genuine tolerance

Instead of taking time to catch its breath after events in Baltimore and Washington, the Carey party caught a plane for Cincinnati in the Diocese of Southern Ohio, where the archbishop preached at a Eucharist and delivered the annual Taft Memorial Lecture, urging Christians to be tolerant of one another and people of other faiths. "Christianity can maintain its commitment to the uniqueness of Christ in a pluralist world and yet still be genuinely tolerant," he said.

Tolerance is not the same as indifference, Carey warned. "People steeped in the laziness of mental or moral indifference sometimes pride themselves on their tolerance," but they are only avoiding the moral struggle.

Christians are called upon to bear the pain of the cross because the genuinely tolerant are those who "cope with the pain which passion brings and are able also to enter into the pain which others feel," Carey said.

"Only out of such mutuality of toleration will the dynamic come which gives freedom and space to all -- and which will make a pluralist world not one of indifference, coldness and hardness, but one in which love and charity may triumph," Carey said.

Pilgrims together

On his next stop, Carey met with lay and clergy leaders in the Diocese of Olympia (Washington), picking up his theme of shared ministry. "The problems begin when your tradition becomes a church," he said. "The church will not grow unless we begin from a theology that says we are all ministers. The only difference between us is our areas of jurisdiction and authority. Each Christian has something to offer God; we need to help each other identify our gifts and find opportunities to serve."

While in the diocese Carey visited the only Cambodian congregation in the Episcopal Church. He also visited a home for persons living with AIDS where he spent time in private conversation and prayer with residents.

At an ecumenical Evensong at St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle, Carey told an ecumenical congregation of 1,500 that the diocese "was begun by pioneers and they remain pioneers even now, especially ecumenically." Using as a model the cathedral in Papua New Guinea, which has no doors or walls, Carey said that "our churches need to be equally open. We must not be in too great a hurry with answers, but rather be for people and with them."

At a press conference at the close of his visit, Carey fielded difficult questions on the relationship between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, including questions concerning critical remarks he has made about a celibate priesthood and the Vatican's position on birth control. While admitting that "we have traveled a long way together" in the last 25 years and have moved "from a polemical to a convergent theology," the ordination of women has emerged as a serious obstacle. "We need to find a way to hold the tensions together in a way that creates harmony," Carey said.

Spiritual poverty

Asked why he had accepted an invitation to the Diocese of the Rio Grande, which was his next stop after Seattle, Carey said he had heard about New Mexico and the Land of Enchantment and was prepared to be enchanted. After he addressed the diocesan convention, met with bishops and ecumenical leaders of New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, and presided over the Eucharist, many participants were convinced that the Carey party brought its own English-style enchantment to the Southwest.

Spiritual poverty was Carey's theme in Albuquerque. Sounding very much like the teacher he was for 17 years before his consecration as a bishop, Carey deplored the "woeful ignorance of, not only Christ, not only things of God, but actually the fundamentals of Scripture."

Carey said that there are not enough opportunities to question, discuss and explore the essentials of the Christian faith. "From my earliest days as a Christian in my late teens, I can testify to the value of being in a church where the Bible and its truths were presented clearly. It was there with others that I developed my awareness of Scripture and tested out my convictions."

Carey also expressed his concern about the quality of Christian worship, which he called "the shop window of the church's faith." He said that "it is our responsibility to keep that window clear so that the joy, the enthusiasm, the splendor, the mystery and the meaning of worship is there for all to see."

Quoting an English bishop, Carey closed his sermon by saying that "there is no way of belonging to Christ except by belonging gladly and irrevocably to that glorious rag-bag of saints and fatheads who make up the one holy, catholic and apostolic church." God seeks to rescue us from spiritual poverty, Carey added, from "all the hurt and brokenness. He longs to make us men and women he can use in the spiritual renewal of his church, of his people and of his world."

Dedication of Compasrose

On the last day of his visit to the United States, Carey preached and dedicated a Compasrose, symbol of the Anglican Communion, at New York's Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, met with ecumenical leaders and received an honorary degree at the General Theological Seminary.

In his sermon in the cavernous splendor of the world's largest Gothic cathedral, Carey said there was both challenge and blessing in the multicultural diversity of a diocese such as New York. "You have the opportunity -- indeed, the obligation -- to demonstrate how the Christian faith unites people across the boundaries of race and culture, while at the same time offering respect and fulfillment to each ethnic group. In this city of all cities this must remain your vocation," he said.

That vocation "has something to offer a world in which difference so often leads to conflict," Carey added. "It is our Christian faith that gives the motive and means to speak the truth in love and seek the unity and peace that is the will of God."

Calling attention to the Greek phrase at the center of the Compasrose, Carey said that the truth does bring a freedom that "energizes our search for God's truth and makes us open to fresh discoveries from revelation and God's world all around us." Carey concluded that "Christian truth sets people free -- free to think, free to develop, free to be."

The theologian as explorer

At the General Theological Seminary, Carey explored the vocation of the theologian as an explorer and risk taker, pushing the boundaries of sacred knowledge. That exploration must take place in a context of worship because "doxology undergirds theology and points the direction in which we must all travel. A seminary has a vocation to praise God," Carey said.

The theological exploration "never makes us superior to the revelation we explore," Carey said. "The critic remains subject to the body of truth he examines."

"To separate worship, prayer and praise from the vocation of the whole community is to introduce another theological dissonance," Carey said. "It divides up what is essentially one objective -- the knowledge and worship of Almighty God."

Ten days, a dozen speeches and sermons, quiet receptions and splendid worship services gave the archbishop little time to reflect on the details of his visit. Yet the shape of the visit gave a strong clue to Carey's leadership. While clearly buoyed by his encounters with the American bishops and theologians, Carey was most passionate about the potential for lay leadership in the church. With an eye to the future, he made certain that there was time for conversations with youth of the church.

Many were impressed by the clearness of Carey's Gospel message, relieved that Canterbury was taking evangelism seriously. Others were impressed that Carey made such a clear connection between the Gospel and justice issues, that he displayed such a deep understanding of the brokenness of the world. Nearly everyone commented on Carey's obvious pastoral nature, how he reached out to engage people in conversation. "His earthiness, his sense of humor, his ability to articulate the hopes and dreams of so many of us was a wonderful gift," commented one rector from a small parish in Ohio. "I'm proud to be a part of the Anglican Communion with a leader like Carey."

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