Anglican Mainstream

Archbishop Yong Ping Chung, the retired Archbishop of South East Asia, and a former Chairman of the Anglican Consultative Council, responds to the arcticle by Dean Colin Slee in the Church Times: Why the Kigali Declaration is wrong: http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/?p=794

Archbishop Yong Ping Chung. The article has certain points that need to be clarified and corrected. The first point is in paragraph 2, talking about differences of opinion, talking about the Global South has now declared it is going to walk apart. The truth of the matter is that ECUSA has already done it before anybody else. That is with the three or four instruments of unity advising them and pleading with them, they still disregard all that. Now for this Dean of Southwark Cathedral to say that the Global South has now declared that they are walking apart is the furthest from the truth.

[See comments on the Slee/Yong Ping Chung debate here->http://www.titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/?p=15718#comments]

The second point is about representation. Those who went to Kigali were either the Archbishops from the Global South or representatives of the primates. The Archbishops from the Global South have all emerged from various processes of election, not like the bishops and archbishops in the English Church by appointment. They do represent their people. They are sensitive to their constituency. When they go out, they are not going out to represent themselves. They represent their Province.

Maybe I need to understand that the Dean of Southwark only has an English perspective. He really does not understand that in the Global South the Archbishops represent their Provinces. They will certainly bring the Kigali Communique back to their provinces for further discussions. But when they are there. they are making decisions according to what they know of God and of the aspiration of their Province. The Kigali Communique has brought together the agreements and consensus of all those who were there.

I was there sitting with them. They are very concerned for the Anglican Communion. That is the last thing they want to destroy. They appreciated the faith that they have received from the former days when part of the Anglican Communion sent missionaries to their part of the world. They want to preserve it as much as possible. But they are not willing to allow false teaching to manipulate unity at the expense of truth and faith.

Who pays for the conference? The Dean of Southwark has a very fixed idea. He insulted the Global South Primates by implying that everything has to be paid for by some one else who will call the tune. In fact the meeting in Kigali did not receive any funding from big donors as described by this Dean. Some of the primates came on their own. Some are subsidised through the Global South Fund which is contributed to by the various provinces.

One of the things that is most obvious in this meeting is that they shared the cost to get there. They want to discuss matters that concern them all. If you look at the agenda and communiqué carefully, the three top items concerning the Anglican Communion is about the Covenants, and about ECUSA and about the future of the Communion in terms of the Lambeth Conference. The other three very important items that were part of the discussion were the economic empowerment, theological formation and Partnership in Mission among the South-South churches.

Q. There is an implication in what Dean Slee has written that those of a conservative persuasion in the Network in the United States may have contributed financially to the Global South meeting.

Archbishop Yong Ping Chung: I understand and know that this meeting is self-financed by the Global South Provinces. Making such an inference (that he who pays the piper calls the tune) actually shows up the colonial thinking which is not real today in the Anglican Communion. It is very insulting to all the leadership of the Global South to suggest that they do not know what is right and wrong and that they do not have their own mind to make decisions.

The Dean of Southwark and his colleagues cannot comprehend this. They think everything the Global South is doing must be financed and hence controlled by the rich Americans who will further their own agendas.

The meeting was not a private meeting. The Global South meetings came from the Lambeth Conference and the ACC when the South-to-South meetings were set up. The Kigali meeting was a follow up of the meeting in Egypt last October which had a very high profile. This time we did not seek to put everything into the newspaper. But it was not a private meeting.

On the points of what the Primate of Southern Africa has said and implied: the Dean of Southwark should have read the answer given by the Most Revd John Chew, the secretary of the Global South Steering Committee. [Read here->http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/comments/some_points_of_clarification_on_the_kigali_meeting_and_communique/]To bring this up again as another point of belittling the leadership of the Global South Leaders and the Kigali Meeting betrays the whole intention of the Dean of Southwark in sending his writing to the press. He should have checked his facts and be more responsible for what he said in public. All of us who serve God should not intentionally mislead our people and create confusion in the situation that is already hard for our people.

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