Anglican Mainstream

The Church of England Newspaper

Sir, Since I am now 65 and have not been active in Church of England affairs for some time, my letter needs an introduction to your readers. I was General Secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion between 1986 and 1989. I acted as consultant to the Lambeth Conference on Mission in 1998. For many years I have been secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians which included mission scholars from the “south” and the “west”, for example Dr Ron Sider. I also helped to found and led an institution in Oxford which has produced significant scholars for the non-western world.

I have read the concerns raised in the press by Bishop Tom Wright of Durham about the emerging network of orthodox Anglican primates, bishops and mission activists, especially in Africa and the “western” world who are calling a Global Anglican Future Conference. He has suggested in particular that that this whole movement is now following the lead and the agenda of three white men, Bishop Martyn Minns, Archbishop Peter Jensen and Canon Chris Sugden.

I am part of the leadership team of this movement. I have known and worked with Archbishops Akinola, Kolini, Mtetemela, Nzimbi and Orombi and Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali for many years. I have to say that if the scenario were as BishopWright imagines it to be, neither I nor any leader of Christians in the non-western world who have stood for years for the identity, selfrespect and dignity of Christians from the “global south” and their right to self-theologise and organise their own networks independent of influence from the former metropolitan centres of power, would have anything to do with it.

I have worked for years in global Christian networks, and more recently in theglobal corporate world. In these two worlds, the equal partnership and interaction of people from different cultures and economic backgrounds is a daily reality. If there were any sniff of cultural superiority that assumed that the involvement of white people meant that they would inevitably take the leadership role, or exercise dominant power, these movements would have died. Those who display that spirit have no place in the new global realities. That spirit is one of the reasons for the demise of the British Empire.

To see GAFCON primarily as a product of manipulation and power-play is an offence to those who lead Churches with millions of members faithful to the Christian faith and growing in the midst of the most difficult challenges in the world. What drives them is the desire to continue to make the gospel relevant and accessible to a needy world. This is the motivation behind the calling of this global gathering. This same gospel encourages them to believe that the relationships between people of different cultures can be transformed from power-play to partnership.

BishopWright makes his case in defence of the leadership of his superior, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in calling the Lambeth Conference for all bishops in the current state of the canyon of division that separates the liberals and the conservatives in the communion. It is my hope that his superior distances himself from the spirit evidenced in Bishop Wright’s remarks. If he fails to do so, then those who have accepted the Archbishop’s invitation to go to Lambeth have every reason to believe that they will be entering a world dominated by the spirit of cultural superiority that marks Bishop Wright’s article.

Canon Dr Vinay Samuel Director, Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life Oxford

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