Anglican Answer to Fundamentalist Rome

Now, I normally don't like to interfere in Religious Business, since it only leades to more division, hate and misunderstanding. However, unlike the Papel Election last year, today the Church of England looks Progressive. Ugandan-born Dr. John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu was inaugurated today as the 97th Archbishop of York. There was a very colorful and perhaps ground-breaking ceremony - with African Dansing! - at York's ancient Minster in Northern England. With beating Drums and a proper African Rhythem he hopes to bring change. He is the first African to hold the position.

His Inauguration speech has some very remarkable Quotes:

WHO IS JESUS AND WHAT DOES HE MEAN FOR THOSE WHO PUT THEIR TRUST IN HIM? That, for me, is the critical question of our time.

Victor Hugo said that, “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world: and that is, an idea whose time has come”. Corporate-discipleship: fraternal-belonging was Jesus’ big idea, and plan for the renewal of society; a catalyst and engine for building God’s Kingdom .

His idea, which has lasted over the centuries, was simply this: a mixed community of sinners called to be saints, a divine society where the risen Christ in the midst of it is grace and truth, and the Holy Spirit is at work within it. An inclusive and generous friendship, where each person is affirmed as of infinite worth, dignity and influence. A community of love, overflowing in gratitude and wholehearted surrender, because it participates in the life of God.

This corporate-discipleship, we call the Church, worships God and infects the world with righteousness.

That is what Archbishop Michael Ramsey was getting at in his Missions in the Universities of Cambridge, Dublin and Oxford in 1960. He was speaking of the stupendous missionary century that saw the wonderful spread of Christian faith in Africa and Asia, by missionaries from these islands, and compared it to the spiritual decay in England. He longed for the day in England when the Church would learn the faith afresh from Christians of Africa and Asia.

He ended his address by saying, “ I should love to think of a black Archbishop of York [applause] holding a mission here, and telling a future generation of the scandal and the glory of the Church”.

The vast majority of Western Christians are church-members, pew-fillers, hymn-singers, sermon-tasters, Bible-readers, even born-again believers or Spirit-filled Charismatics – and we have got some those here this morning - but aren’t true disciples of Jesus Christ.

If we were willing to learn the meaning of real discipleship and actually to become disciples, the Church in the West would be transformed, and the resultant impact on society would be staggering.”

This is no idle claim. It happened in the first century when a tiny handful of timid disciples began, in the power of the Holy Spirit, the greatest spiritual revolution the world has ever known. Even the mighty Roman Empire yielded, within three centuries, to the power of the Good News of God in Christ.

Che Guevara once said, “If our revolution isn’t aimed at changing people then I’m not interested.” The trouble with virtually all forms of revolution and modernising strategies is that they change everything – except the human heart.

And until that is changed corporately, nothing is significantly different in the long run.

Created humanity, in need of salvation, must realise that the culture and institutions they create are also in need of redemption, not simply of modernising.

There is nothing more needed by humanity today than the recovery of a sense of ‘beyond-ness’ in the whole of life to revive the spring of wonder and adoration.

Christians, go and find friends who are Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, agnostics, atheists – not for the purpose of converting them to your beliefs, but for friendship, understanding, listening, hearing.

Christians, our priority for making disciples is amongst the 72% who in the last census said they were Christians. That’s where our task lies!

Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, agnostics, atheists, go and find friends amongst Christians, not for the purpose of converting them to your beliefs, but for friendship, understanding, listening, hearing.

God is working in the world today quite beyond the limits of our budgets, structures and expectation. His gospel, lived out in corporate-discipleship, has the power to transform our individual and corporate lives, our families, our communities and our nations. It has the power to break beyond our timidity and insufficiency.

Now, surely he is not the first to deliver peace, love and understanding sermons to Christian, but considering his origins, his view against the War in Iraq, President Bush he can make more impact than your average white guy.

What struck me most is that he wants to talk about the scandal and glory of the church, and so should he. Go Sentamu!

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