The Consequences Stand

from The Living Church, 19 Apr. 2016

LUSAKA, Zambia — Though the Anglican Communion continues to face deep divisions, the Anglican Consultative Council closed its meeting today with a deep resolve to walk together.

“Our conversations were enriching, not embattling,” said the Rt. Rev. Jane Alexander, an ACC delegate from Canada.

“I genuinely felt there was an outstanding graciousness and generosity shown on all sides,” said the Most Rev. Richard Clarke, Archbishop of the Church of Ireland. “It was a real victory for the spirit of Anglicanism.”

ACC Churns Out Resolutions

from The Living Church, 18 Apr. 2016

LUSAKA, Zambia: In just a few hours, Anglican Consultative Council delegates passed a flurry of 44 resolutions, with an absence of acrimony and division.

Resolution C34, proposed by delegates from South Sudan, called upon the ACC to receive the report of the January Primates’ Meeting, including consequences for the Episcopal Church detailed by the primates’ communiqué. It affirmed “the commitment of the Primates of the Anglican Communion to walk together; and commits to continue to seek appropriate ways for the provinces of the Anglican Communion to walk together with each other and with the Primates and other Instruments of Communion.” As part of the consent agenda, the resolution was received without objection and passed without amendment.

Welby: Time to Act on Violence, Climate Change

from The Living Church, 16 Apr. 2016

LUSAKA, Zambia — Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby used his presidential address to urge Anglicans to look outwards, “seeking to serve the work and mission of God in the world.” He called for decisive action on religiously motivated violence and climate change, which he described as “major, global conflicts with a very clear religious content.” The address followed Choral Evensong at the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Lusaka, as delegates began to turn their attention to a series of resolutions that will guide the Communion’s life and work for the next three years.

As a worldwide network sharing a “coherent structure,” Welby said that Anglicans are uniquely positioned to make an impact on these two pressing issues, which he described as “actors [that] dominate the world stage.”

For Meditation: It takes the whole world to know the whole gospel

"He maintains that God is present on earth, that he made the earth and declared it “good,”  and that Christ is the unifying force and presence holding the entirety of earth together. The creation reveals the creator; the earth reveals Christ.

“Therefore,” states Kaoma, “in ecological terms, this manifestation of divine glory is revealed fully in the complex web of life.”[8] It takes the whole world to know the whole gospel. According to this thinking, to participate in destroying the earth is to participate in destroying the revelation of the Creator God. Kaoma moves from talking of “missio Dei” to “missio Creatoris Dei” — from “the mission of God” to “the mission of the creator God,” and he stresses that constantly upholding, renewing, and sustaining the earth is intrinsic to the creator God’s mission. He argues that the prophet Isaiah “was right when he proclaimed God’s salvation as an advent of the new creation, where all creatures will live in perfect shalom.”[9] And so, for Kaoma, climate justice involves joining God’s wider mission for the salvation of the earth as much as it involves joining with his mission for the salvation of humanity."
Graham Kings, "Climate Justice: Insights from African Anglican Theologians" Covenant, 2 Dec. 2015