Diocesan News
The Bishop of Tuam's Presidential Address, Tuam Diocesan Synod 2008
The Diocesan Synod of Tuam, Killala and Achonry was held in Westport on Thursday, 25 September 2008. The following is the transcript of the Presidential Address given by the Bishop of Tuam, the Rt Revd Dr Richard Henderson.
Once again it is my very great and personal pleasure to welcome you all to our annual deliberations which we call our diocesan Synod. You are all most welcome. In particular, and on your behalf, I welcome Archbishop Michael Neary’s representative and also our guest speaker today who is Mr Graham Wylie who will be speaking to us later on be difficult and painful subject of suicide – a scourge that has affected so many lives, not least and so tragically in this locality. I am also delighted to welcome once again Albert Hempenstall from Protestant Aid, Martin O’Connor from Bishops Appeal, Sylvia Simpson from the Priorities Fund, Stella Obe from CMS, Avril Gilatt from CMH, and Jan and Linda from USPG.
I want to begin by making an appeal. As some of you have recently read in the latest edition of Tidings, we are entering something of a crisis in the resourcing of our church services Sunday by Sunday. As you will know, we have a vacancy in Skreen and Galway and Oughterard will shortly become vacant through the retirement of Patrick Towers. A number of our parish and diocesan readers have moved from the diocese or have become sick and indeed have died in the past year. But as you will know I am very committed to keeping small churches open and facilitating, as best we can, the regular Sunday worship. This means that we simply must look to our own resources to see whether there are people here in the diocese – and I firmly believe there are – who would be willing, given suitable training, to assist in the conduct of worship. I do hope that you will give very serious thought to this matter and not be slow in offering your help and service. Three first person to contact if you think you might be able to help in this way is your rector.
In recent weeks, at one of the great events in the life of the church has been the Lambeth Conference, held in the University of Kent in the latter part of July and the beginning of August. You may have read a certain amount about the nature of the conference in the newspapers but I hope that some sort of insider’s report will be of some interest. Indeed, many of you have asked what exactly went on and what it was like. The only document to be officially produced from the Lambeth conference is a short enough pamphlet entitled ‘Lambeth reflections’ and so a sense of the best communication of what actually happened is to be derived from those who actually attended; as one of the bishops said, ‘we are the documents’. So, speaking as a document, as you might say, for the first part of my address to you today, I would like to give some preliminary reflections on what was a truly marvellous and inspiring opportunity for bishops from throughout the world to meet together and to take counsel in a totally new way. Even now, at two months to remove, I can scarcely believe how fortunate I was to have been present and how amazing it was to sit at meals and have casual conversation with some of the most inspiring church leaders of our time.
There were, I think, four things that most impressed me at the Lambeth Conference. The first was the retreat led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the second was the Bible studies, the third the philosophy and scheme of the work of the Indaba groups, and the fourth were the unscheduled and unplanned possibilities for interacting with such a huge variety of people from all corners of the globe. I would like to say a little bit about each of these in turn, focusing particularly on the work of the Indaba groups which I think provides a very useful template for how we might better do our business.
As 670 or so bishops we had the opportunity to enjoy Canterbury Cathedral and all its wonderful medieval curtilage for the purposes of our retreat which lasted for three days, during which the Archbishop gave five utterly magisterial reflections. Mindful of the overall brief of the conference which was to consider the role of Bishop in the mission of the Church, the Archbishop spoke philosophically, scripturally and very personally about the privilege and pain of being called to be a Christian leader in the world and reminded us that if we were to be true disciples of Christ we should never be content with a separation of church and society, of leader from leader, of one understanding from another, or so many of the other obvious dissension and disparities. Rather, it was in the holding together of these that we all begin to fulfil our vocation to be Christ-like leaders. It is impossible to do justice to the depth and breadth of what he said, and in any case his reflections were not made public, but I think the bishops universally understood and celebrated our privilege in having such a leader at this time, whose personal holiness shone through it all. In many ways also, although I am sure this was not his primary intention, the reflections revealed very deeply how the Archbishop sees his own Episcopal ministry and were therefore in certain in some sense an apologia pro vita sua.
The conference was extremely carefully structured, having taken some two years to plan. There were basically two essential groupings. The Bible studies were composed of eight bishops, one of whom was a leader of the group, I think pretty much randomly selected from around the globe. There were sixteen Indaba groups, each with forty members, these being made up of five Bible study groups (5x8 = 40).
In my Bible study group I had bishops from America, Polynesia, the Indian Ocean, England, New Zealand and Ireland. We were lucky enough to be able to speak in English without the need for interpreters. We studied the gospel of St John and especially ‘I am sayings’ of Jesus. Each morning we rose for morning worship at 7:15am. After breakfast we went into our Bible study groups shortly after nine. In my Bible study group we were treated to the most amazing insights and personal stories that arose, seemingly effortlessly, from our dialogue around the scriptures. It is a truly wonderful thing that never ceases to amaze me to see how totally different people from totally different backgrounds can meet in almost instantaneous Fellowship and depth over the study of the scriptures. Some of the personal stories and understandings which I heard were truly life changing and I shall never forget them. Also, the more you get to know people and to see how deeply the same scriptures that you yourself cherish have moved and influenced them, the harder it is to stand over disagreements of doctrine and faith without at the very least pausing for serious reflection and self questioning.
After the Bible studies had met there was each day a brief break to relocate within the university campus and to grab a cup of coffee, followed by the indaba groups. As I have said, these larger groups were composed of five smaller groups who had already begun to get to know each other extremely well. At it happened, I was invited to be one of the Indaba group leaders and this was a task I approached with very considerable trepidation, to say the least!
But I was very deeply sympathetic with the concept of Indaba, itself a Zulu word, which describes a meeting of elders when there is a common problem or difficulty to be solved. The idea is that you do not come with your preconceptions and conclusions but rather you come into a totally safe space to speak your mind and to listen to the mind of others in a way that is completely respectful of difference. All must engage, all must speak, all must listen to each other and to God. I even encouraged members to say what was on their mind even if they were not sure that they agreed with what they were thinking! In other words we were able to say, in an atmosphere of complete trust and confidence, I think I think ... The hope is, and it often happens, that out of this meeting of minds a common conclusion or decision is reached which was nobody’s in particular but it is everybody's in general. If I can put it in very simple terms, I would say it is like a teacher who used to shout at me at school saying, ‘Henderson, you idiot, I do not wish see your answers, I want to see your working!!’ This seems to me to be a stroke of genius at this stage in the Anglican Communion’s quest for self identity and definition: to find and articulate a shared understanding of how and why we think and believe the way we do.
So, the depth of understanding of the process and the depth of Fellowship of the people are both integral to the success of Indaba. One of the things that rapidly emerged was the discovery of just how few people actually occupy the extreme positions (so much celebrated by the media) and how many are still searching and questioning in what we might call term the "middle-ground". Interesting enough, when the a primary and much-treasured identity of Anglicanism is its breadth, and the question being asked again and again is, "what are the limits to this breadth?" Indaba provided the perfect atmosphere and opportunity for sensitive discussion of this sort.
But it was one thing to believe so completely, as I did, in the rightness of the process. But it was quite another to make it happen! I've found the task extraordinarily daunting, mindful of how opinionated and strong so many individual bishops can be; the thought of trying to manage them all together for a full thirteen exhausting sessions was enough to reduce me either to a gibbering wreck but for the fact that I literally fell to my knees each morning asking for grace – which was mercifully granted. Indeed, when I was first asked to do this, my sentiment was well expressed by the Irish saying, ‘This is going to be as difficult as herding weasels at a crossroads!’ But it turned out to be a most wonderful experience. The conference designers had very deliberately and steadfastly left the most vexed questions to be discussed until the second week. This allowed us first to share issues to do with mission and ministry in our own contexts as a very deep level and to bond the group further in the process. Thus the first week was really, ‘pre-Indaba’. By the time we came to discuss the difficult issues of human sexuality, the Anglican Covenant, moratoria on our practice, and the way forward for the Anglican Communion, we could not speak in isolation from the deep, affectionate and sympathetic awareness of each other. This may sound to the cynical like a simple ploy to soften people or to avoid the real issues, but in fact it did exactly what it was intended to do-namely to allow us to explore the range, depth and breadth of issues that arise precisely because they are to do with people so widely, indeed globally, dispersed.
Possibly the highlight of my Indaba group was during the last two sessions when I invited each Bishop in turn to share his reflections on the whole Indaba process. Some bishops were reluctant to speak because English was not their first language but when they were encouraged to do so you could have heard a pin drop – such was the depth of what they were saying and the intensity of the listening. Tears were shed as we heard people from all around the world speaking of how moved they had been by our fellowship and interaction and nobody left the meeting on changed. In a church that is so often governed by parliamentary and synodical procedure and where the best orators are able to speak with the most confidence, we lose out dreadfully by not hearing the wisdom of the reticent. We really must, must make more use of procedural possibilities such as indaba in our church deliberations-if we are indeed to find and celebrate the great and wonderful breadth and variety that God has called into our church.
Some memories in particular arise in my mind. During the discussion on sexuality one so-called ‘liberal’ American Bishop spoke of the provision of same-sex blessings that had been happening in his diocese. It was salutary to hear how considered were his regulations attached to the same and how many demands of fidelity were expected and insisted upon. Certainly it is true that I met no unbridled liberal bishops at the conference. The second was a Bishop from Polynesia, who I had to ask to find the courage to speak, who simply said that his primary concern was whether or not, by the next Lambeth conference in 10 years time, he might have a diocese at all. He was referring of course to the low-lying land of his diocese and the threat of the sea engulfing the land and ruining the livelihood of his people. He also mentioned the startling fact that none of the major world aid agencies operate in his diocese despite severe poverty. Another, from an African country with a large Muslim population, said that it was a matter of grave danger being associated with a Christian church that endorsed same-sex blessings and the consecration of an openly gay bishop. Although the missionary priorities in these different countries were as different as could be imagined, the comments such as that from the African bishop showed that you cannot simply say that we will all do what we feel to be appropriate in our locality: there are often severe consequences, in this world of sophisticated communications technologies, for our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. Yet we are a communion, and we are world-wide: that’s our blessing and our problem.
To reinforce the benefits of an Indaba-style form of meeting, and to give you a little more of the flavour of its success at Lambeth, I would like to give you a few quotations from some bishops (for one of whom, English was his tenth language) be in their final session: ‘We are at last understanding and acknowledging each other: there is hope’; ‘The Bible study and Indaba groups have been moving beyond belief – but on the gay and lesbian question are we sacrificing our children on the altar of unity?’; ‘We are agreeing to enter a “season of gracious restraint” but this moratorium cannot last forever. This season needs to be occupied with serious theological work and dialogue’; ‘People are hurting on both sides. We cannot close down on this, but God is a God of new beginnings’; ‘We must learn to live together – or perish as fools’; ‘There are tremendous expectations on what we are bringing back from the conference – how shall we communicate the depths of fellowship and interaction that we have enjoyed?’; ‘We are a family, dysfunctional at times, and we urgently need to look at a theology of family’; ‘We must try to avoid being like the donkey in Shrek-too full of impatience to reach a destination’.
The fourth joy and opportunity of the conference to which I have referred is the unsolicited and unprogrammed meeting with people. Quite often, I personally pray at the beginning of the day that God will be God of my encounters and this, if you have not tried it, is a most rewarding prayer. Certainly as we walked around the campus, met over coffee and meals, attended worship, attended the Self Select sessions (where you could be involved in specialist discussions on a multitude of topics), took a walk down into the Canterbury or around the beautiful cathedral precincts, there were innumerable opportunities to meet and to engage. I would be happy to share some of these encounters with you but most are probably best left out of print! Either way, it was a reminder of how important it is when scheduling and planning a church meeting, to leave substantial free times and open spaces for the sort of ungoverned work of the Holy Spirit to take place. As a result of many of these conversations, we had exchanged e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and invitations to visit in the years to come.
And all the above was to say nothing of the absolutely wonderful worship that we enjoyed day by day, despite the often stifling heat of the enormous tent in which we met. Many if not most of the different provinces provided worship frequently in many different languages and with truly inspiring music. As with indaba mentioned above, and the Bible studies, this sort of corporate meeting with God puts our many different perspectives and outlooks on life in a far bigger context than any one of us could individually contain or represent. Surely be to goodness some humility or diffidence over our certainties must be the right consequence of encountering Almighty God. Also, the genuineness and the truth of the worship seems to me to bear witness to the presence of God among us; we are not abandoned and though we are often at fault we are not to lost courage with our Divine Master in our midst.
The outcome of all this is distilled, to some degree, in the Lambeth Reflections document that was issued from the conference. There were no resolutions as such as have been published in recent years and many have requested this and indeed lamented this. However, as the Archbishop himself pointed out, resolutions, if made, are not always attended to and are pretty much impossible to enforce. Instead, what we carried away with us were the invisible fruits of encounter. If it must come to some form of realignment or split or grouping within the Anglican Communion, we certainly shall not do this in ignorance of each other's mission fields and particular local needs. I do hope, pray and indeed believe that a way forward will be found - but certainly if there is to be division it will not be division based upon ignorance.
Having said all that, it was a great sadness that nearly 200 bishops chose not to attend the conference and their absence was very acutely felt. Many of the bishops who did attend the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem before the Lambeth conference did in fact attend at Lambeth and it is to be hoped that they will bring back some of the breadth and depth of the exchanges we enjoyed to the wider Anglican Communion.
Moving closer to the to home, I would like to draw your attention today to the mission statement prepared by the house of Bishops of the Church of Ireland in an attractive new document whose title page indicates the range of our own mission here in Ireland: ‘growth - unity – service’. These three sections are enlarged further as follows:
1: worship and spiritual growth
2: unity and dialogue
3: living God's kingdom and serving the world.
In each of these categories the overall theme is further enlarged in a way that I think we will find recognisable and challenging at the same time. Then again for each of these three sections there follows a list of things that we must do, and be aware of, as we seek to live out our lives as Christians and look for the coming of Christ in our midst. I hope that we will have an opportunity this Advent to discuss some of these areas of the mission of the Church and I intend myself to look at these with many of you at diocesan education days to be announced later this year and early next year. They provide a useful check-list for assessment of our life as a Church of Ireland diocese. The whole ethos of our life and denomination as church is well summarised by the words on the back page: ‘the Church of Ireland, as an authentic part of the universal Church of God, is called to develop growing communities of faith, in and through which the kingdom of God is made known, and in which the whole people serve together as followers of Jesus Christ for the good of the world to the glory of God. In the power of the Spirit, our mission requires us to order our contemporary worship and life in a manner that nurtures growth, promotes unity and liberates us for service in the world that is God's.’
Perhaps at this stage I could simply draw to your attention to the visual design of the Mission Statement; I have always thought that mission and vision statements should, if possible, be visual! The image is simply of a large broadleaved tree planted by water and the reflection on the water also reveals the depths of the roots. If this tree is our Church of Ireland belonging to the Anglican Communion, then we should note there are other trees sharing the same landscape and nourishment – of our own denomination or not – to those also we belong. The breadth and beauty of the canopy can only survive through the depths and breadth of the roots. If our church is to survive in tumultuous times we need to pay at least as much attention to our roots as to what lies above ground. A crisis in the Anglican church is not, to my mind, a crisis of overreaching and being too broad, but rather a crisis to do with theological and spiritual depth. If we attend to these first and draw deeply from the wells of salvation, we shall perhaps find a way to an Anglican Covenant of love that is formulated without fear.
Issued by the Church of Ireland Press Office
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