Archbishop Makes MDGs Key Objectives for Anglican Communion
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, said that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provide a key focus for the churches of the Anglican Communion.
Williams spoke at the TEAM (Towards Effective Anglican Mission) Conference, where more than 400 people from the Anglican Communion convened in Boksburg near Johannesburg in South Africa to discuss the churches' response to the MDGs. The Anglican head said that working towards key objectives like the MDGs raised fundamental and positive challenges for the global body.
Williams will invite delegates at the conference to consider the resources in the Anglican Communion that could be offered towards the delivery of the MDGs, the better coordination of such contributions, effective relationships with government and voluntary organizations worldwide, and maintaining a keen motivation across the Communion to combat scourges of disease.
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He said he hoped the conference would give Anglicans a "shared vision and a shared energy" for aid and development, adding that aid and development concerns had produced a common understanding across the Anglican Communion, despite sizeable fissures in some areas. "One of the remarkable things is the willingness of people to work together towards addressing development goals as a sort of basic Christian imperative, even when there is tension or disagreement in other areas."
This willingness, he said, was a key motive in launching Anglicans in Development, a web-based resource from Lambeth Palace and the Anglican Communion Office supporting church-based programs to deliver better education, poverty reduction and peace building to local communities in the developing world.
"We do have serious disagreements on some areas of ethics and doctrine, but the fact remains that we're all called by the same Jesus Christ to the same mission in the world, to the mission of reconciliation, mission of justice, mission of caring, and it would be a very grim reflection on our life as a Christian community if we had to put all that on hold while we sorted out other things," he said.
Earlier this week, Williams said in a pastoral letter sent to the Primates of the Anglican Communion that the challenges faced by the worldwide denomination require "generosity and patience."
In his letter, Williams admitted that the recent meeting in Tanzania had been difficult, but a number of key issues had been properly aired.
"It was far from being an easy few days, but there was a great deal of honesty in our conversation, and a direct facing of the tensions that we still find in the life of the Communion," he stated.
He added that the Primates' decision to address requests to the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church shouldn't be understood as bypassing the church's structures. The Anglican Communion gave the U.S. Anglican wing a Sept. 30 deadline to respond to its request to place a moratorium on blessing same-sex unions or consecrating homosexuals.
"To address these requests to the American House of Bishops is not to ignore the polity of the Episcopal Church, but to acknowledge that the bishops have a key role, acknowledged in the constitution of that church, in authorizing liturgies within their dioceses and in giving consent to the election of candidates for Episcopal order."
The archbishop further expressed the hope that the proposed Pastoral Council could be developed quickly, as it would help in the development of pastoral provision for dissident Anglicans in the Episcopal Church seeking alternative primatial oversight.
"It is my hope that if such a Pastoral Council … will be an appropriate body through which the work of healing and reconciliation for which we all look may be robustly carried forward, and an account given to the rest of the communion on the working out of the Windsor Process."
Overall, Williams commended the work done in Tanzania in relation to the MDGs and proposals on theological education. He reminded Primates of their commitment to take soundings within their provinces on proposals for a Covenant for the Anglican Communion.
Despite the challenges ahead, Williams remained confident that the Church would remain focused on its mission. "I am sure that the next few months will bring further challenges which will need to be faced. If we can approach such challenges with a spirit of generosity and graciousness, however, and always ready to be submissive to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, then I am confident that the Anglican Communion can emerge from our present tensions renewed and strengthened for the mission which Christ has entrusted to us."
