Friday, August 1, 2008

Lambeth please take care

As we head into the last few days of Lambeth one wonders what outcome - if any - there will be!

Rereading Chief Rabbi Sack's lecture I note these words, with one phrase emboldened by me:

"We are living through one of the most fateful ages of change since Homo sapiens first set foot on earth. Globalisation and the new information technologies are doing two things simultaneously. First, they are fragmenting our world. Narrowcasting is taking the place of broadcasting. National cultures are growing weaker. We are splitting into ever smaller sects of the like-minded.
But globalisation is also thrusting us together as never before. The destruction of a rainforests there adds to global warming everywhere. Political conflict in one place can create a terrorist incident in another, thousands of miles away. Poverty there moves consciences here. At the very moment that covenants of faith are splitting apart, the covenant of fate is forcing us together -- and we have not yet proved equal to it.
All three elements of the global covenant are in danger. The sanctity of human life is being desecrated by terror. The integrity of creation is threatened by environmental catastrophe. Respect for diversity is imperiled by what one writer has called the clash of civilisations. And to repeat -- the covenant of fate precedes the covenant of faith. Before we can live any faith we have to live. And we must honour our covenant with future generations that they will inherit a world in which it is possible to live. That is the call of God in our time."

I hope Lambeth keeps the big picture, the covenant of fate, in mind as well as the covenant of faith! Please take care, bishops. Some of us do not want to descend into a former church of many present sects!!

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