Friday, August 7, 2015

It has been an interesting week

So a post or so below I popped in a photo from Sunday night's Induction in Timaru. Monday morning saw me on a plane for a rare - these days - visit to St John's College, where I found our students in very good heart. It was great seeing family that night and learning of a modest bit of success.

Then a two day meeting I chair annually. Back on the plane Wednesday evening. Back to Timaru on Thursday morning. This time it was the pleasure and privilege of driving Archbishop Philip Richardson to St Philip's Marchwiel for a retreat for Archdeaconry of South Canterbury clergy and lay workers.

We had a lovely time together, but the Archbishop and I missed the first day of the Anglican Schools Conference, which included a talk from international theologian Brian McLaren. Though to be fair to myself I may have enhanced the purity of my orthodoxy by not hearing him :). 

Naturally we made it back with zeal and dedication (and safe driving) ... for the undoubted highlight of the conference, a dinner at the Transitional Cathedral, which featured Sam Johnson as speaker. (Sam is an old boy of one of our Anglican Schools, Christ's College).

This morning at the conference was excellent - a very encouraging presentation from Year 12 students at the conference. Regular readers here will join the dots with some other observations made here in recent posts. The future of ACANZP is in good hands!

Incidentally, part of this morning's presentation was a video I saw at another recent conference. It is brilliant and I heartily commend it to you and your church/school/Messy Church/homegroup/any Christian gathering. Cheers, World Vision for the Lord's Prayer.

It has been an interesting week in all sorts of ways. Next week might be even more interesting ... just sayin'.

2 comments:

Father Ron Smith said...

"Mr McLaren frequently finds himself in the firing line for his provocative vision of what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century.

His was an early evangelical voice to engage in some key concerns of the day: poverty and resource distribution, ecological degradation, inter-religious conflict, peace, reconciliation and military spending, LGBT equality, and other social justice issues". (from the Biography of Speaker Neil McLaren)

I can understand why you might not have wanted to hear Neil McLaren speaking at the Schools' Conference, Peter. An Evangelical in pursuit of social justice - a rara avis in the world of conservative evangelicalism.

However, I'm glad you were able to rub shoulders with our Archbishop of Tikanga Pakeha, ++Philip. Perhaps some of his thirst for social justice might have helped you to understand the necessity for Motion 30 in ACANZP.

Peter Carrell said...

I don't think, Ron, that Brian McLaren raises evangelical eyebrows because of his pursuit of social justice, a matter on which many evangelicals would agree with him.

Yes, there have been some interesting developments this past week re Motion 30. It may be that next week we can talk about them.