Someone on X said that the ABC, Sarah Mullaly has made an excellent speech. I think so too. The context is a gathering of the so called Poorvoo Communion - 15 Anglican and Evangelical Lutheran churches in Europe.
The full text of the speech is here. It is entitled, "Being the Church in Turbulent Times."
Key paragraphs include:
"So the question is not simply: What should the Church say in turbulent times? Perhaps the more important question is: What does it mean to be the Church in such a time?
I want to suggest three things. (1) The Church must be a community that remembers; (2) a community that refuses fear; and (3) a community that makes visible the reconciliation it proclaims in Jesus Christ."
"To be the Church today means inhabiting that larger story of hope: creation and covenant, incarnation and cross, resurrection and Pentecost. The Church belongs to Christ before it belongs to any nation, political culture, ideology or age.
That memory gives us humility, because the Kingdom of God can never simply be identified with one political programme; and freedom, because Christians need not accept the terms of every political argument as though they were the only terms available. We possess another grammar, a Christological one, infused by grace and hope: repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, neighbour, stranger, communion."
"Fear is one of the most powerful forces in political and social life: fear of the stranger, decline, insecurity, cultural change – ultimately, fear of one another. It can turn communities inward and persuade us that security is possible only through exclusion.
The Church must resist that logic. Not because Christians are naïve about human nature, but because our deepest identity is not constructed against another person. In baptism we receive an identity that precedes nationality, class, ethnicity and political allegiance. We become members of one body – the body of Christ.
The Church should therefore be one of the places where people who would not otherwise choose one another learn to belong to one another. Communion is is the refusal to let disagreement destroy relationship."
"Beyond creating ecclesiastical complexity, more importantly Christian division compromises our witness. If we preach reconciliation while remaining content with separation, something is wrong.
The ecumenical movement therefore cannot be something we only engage with during easier times. Communion across national borders matters when nationalism grows stronger; friendship across political cultures matters when societies polarise; shared baptism matters when identities are increasingly defined against one another."
There is more ... and it is good! Happy reading.
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