GAFCON Day whatever-it-is: Acceleration

I’m at the ‘conferenced-out’ stage of being not quite sure what day it is. If not for the fact that Shabbat is very visibly coming into force around me, I otherwise would be hard pressed to tell that it is in fact Friday evening, and that GAFCON is accelerating towards a close.

This afternoon, the draft Conference Statement was presented to the whole conference, and then discussed in detail by all the participants meeting in their different provincial groups. There is a strict media embargo on the text of the Statement, and those of us who are blogging have been sworn to secrecy. I will therefore say no more about it, except to promise that when the final text is released (on Sunday), you will want to read it. (I will post it here as soon as it is available.)

In the whirl of conversations, talks and experiences over the past few days, a few highlights are still clear in my addled brain.

One was the Focus Topic on Wednesday evening, ‘The Gospel and Religion’, featuring a lecture by Professor Lamin Sanneh, Professor of Mission and World Christianity at Yale. It was an erudite, but slightly meandering address, and only gained momentum as it turned for home, when the main point became powerfully clear: Christianity is inherently translatable. Unlike Islam, it has no revealed or exclusive language, and no one name for God. Christianity does not invent a language, but takes a language already in use for everyday purposes, and adopts it as its own.

Thus, Professor Sanneh argued, Christianity rejects the idea of an exclusive or superior language or culture, or for that matter a taboo or unclean culture. No culture or language can claim exclusive access; and none is so marginal or remote that it can be excluded. None is indispensable; none is unworthy. Here is an implicit Christian anthropology of culture. The claims of the gospel deny normative exclusiveness to any culture, and can be communicated in any linguistic or cultural context.

This, he explained, is what happened in the extraordinary growth of Christianity in Africa over the past 50 years. As the colonial era drew to an end, it was thought that Christianity would die in Africa along with it. The opposite happened. Colonialism in fact turned out to have been an obstacle, and its removal sparked the extraordinary explosion of Christianity in the Global South.

This has always been the missionary way, he argued. In India, in Korea, in China, in place after place, when the message reached the vernacular, it burst forth in growth. The genius of Christianity and its missionaries, is that they did for Africa and other parts of the world what Tyndale and others had once done for England: they dared to translate and communicate the gospel in the common tongue, often at great personal cost, and under the charge of political subversion.

“GAFCON”, Professor Sanneh concluded, “belongs to the tremendous sweep of this historic movement, translated to all corners in any and every language. The Gentile revolution is alive and well at GAFCON.”

Powerful and stirring stuff, particularly for Anglicans to hear. Historically, we have not always done so well in the cultural translatability stakes!

The other great highlight of the past few days has been getting to know these Bible-believing Anglicans that the translated gospel has reached in so many different places, languages and cultures. Lunch with Bishop Paul Yugusuk from southern Sudan was particularly memorable.

In Paul’s diocesan region, consisting of 12 churches, there is barely anyone over 35. A generation has been wiped out, and war orphans abound—Paul is caring for 28 of them in his own household. Because of the war, literacy among adults is almost non-existent. The children are now learning to read, but for the adults it is virtually too late. The struggle to survive leaves them no time or resources for learning.

As we talked, I was exploring how we could help with Matthias Media resources. Could he use a Bible study or two? What books would be helpful? How about a training DVD? It became quickly obvious, even to a simpleton like me, that Paul didn’t want books. He wanted me. He wanted people to come and work with him, to teach and train and disciple the people.

Strangely enough, this is what Matthias Media believes anyway. We believe that people minister to people, and that books and resources are just convenient tools to facilitate the process. And as useful as the books and studies and DVDs are, they are not indispensable.

Pray for Paul and also for Bishop Bernard in the Diocese of Torit. Pray for me, as well, that I can work out how to respond to their call for help.