CONFERENCE OF CONTINUING ANGLICANS BOSTON, NOVEMBER 2011

Address by Rt Rev Michael Gill, Bishop of Pretoria and Southern Africa, Anglican Church in Southern Africa (Traditional Anglican Communion aka Traditional Rite)

Your Grace, Archbishop Haverland; Your Grace, Archbishop Prakash; Fellow Bishops of the Church of Christ Jesus; honourable members of the Clergy; honourable delegates; ladies and gentlemen.

It is a pleasure and a privilege to speak to you this evening, and to be permitted to vocalise some of the thoughts that have been racing about in my head for some time...

Before I go any further, however, I would like to pay tribute to our hosts for this Conference; His Excellency, Bishop Brian Marsh, The Revd Fr and Mrs Hiles, the Parish Executive and Council of St Pauls, and the volunteers whose hard work over many months has brought this vision to reality. On behalf of us all, may I express our sincere gratitude for all your efforts and for presenting a Conference of such high quality and at such a vital time in the life of the Church. The Lord will surely bless you for your kindness to us. Thank you.

As you are aware, I am Bishop of Southern Africa. My area of jurisdiction covers eight SADEC countries, at least 30 languages and many, many thousands of miles. I travel a great deal, through beautiful countryside, and I have some pretty good adventures on the way, especially in the wilder parts of Zimbabwe and Mozambique and NOT with the wild animals, I can assure you! The people of ZANU PF in Zimbabwe are far more dangerous than any wild animal I have yet to meet..... I try to reach every parish as often as I possibly can, although sometimes the visits have to be quite spread out.

About a year ago I visited The Parish of St Cyprian the Martyr in Atteridgeville, just a few kilometres outside of Pretoria Atteridgeville is a large township, (a township, in South African terminology, is a vestige of the Apartheid years, where people were geographically separated on the basis of racial categories, and towns and cities ended up with separate racial units these still remain). For those of you who have never been into one, it an eye-opener in terms of a vibrant and, unfortunately, also a very violent style of life, for in townships life is cheap, the murder rate is sky high and one has to be extremely careful all the time. In this township of Atteridgeville, Rev Mike Maseko was pulled out of his car in his clerics and shot five times! One of the bullets has left a long scar across his forehead, where the hijackers coldly shot him in the head! Our Lord spared his life! I told him he must have something special to do..... Just last month another of my Deacons was shot and killed in a Pietermaritzburg township. The people live on top of each other the noise is intense all the time and the minibus taxi

drivers are like Kamikaze pilots; their vehicles filled with terrified passengers; yes, a township is a truly fascinating experience. Much of social life takes place on the streets, and so in a church context, processions are the norm and a lot of fun! (Coligny on Palm Sunday.) Township people cant sleep in the leafy city suburbs....all too quiet for them! In fact, they used to know that there was an Apartheid police raid coming in the bad old days, because the township dogs all went quiet!

St Cyprians is a large Parish approximately 300 Communicants (real ones!!) on any Sunday without counting the young people and the singing is, at times, quite deafening, with bells and drums and lots of what we would call jiving the whole parish swaying in time to the music! It is a wonderfully uplifting and exciting experience.

As I was robing in the Vestry, the Rector, Fr Martin Magoleng came up to me and said, Bishop (in conspiratorial tones), we have a very important visitor today; Mr Maila is from St Bernard the Martyr the local Canterbury Communion Parish If he joins us, he will bring many!

After the service in a township parish, there is an obligatory lunch. It is an amazing parish exercise in which every single adult and child present receives a huge plate of food, for some, I suppose, the only substantial meal of the week? It is a real part of the spirit of what is locally called Ubuntu, where the community cares for each other.

Over the years I have developed a stomach of steel, for one is obliged to eat, and the food is made with much care and love. The lunch is usually cabbage, coleslaw (more cabbage), very chilli beans, beetroot, meat (often goat in rural areas) cut in chunks and attacked with relish, and pap, a thick white maize meal porridge served with a plate. Quite often I have my own table, my own 2 litre bottle of Coke (you see a young woman bringing it on her head before the service) and sometimes an audience of 8 10 elders who watch me eat! (One is nearly ready to fire up a Space Shuttle after a meal like that!) The trick is to serve yourself for if you are not quick enough and one the Mothers Union members serves up on your behalf, the heavily laden plate you are given is probably (and I am not joking) enough to feed four or five of us here tonight. It must all be eaten or someone amongst the watching cooks will be most upset.

On this occasion I remember that I was too slow, and so I sat munching opposite Mr Maila (who turned out to be a very little man) and asked him why he had come to St Cyprians that day. Was he in trouble with the Bishop, the local priest or the community? (Fr Martin bobbed anxiously behind him...) I made it quite clear that I was not interested in other peoples troublemakers, nor did I want any disaffected faction joining us and destabilising the parish. I stated that the kind of person I would welcome would need a heart for the Gospel and a hunger for souls. Any other agenda and I would rather they stayed where they were, at St Bernard the Martyr..... Fr Martin was not pleased.....

That is my first short story.

My second anecdote is an inter-Continuing Anglican story. I tell it without any malice, but rather with the intention to get my later point across.

For the past few years, around early December, all my clergy have received a Christmas card from the Canon Missioner of another Continuing Anglican group in South Africa, inviting them to abandon their loyalty to their church, and to come over to a far better Continuing Anglican option, that being his particular church and diocese. Interesting.....

There are two issues here. Firstly, it is a very bad Christian practice to proselytise in any way, as I am sure you agree? It is, in fact, something we should avoid and abhor. It makes for bad blood amongst Christian brethren, and too often, it allows bad clergy to escape discipline and continue their poor practices in another jurisdiction without any consequence for previous misconduct.

More important to us is the sender.

The grand title of Canon Missioner should surely imply a man on fire for the Gospel; a very pioneer of the church - cutting a path into the darkness of
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unbelief in a sinful world? An invitation such as has been so regularly sent, serves not only to point out a serious flaw in the mans understanding of his primary task that of Mission but it highlights the sad fact that he probably does not know how to do this work, and so he has had to resort to far more basic tricks to try to fill his churches.....it is a sad but true story. I am sure many of you have had a similar experience?

Following directly on from the second, and yet inextricably linked to it, my third story concerns our current number one on the hit parade...... Anglicanorum Coetibus...... the document issued in October of 2009 by the Holy See.

We are all aware of the furore it has created in Anglican circles and of the people who have been polarised by the various, and usually nave interpretations given to the document. The blogs have been the most hysterical and creative by far, with some fascinating views on the future liturgies that will be used and just who the Ordinaries will be.... Basically, and I do this only for clarity, there is a fresh offer on the table for Anglican Christians to swap allegiance and join the Roman Catholic Church to convert as individuals or groups and become Roman Catholics.

That the arrangement is entirely on Romes terms should have hardly been a surprise to anyone who has read any Church History!

About 12 months ago, in a face to face meeting around Anglicanorum Coetibus with Archbishop George Daniel [and yes, he is a retired Archbishop, but he is still one of senior the persons in charge of Anglican/Roman Catholic dialogue in Southern Africa], my wife and I were told that not only would there be no Ordinariate in Southern Africa, but that the conversion to Roman Catholicism required would in many cases go back as far as Baptism depending on the original church background of the convert. [This was fizzed over by the blogging community for a brief moment!] Archbishop Daniel is a highly sophisticated man, someone I have known and respected for more than 20 years, and he was as gentle as possible in breaking the news that we (all the Continuing Anglicans in Southern Africa) were an immature lot, and a long way away from the levels of theological education expected for acceptance as Roman clergy.

He went on to tell us, in a great amount of detail, of his personal journey from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, and made it plain that this authentic personal conversion decision would be the route to follow. It was actually a really good conversation, open and extremely positive, and it was exactly as we had expected, but not at all close to what we had been told by those with stars in their eyes and their hands already grasping for St Peters keys?

.....Anglicanorum Coetibus....or to quote the English press the Popes Panzers parked on the lawns of Canterbury (dont you think that is brilliant?) has been a very effective tool to prize some away from their Anglican roots, to entice them to denounce their Ordination and even their Consecration vows and their

ministries, and to abandon their flocks in order to fill some empty stalls in Roman Catholic Churches.

In reality, it is closely linked to my second story, as it has been a high class exercise in proselytising although of course we are not allowed to call such a lofty document by such a mean term!

All three of my anecdotes have a common thread.... and of course you have seen it by now.... and that is that not one of these stories has spoken of bringing a single fresh convert into the Christian Faith no NEW soul has been won for Jesus Christ our Lord and added to the Kingdom of God by all these cunning plans and announcements.

No; actually, all we have done is shuffle the cards already on the deck. We have moved them around to no good effect. It is a bleak picture.

When I was in Primary School, I read a book called the Eagle of the Ninth. It was gripping stuff full of tension and danger, about a young mans quest to redeem his fathers memory. His fathers Legion had been lost years before in a sortie out amongst the Picts in present day Scotland; no-one had returned, and the disgrace to the boys family had been devastating. His was a quest to restore honour and to answer questions about the end of the Ninth Legion. This year, amazingly, the book was made into a movie, The 9th, and I found the result most pleasing. Like the book, it is full of danger and tension, and there is
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an interesting scene that we can well use to develop our train of thought. The young man who is searching for his fathers lost Roman Standard comes back to Britannia, and finally arrives at Hadrians Wall. The Wall symbolises the end of all that is civilised and orderly.

Beyond lies the unknown world of the Picts to him, a world of chaos, death and hopefully opportunity...... the boy demands that the great gates be opened to let him and his companion through. Slowly, with great trepidation, the soldiers do so, the gates creak open and he passes through and rides out into adventure and danger....to vindicate his fathers memory and recover that which was lost. (I wont tell you the end see it for yourself!)

Empires are doomed the moment they begin to fence, or rather, wall themselves in. Imperialism is, by definition, the building of empires and therefore, it has to be expansive and dynamic. The very fact of a wall indicates an end of growth and the shift to a defensive mentality that of an empire at the end of its time and its energy and usually about to be lost! A good modern example of this is the Berlin Wall or if you prefer, Mr Churchills Iron Curtain; the attempt to wall out democracy and stop people leaving a repressive political system for a better life. Its fall remains the defining moment of the death of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

May I suggest, without I hope, being offensive, that by our very definition as Continuing Anglicans, we have determined to defend that which we have received? We have often decided within our own minds that ours is a
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rearguard action against the onslaught of liberalism a last ditch defence? A walling in of what we know and hold dear? No-one will take the Book of Common Prayer away from me!! If that is so, my dear friends, then I am afraid that we are all lost....and so is Anglicanism....and so ultimately will be the Christian Faith!

Although I appreciate what we are doing here and although I can clearly see the value of interaction and networking and who knows, this could even lead to what one blogger recently called a new Continuing Anglican unity, I am deeply concerned that the inward looking nature of our expression will simply continue a circular downward movement in which we could easily find ourselves trapped.

The Vicar General of Zimbabwe, Fr Wellington Murinda (a true evangelist and a great missionary Priest), tells his men in the field, dont speak to me; show me the work! Ours has to be movement that is forward and outward no matter what the personal cost or the danger.

I expect utter commitment to the work of the Gospel from myself and from the clergy with whom I work. For us, it is a matter of the utmost urgency. There is a real loss of personal value and of spiritual awareness happening in the huge urban sprawls, the squatter camps, around our cities. Not only that, but Islam is making massive strides into the youth of Africa the church has to be on the march against such a concerted onslaught, fuelled as it is by millions upon millions of Saudi dollars.
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Souls are being lost and this while we are the ones responsible for this particular era of the Church.

I speak of Africa as an arena of spiritual conflict, how presumptuous of me, for what of the UK and Europe now openly called post-Christian or for that matter, the USA and Canada where the number of Muslims is growing exponentially. Did you know that in the UK, ten years ago the most popular boys name was Michael? It is now Mohammed!

[Dr David Virtue, thank you for being here at this Conference. I consider your What the Archbishop of Canterbury should have said after the London riots article to be one of the best written on the current condition of the Church of England. The vision has been lost, the skills have been lost the church and souls are lost too! Thank you that was an inspired piece of writing we congratulate you on it, and we thank you for all you are doing for Orthodox Anglicanism by your thorough journalism.]

I am a real traditionalist; believe me I am for Apostolic Succession; for the seven Sacraments; for the three-fold ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons; for the Book of Common Prayer, but every generation is potentially the last generation of the Church. We are an edge people. There is no other church waiting beyond no rescuer from the East like the mythical Prester John of

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the Middle Ages we are all there is in the now and we have to perform in our lifetime or the Church will be no more!

The Church and the Faith is being lost on our watch.......

Our minds race What he says is true, but what about our perpetual Continuing Anglican problem of being under-resourced and understaffed?

Yes, of course we are; there is no doubt about that. But I cast my mind back to twelve under-resourced and underequipped men and a few faithful women, the first disciples our fathers in the Faith and I see the fruits of their labours and of the labours of the faithful men and women of the first centuries of the Church. They worked as if their lives depended on it and often they did!

If they could do it I ask, Why not I?

Tonight I see more than twelve and brilliant men at that.

If it were so for them why not us? Why can we (like the boy) not only go through the gates, but take back the whole of Anglicanism for starters? And then spread forward and outward into the unknown and conquer the mock spirituality that is Islam, with its false piety and empty prayer and fasting, and
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the other insidious enemies of our time, the peace of Buddha and the harmony of Hare Krishna?......

But where then are we to find these warriors, these Christian Soldiers? Amongst the Pentecostals? Amongst the Orthodox? Do we have a sufficiently soldier attitude or will we continue to play with liturgy or music or continue with our skirmishes for power and position?

I do believe that as Continuing Anglican Christians we are fighters by nature [unfortunately mostly with each other!] and that we have shown that we are prepared to stand up for what we believe, even at great personal cost in many instances. I have to say how much I appreciate the sacrifices made, the difficulties faced but what is needed amongst us is a far more offensive mentality. The first Disciples faced the same shortages as we are doing, and yet they triumphed should we not be able to do the same?

Look at just how blessed we are! We have the solid base of the inspired Word of the Holy Scriptures as our manual, we have the Sacraments as our depth of offense, and the Communion of the Saints as our resource in prayer.

The Armour of God, put down so beautifully by St Paul in Ephesians, speaks of offensive weaponry for the Christian soldier. The inference by Paul is that this is equipment for going forward not backwards. All that is needed now are

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committed men of God with the will to put it on, and then use it for the purpose for which was designed.

I remember, in 2007 at my Consecration at St Agathas in Portsmouth, that I was given a very old, heavily embroidered chasuble to wear that was so made that it literally felt like putting on a piece of military equipment. I remember clearly thinking I dont remember much else I must confess that Our Lord was telling me that this was a renewed personal call to battle, and I was required to respond appropriately. I decided then to embrace a certain recklessness in my Christian work and witness and so I have done. There is a tremendous liberty in throwing oneself into the fight for the Gospel. I have determined to expend myself in my allotted time I could not justify my existence or my ministry without doing so? My challenge to you tonight (and I am obliged by the urgency of the historical moment in the life of the global church to issue such a challenge) is, who will throw themselves headlong into this divine battle with me which of us will stand and fight, and if needs be die together? Who is prepared to be numbered with that mighty host, seen by John the Divine, who the angel said had come through the great tribulation and whose robes have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb. We are on the edge of All Saints celebrations what must our forefathers in the Faith think of the modern day church?

William Shakespeare has these powerful words from Henry V. (Act lV Scene iii) spoken to by Henry to Westmorland on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt:
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He, which has no stomach to this fight, let him depart! Let his passport be prepared, and crowns for convoy put into his purse; We would not die in that mans company that fears his fellowship To die with us! Strong words indeed! In Chapter 16 of Lukes Gospel, about five or six weeks ago, we had the Parable of the Unjust Steward. I refer to the phrase in verse 8 in which Jesus says that the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light! That was said about mere money could we perhaps tamper with that verse this evening to read the children of this age are in their generation more courageous than the children of light?

My brothers and sisters; all of us here are for The Book of Common Prayer; we are for Anglican faith and order of course we are but before all that, we are for the Gospel and the salvation of souls. We are the soldiers of Our Lord Jesus Christ and ours is a good and Godly fight, and it is now! On Sunday (I hope Fr Hiles?) we will sing.............the hymn, For All the Saints. It says: And when the strife is fierce, the battle long, rings on the air the distant triumph song; and hearts are brave again and arms are strong, Alleluia, Alleluia!

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I began my stories at St Cyprian the Martyr in Atteridgeville, and I return there, back to Mr Maila.... whatever became of him? He joined St Cyprians, quietly and with no accompanying band of dissidents. He grasped the vision I have shared with you tonight, has joined the ministry team in the parish and now works for souls in the enormous informal squatter settlement adjacent to the church. He has, small in stature though he may be, brought many new souls to Christ and to His Church. He is a true soldier of Jesus Christ and has proven to be a great blessing to the whole community. I am pleased to say that he will be made Deacon in December.

Yes, we have the soldiers! (Some brave souls are here tonight.) We have them in our pews; we have them amongst our clergy.... they are looking for inspiration; they are looking for discipline and integrity; but mostly, they are looking for strong and godly leadership!

As we debate and discuss Continuing Anglicanism in this fine Conference, we as leaders of the Faith dare not disappoint them!

Thank you.

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