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Kenyan Archbishop and Episcopal Presiding Bishop Clash over Lenten Message
"We need to be discerning about the values behind these visions (MDGs)," says Wabukala
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
February 22, 2012
Kenyan Archbishop Eliud Wabukala has issued a strong rebuke to US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's understanding of Lent.
The Presiding Bishop has called on Episcopalians to focus on the Millennium Development Goals for Lent 2012. "I invite you to use the Millennium Development Goals as your focus for Lenten study and discipline and prayer and fasting this year. I'm going to remind you that the Millennium Development Goals are about healing the worst of the world's hunger. They're about seeing that all children get access to primary education. They're about empowering women. They're about attending to issues of maternal health and child mortality. They're about attending to issues of communicable disease like AIDS and malaria and tuberculosis. They're about environmentally sustainable development, seeing that people have access to clean water and sanitation and that the conditions in slums are alleviated. And finally, they are about aid, foreign aid. They're about trade relationships, and they're about building partnerships for sustainable development in this world. The Millennium Development Goals are truly reflective of several of the Five Marks of Mission."
Archbishop Wabukala took issue with the Presiding Bishop saying the Millennium Development Goals have grown out of a secularized Western culture that is pushing Christianity to the margins and using the language of human rights and equality to promote irresponsibility in social life and diminish personal responsibility.
What the Bible says, more often than anything else, is to tend to the needs of the widows and orphans, those without. Jesus himself says, "Care for the least of these." I invite you to consider your alms-giving discipline this Lent and remember those in the developing world who go without, said Jefferts Schori.
In his pastoral letter, the archbishop said his mission, as the Anglican Church of Kenya, is "to equip God's people to transform society with the gospel. This is an holistic transformation much deeper and more lasting than any government or international agency can bring because it addresses our deepest need, that of a restored relationship with the God in whose image we are made and whose workmanship we are."
The clashing worldviews reflect the growing distance between the evangelical Global South and the sociologically driven, panentheist and increasingly pansexual world of Western Anglicanism.
"The disciplines of Lent are not intended to be burdensome, but to open our lives more fully to the transforming power of the gospel. The glorious truth of the gospel is that we are justified freely by God's grace alone, but far from making us complacent about doing good, the abundant grace and full forgiveness we have through the blood of Christ should be a great spur to Christ-like living, to walking in those good works 'which God prepared beforehand'," stated the African Evangelical Primate.
"Imagine the transformation if our nation heeded this call. As we prepare for general elections, which will test the cohesiveness of our civil society, Christians need to model what it means to live in peace, practicing tolerance and forgiveness, with a new sense of urgency. Moreover, the foundation of our civic life is the family so it is vital that the love of Christ deeply infuses family relationships and that the shameful violence being reported in the media, not only of husbands towards wives but now even of wives towards husbands, is replaced by the kindness and gentleness of Christ."
Wabukala explained that our Christian faith can also have an impact on the scourge of unemployment; although the immediate causes often lie with economic forces beyond our control, the Christian values of hard work, thrift, enterprise and honesty have the capacity to bring long term prosperity.
"These things are not easy. They call for the spiritual depth, which comes from a real and growing awareness of Christ's presence in our personal lives. Otherwise, the good works God calls us to do will simply feel like burdens and we will not sustain them under pressure. During this Lenten season, whatever particular disciplines we adopt, our first aim should be to draw near to God in prayer and through his Word, beseeching him to make in us new and contrite hearts, hearts that will desire the things of his heart.
"Without this joyful discipline, we will be vulnerable to taking short cuts that lead us away from the truth of the gospel. Some church leaders seem to think that the transformation of society will simply come through commitment to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and at home in Kenya, the Vision 2030 initiative and the new constitution. While it is obvious that such good things as feeding the hungry, fighting disease, improving education and national prosperity are to be desired by all, by themselves any human dream can become a substitute gospel which renders repentance and the cross of Christ irrelevant.
"So this Lent, let us seek to experience a renewed walk with Christ in those good works that God has prepared. The good news of the gospel is that transformation begins with ordinary men, women and children, however sinful or insignificant we may feel. It is not a responsibility we can leave to governments and agencies, but a challenge to fulfill the purposes of Almighty God in our place for our time."
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