Global Changes

Posted on July 7th, 2008 by fatherneo.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Our Anglican Communion continues to unravel. Regardless of what we do with GAFCON, the global meeting of orthodox Anglicans (heavily weighted to Africa) underscores the obvious reality, the face of Anglicanism (and Christianity) has changed so radically that the average Anglican (ironic term) is a black woman from Africa.

Since the global south and Latin America dominate the numbers, so why then does the North and the West continue to act as though we are what defines the faith. In the Episcopal Church, for example, we think that because of our wealth and prestige we can dictate worldwide Anglicanism. (African Anglicans number about 55 million and about 750,000 Episcopalians in the US show up on a given Sunday) We strut our tininess in the face of the black continent’s dominance. We don’t even have a voice in our own country, much less among those for whom the Bible is a book that is alive, a book that is animated by God’s Holy Spirit.

Now, to be sure, the African and Latin American churches have a multitude of problems and issues (tribalism, polygamy, political compromise with dictators, etc.), however, revival is happening because being at the bottom brings one to God.

6 comments.

  1. Morpheus

    Comment on July 8th, 2008.

    How does one say “The last shall be first” in Swahili?


  2. fatherneo

    Comment on July 8th, 2008.

    Lakini wengi walio wa kwanza watakuwa wa mwisho na wa mwisho watakuwa wa kwanza.’


  3. Morpheus

    Comment on July 9th, 2008.

    Show off!


  4. Romanos

    Comment on July 12th, 2008.

    Hey brothers! What is going on in the picture above? Is it some new form of eucharist-based Mother worship? I hope this isn’t supposed to be a Christian altar. There’s not even a hint of Jesus anywhere I can see. Is that statue actually standing on top of (what looks like) the tabernacle for reserved sacrament? And who is that big nun in the wall painting? Has America’s favorite nun, Mother Angelica, been deified?

    Sorry for seeming to ignore the topic of discussion, but I just can’t get past the picture. What is it? Is it there to glorify the 3rd World Anglicans (is that what their churches look like?), or to show how far someone’s church has drifted from the good news of Jesus Christ? Please don’t tell me it’s the former; I hope it’s the latter. But still, what’s it doing there? I don’t see how it relates to your post.


  5. fatherneo

    Comment on July 13th, 2008.

    point taken. It was a Roman Catholic altar in Peru…


  6. Romanós

    Comment on July 14th, 2008.

    Whoa there! Thanks for your quick response, and glad that you don’t seem to have taken offense, as none was meant. I have heard that saint worship (douleia and even latreia) has been a local aberration in some Roman Catholic cultures, but that altar just blew me away. The orthodox (notice the little “o” so it can include all of us) veneration of saints (proskynesis) is about as far as we can go without drifting into some kind of polytheism. Even so, why isn’t the direct approach to the Father thru Jesus “our only Mediator and Advocate” enough for all of us? I venerate the saints in the Church triumphant no more than I venerate the saints in the Church militant. We’re all one “band of brothers” whether in the body or out of it, all alive in Jesus in the only way anyone can be truly alive, and we’re all willing to help one another, whatever it takes.


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