Sermon: Grasping the Past, Taking Hold of the Future: The Challenge of Afro-Anglicanism

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I greet you all in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It gives me great joy to be with you at this, the Third International Conference on Afro-Anglicanism. While preparing to come here, I have been pondering what it means to be an Afro-Anglican. Here we are, full of confidence, coming together to celebrate what the Lord has made us. We are here to explore more deeply the gifts we have received, and are ready to share them with the whole Anglican Communion and with the whole human family. Toronto has been an auspicious gathering place for Anglicans. The 1963 Anglican Congress gave birth to the concept of mutual responsibility and interdependence that has transformed relations between provinces. It opened the door to the Partners in Mission process and started the ball rolling for the creation of the Anglican Consultative Council. May the Lord so inspire our gathering that new life again flows out from here to our worldwide church. So the question that I shall begin to address today is this: What is the prophetic word that the Lord gives us as Afro-Anglicans, for his church and for his world? I hope it is a question that we will keep before us throughout this week. Let me start with who we are. A quick glance around shows at once that we are very diverse in appearance. We come from so many places. I am sure that almost every strand of Christian style and practice is found among us. Why should it be that sharing African roots and Anglican faith has given us such a strong sense of a common identity? Identity is a fundamental marker of our sense of self. Who am I? and Who are we? are among the most profound questions we can ask. On a superficial level wo have been asking and answering that question ever since we arrived, as we introduced ourselves to each other: Hello, I am Njongo. I'm from South Africa. I am Archbishop of Cape Town. A name, a home, a role. A quick response that sums us up. Which is fine, as long as we can do our own summing up-but not so fine when others impose a summing-up upon us. Under apartheid, over fifteen different racial categories existed in South Africa-indeed, were imposed upon the population of South Africa. We were denied the right to say who we were. Our response was to begin, intentionally and intensively, to define ourselves for ourselves through the Black consciousness movement, under the leadership of people like Steve Biko and Barney Pityana. Yet our ability to say who we are may be complicated by other factors-and this, I suspect, is something that many of us have in common as Afro-Anglicans. History has often been for Africa and for Africans at best ambiguous, at worst quite tragic. Colonialism brought both pains and joys. It brought the gospel, and for that we shall be eternally grateful-eternally indeed, as we come finally to our heavenly home, where Cod is with us, wiping every tear away; where, at the Lord's right hand we find fullness of joy and delights flowing for evermore (Rev. 21:3,4; Ps. 16:11). Yet, we have even had to work at understanding what the gospel message was and is for us. It came clad in the culture of those who brought it to our continent-part of whose culture, the culture of the enlightenment, was to understand the gospel message as normative, objective, context-free. Various forms of Black, liberation, and African theology have helped us to see beyond the colonial clothing and to find the deeper truth, which we are now learning to inculturate in ways appropriate for us. Discovering how to demythologize without losing the essential substance, and to find authentic new expression without falling into syncretism has many parallels in today's painful debates on human sexuality. The story of how we have charted this journey, indeed, our many journeys-sometimes with dead ends along the way-is one we must share unth the under Anglican Communion. I am sure it is a prophetic word we have to offer. …

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