Study, worship, and engage on issues theologically, Archbishop of Canterbury urges Anglican Consultative Council

19 April 2016 • Persistent link: iarccum.org/?p=1776

The Anglican Communion needs to be “aware of the great crises of our times,” the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has said in a presidential address to members of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Lusaka, Zambia.

“Because we are all over the world and because we are stretched and pulled by our differences, as we have looked at this week, the temptation is either to think only of internal questions, or of traditional issues, and not to realize that around us the world is shifting on its axis,” he said.

Sometimes the issues we face, even if they are not new, become acute in a new way and compel us to rethink how we work and how we apply the gifts given by God, Welby said in his 15 April address.

“Two actors dominate our world stage at present, I would argue,” said the archbishop.

“One is religiously motivated violence, and the other is climate change,” he said. “The world tends to forget, noted Welby, that “both characters can only be confronted with a theological and ideological approach and with a story, with a narrative, that is sufficiently powerful to overcome the natural selfishness of one generation, or the selfishness of countries which are more secure.”

These challenges are theological and it requires a deepening of our theological resources, he added. “We can only confront them by bringing them face-to-face to the reality of a God we study, worship, engage with, theologically.

The role of the ACC is to facilitate the co-operative work of the churches of the Anglican Communion, many of which are also members of the World Council of Churches (WCC).