[Dialogue] {Spam?} Spong 11/28 Makes we want to move to New Zealand

[KroegerD at aol.com]

November 28, 2007  
An Anglican Priest and an  Anglican Church in New Zealand: Sources of a New 
Hope  

It was a very different kind of liturgy. The opening hymn was by New Zealand  
hymn writer Shirley Murray, exhorting the community of Christ to cry out for  
justice and peace - to disarm the powers of war and to turn bombs into bread 
and  the tears of anguish into joy. Yet, these strong words were being sung by 
the  vested choir led by a processional cross and a thurifer spreading the 
smoke and  smell of incense high and far. Participants in this liturgy reflected 
the  ethnicity of New Zealand and even its openness toward mental 
retardation. In the  call to worship, God was defined as "Transformative Love, the 
mystery of life,  the essence of creation and the music of the atoms within us." 
Jesus was  referred to as "cosmic love in human flesh," who by living in us 
"reveals that  cross and resurrection are one on the road to freedom." The Holy 
Spirit was  called "the needle of the inner compass, guiding us on the sacred 
dance into the  mystery of life." People were invited to the Eucharist with these 
words: "Come,  bringing your various faiths and backgrounds, for all are 
welcome to share in  this act of communion."  
What kind of church was this? It was an Anglican Church that calls itself  
"St. Matthew's in the City," located in the heart of Auckland. That church and  
its vicar, the Rev. Glynn Cardy were by any measure the most outstanding  
congregation and priest that I met in the majestic islands known as Aotearoa,  New 
Zealand.  
The Anglican Church in New Zealand today appears to me generally to reflect  
more fear than hope, more death than life. It has not always been so. George  
Selwyn the missionary bishop, who planted this church in that land, was a man 
of  great vision. A recent Primate, Paul Reeves, who in his own person 
combined the  Maori and European heritages of this nation, called this church to a 
new  engagement with reality. The Anglicans of New Zealand later became the 
first  Anglican Province to choose a woman, Penny Jamieson, to be a diocesan 
bishop.  Still later, they had a dean of their cathedral in Auckland, Richard 
Randerson,  who was in many ways the conscience of both his church and his nation. 
Those  days and those leaders are, however, long passed. Archbishop Reeves 
left his  post to accept appointment as Governor General of his nation and then 
moved onto  the international stage as Anglican Officer at the United Nations. 
In time both  Jamieson and Randerson also retired. Today, evangelical 
fundamentalism is on the  rise and the remaining bishops, with the obvious exceptions 
of the Bishop of  Dunedin and the soon-to-be-retired Bishops in Waiapu and 
Christchurch seem like  gray men who are more eager to preserve yesterday than to 
engage today or to  venture into tomorrow. The Bishop of Waikato seems to 
lose courage with age,  allowing the quest for peace and unity to stifle his once 
vibrant creativity. I  met exciting Protestant clergy in both Masterton and 
Kapiti, but they were lone  rangers surviving against the tide of their 
different denominations, effective  locally, but not likely to move a national church 
body. No national religious  voice is apparent.  
With its current leadership the Anglican Church of New Zealand will die of  
boredom long before it dies of controversy. Gay people scare them, women scare  
them, and biblical scholarship scares them. Their bishops appear willing to 
move  on nothing until the "mind of the Church" is made clear. That is a 
favorite  institutional ducking position, used many times in the past on issues from 
 slavery and segregation to the equality of women. They do not seem to know 
the  wisdom of Erich Fromm, the German-American psychologist and best selling 
author  of the 20th century, who said, "People do not think their way into new 
ways of  acting, they always act their way into new ways of thinking." While 
the Anglican  Church led by these fearful men retrenches to keep its dwindling 
numbers happy,  New Zealand becomes more and more a secular state in which 
organized religion is  reserved for the security seekers, those who crave the 
elusive narcotic of  certainty and even for the religiously neurotic, who seem to 
believe that they  possess the truth. That is why St. Matthew's and Glynn 
Cardy stood out in such  clear relief.  
How did St. Matthew's become this kind of church? A brief look at its history 
 provides clues for that. This church was planned while George Selwyn, still 
on  the boat from England, studied a topographical map of Auckland that 
revealed  three hills and two valleys on which this major port city would be built. 
St.  Matthew's was penciled in for one of those hills. It began as a simple 
wooden  structure, but ultimately, a stone Gothic building rose to replace it. 
This  Gothic St. Matthew's was opened for worship in 1905.  
As so often happens with urban churches, however, the fate of the church is  
determined by the fate of the city. As Auckland grew outward, the center of 
the  city around St. Matthew's became poorer and more depressed. Many churches,  
unable to adapt to this new reality, either followed their people to the 
suburbs  or they died. St. Matthew's massive stone structure made moving 
impossible and  it did in fact come close to dying. Plans were actually drawn to tear 
it down.  Instead the congregation gambled on the principle of incarnation, 
deciding that  they would share the fate of the city. They embraced that urban 
setting as their  world and began to address its needs. This led them to call 
the first in a  series of five outstanding priests, each of whom built on the 
work of his  predecessor until this church was transformed.  
The first of these vicars was named Morris Russell. He served St. Matthew's  
from 1963-1979. He demanded that St. Matthew's doors be open at all times. 
That  openness included the "derelicts," who slept on the streets at night. 
Vestrymen  objected saying that if the doors were open, the "derelicts would use 
the church  porch as a urinal." Russell replied that even that use would be 
better than  "this church not being used at all." The doors were opened and the 
porch was  used as a urinal, but a new message was heard on the streets of the 
city of  Auckland.  
Russell was instrumental in inviting two different groups of people to see  
this church as belonging to them. First, in what was surely a daring move in 
the  late 1960's, he met with a gay group, who had formed a community church for 
 homosexual people and were looking for a building in which they could gather 
for  weekly worship, and invited them to use St. Matthew's facilities. It was 
a  strong message of welcome that echoed throughout the entire city and 
resulted in  many homosexual people joining St. Matthew's. Next, he founded a 
singles' club  at St. Matthew's. In the church sanctuary itself with the pews 
rearranged, young  adults gathered, danced, drank sherry and smoked in the very 
space where they  worshipped on Sunday. The barrier between the sacred and the 
secular collapsed.  Some people were scandalized by these activities, but the 
singles' club lasted  for eight years, had over 1600 names on its rolls and 
Russell married more than  80 couples who met there.  
John Mullane succeeded Russell in 1979 and thrust St. Matthew's into the  
heart of a major issue that defined modern New Zealand. In 1981 the New Zealand  
Rugby Union invited the Apartheid-practicing South African rugby team, the  
Springboks, to tour New Zealand. Protests grew and an organization called  
"Mobilization to Stop the Tour" (MOST) was formed within the community of St.  
Matthew's Church. John Mullane supported the protest, but his assistant, the  Rev. 
Andrew Beyer, was actually its chair and driving force. The people of New  
Zealand rallied to this cause until they had successfully challenged the  
sponsors of the proposed tour and stood the South African government on its  head. 
This tour was disrupted and St. Matthew's was hailed for its role in  urging 
New Zealanders to oppose racial prejudice. When apartheid was finally  
overthrown in South Africa, both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu made  pilgrimages to 
St. Matthew's to thank them for igniting the conscience of the  world.  
The next three vicars shared the vision and were as remarkable a threesome as 
 have ever served the Anglican Church in New Zealand. They were Peter Beck 
who  refurbished the buildings, Ian Lawton, who changed the worship patterns and 
 allowed the people of the city, including the young, the artists and the  
business leaders, to shape the liturgy. Ian, using his technological genius,  
also developed an ancillary community of over 2000 people who were nurtured by  
St. Matthew's through the Internet.  
He was succeeded by Glynn Cardy who was perhaps a decade older than Ian. He  
incorporated Ian's vision into a sustainable modus operandi by placing this  
church's radical vision into the heart of the Christian tradition.  
Glynn knows how to take a Gothic building and make it serve a very  
contemporary world. He has a new assistant, Clay Nelson, who shares his  commitment and 
together they are seeking to draw in a new constituency from that  city, 
namely those who have become church dropouts, who have never been allowed  to 
think in church. Glynn Cardy also works hard on the issues of liturgy, so  that 
those who venture back will not be turned off anew by nonsensical,  pre-modern 
words and phrases. Yet, he wears the traditional vestments of the  Church's 
past; he uses recognized symbols in worship and even chants parts of  the 
liturgy. He greets the congregation in the Maori language. His theology is  open. His 
welcome of gay and lesbian people is genuine. His sermons probe the  edges of 
faith. His pastoral skills are readily observable.  
I am thrilled and encouraged that my church has places like St. Matthew's and 
 that we can boast of having clergy of the stature of Glynn Cardy. It does 
not  take a whole battalion of clergy to transform the Christian Church, but it 
does  require a few who can be leaven in the lump, salt in the soup and light 
in the  darkness. Glynn Cardy is one of those for me.  
John Shelby Spong .  
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
John Wheeler, from San Diego, writes:  
Thank you for the inspiring and informative article about the present  
struggles in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. [See _An Audacious  
Institution_ (http://secure.agoramedia.com/spong/week231story1_prev.asp) .] I had 
not known about the super-majority required to pass the  policy, nor had I known 
about the small size and aging nature of the splinter  groups. I hope you 
will submit a version of this same piece for publication as  an op-ed piece in 
several prominent newspapers. These facts need to be more  widely known by those 
who are not already convinced of the wisdom and humanity  of your church's 
position.  
On another subject, I recently read your book A New Christianity for a New  
World immediately after reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. I  was 
struck by how much the two of you agree! I'm wondering if you have read his  book 
and what you think of his arguments there. (By the way, he speaks highly of  
you at one point in the book).  
I'm a member of Christ Lutheran Church in Pacific Beach, California, and have 
 heard you speak there and elsewhere in San Diego on several occasions. My 
wife  and I were among the facilitators of our church's welcoming statement. I 
have  been frustrated for some time at the language that continues to be used 
in the  services that reinforces and prolongs the theistic concept of God. A 
welcome  topic for a future piece would be suggestions for substitutions for 
outmoded  language in the liturgy.  
Thank you for continuing to speak and write your beliefs.  
Dear John,  
Thank you for your kind comments. My online essays are available to  
newspapers for reprinting as op-ed pieces any time they wish. The only  requirement is 
that they state, "Reprinted by permission of Waterfront Media,  Bishop 
Spong's online publisher. Bishop Spong's columns appear weekly on his Web  site, 
www.JohnShelbySpong.com."  
In regard to your question about Richard Dawkins, I am not surprised at the  
level of agreement you find between us. I think Professor Dawkins is both  
brilliant and an incredible communicator. The definition of God that he rejects  
is the same one I reject. The difference being that he thinks the God he 
rejects  is the western God of Christianity and I believe that deity is a 
distortion of  who and what God is. The Christian Church has made such incredulous 
claims about  who God is and who God hates and how God acts that it is always on 
the defensive  when new learning that challenges old definitions appears. 
Traditional  Christianity has been buffeted by the insights of Copernicus, Kepler, 
Galileo,  Newton, Darwin, Freud and many others. They have destroyed the 
credibility of  much of our God talk. Richard Dawkins points that out in powerful 
ways, feeding  his conclusion that God is a harmful delusion that ought to be 
dismissed. I  agree that God is in fact a delusion and ought to be dismissed. 
We disagree on  the question of whether that God is the God encountered in 
Jesus of Nazareth or  a gross distortion. I believe it is a distortion.  
I met Richard Dawkins some years ago when I gave a lecture at New College,  
Oxford. I had just that day read his incisive book The Selfish Gene in  the 
Bodleian Library at Oxford so I was pleased to find myself seated next to  him at 
the High Table for dinner.  
I am glad his book is so popular. I think it feeds the very debate that the  
religious tradition of the west needs to have. J. B. Phillips, another  
Englishman, once wrote a book entitled Your God Is Too Small. I believe  that is the 
great problem facing contemporary Christianity. Richard Dawkins  helps to 
make sure we face that problem and, for that reason, I welcome his  book.  
John Shelby Spong 



**************************************Check out AOL's list of 2007's hottest 
products.
(http://money.aol.com/special/hot-products-2007?NCID=aoltop00030000000001)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/dialogue_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20071128/383b7480/attachment-0001.html