Anglican Taonga Eastertide 2016 by Anglican Taonga

EASTERTIDE 2016 // No.51

Taonga ANGLICAN

PEOPLE

Finding refuge with us

A Kiwi Afghan family who triumphed against the odds CHILDREN

Pilgrims on the way Shaping church families so kids & teens feel at home

F I J I C YC LO N E

Easter Rising Anglicans walk together on the road out of ruin

EASTERTIDE

SPIRITUALITY IN SEASON : : POST-QUAKE MENTAL HEALTH : : HARDWIRED FOR IDOLATRY?

2016 Page 1

ANGLICAN TAONGA

EASTERTIDE 2016

WORLDWIDE

Christian leaders across a broad spectrum of church traditions gathered as the Global Christian Forum late last year, to reach out to the world’s persecuted churches.

Churches unite to end persecution

hristian leaders from 65 nations gathered in Albania last November to take stock of antireligious violence and repression. The consultation, ‘Discrimination, Persecution, Martyrdom: Following Christ Together,’ was held in the city of Tirana from 2-4 November. Up to half the 145 delegates shared experiences of living under persecution today. The remainder offered solidarity from the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches, Pentecostal World Fellowship and World Evangelical Alliance. Albania’s Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical churches co-hosted the event, offering resurrection hope. Albanian churches rose again after 45 years of state suppression between 1945 and 1990. The formerly militant atheist state had expelled, tortured and executed religious leaders, seized, destroyed or dismantled houses of worship, and outlawed religious activity in the country. Historian Andrea Riccardi opened the meeting with a gruesome tally of 20th century martyrdoms, highlighting how killings, torture, imprisonment and discrimination had touched every corner of the church, regardless of tradition. The commonly cited ‘clash of civilisations’ between Islam and Christianity was not the primary cause of extended persecution, said Professor Riccardi. Political domination and fear of difference also put Christians in the line of fire. “Despite weakness or minority status… without using any armed force, the Christian Page 2

is often…a meek alternative to the prevailing ideology or power,” he said. For many “their humanity and actions, represent a different way of living… unacceptable to the prevailing fanaticism, or the dark interests (of some) that aim to control society. “For this reason they will be put aside, silenced, eliminated.” Professor Riccardi then took Western Christians to task for failing to recognise the brutality that 20thC Christians in the Middle East, Africa and Asia have endured for the gospel. Western Christians have stood by unknowing, he said, in the face of atrocities against their sisters and brothers in Christ. “They do not feel the searing memory of this history of the 20th century.... (their) insensitivity and ignorance are intertwined.” Professor Riccardi outlined a litany of crimes that reached from the Armenian genocide through to Rwanda and Burundi’s ethnic and religious massacres, touching on many assassinations and extremist acts against Christians. Christians who live in hostile zones or suffer from present-day repression then shared their struggles, which led to a shared global call to action through the forum’s message. “The testimony of Christ has come in the shedding of martyr’s blood,” the message states, as it calls churches to greater solidarity in the face of persecution. “Christian martyrs unite us in ways we can hardly imagine.” The GCF also urges all churches to remain vigilant to threats against others, and to keep

Mourners hold aloft flower-strewn caskets carrying victims of the Lahore Easter bombing, Pakistan 2016. Photo: Asianet-Pakistan / Shutterstock.com

suffering Christians’ needs before God and the world. They ask that: • Those who suffer for the fulfilment of God’s Kingdom are remembered in daily prayers • All churches encourage dialogue with other faiths • Governments uphold the human right of religious belief, strive to settle conflicts and stop the flow of arms, especially to violators of human rights • Christians monitor media reporting on violations of religious freedom • Churches teach human rights, religious tolerance, healing of memories, conflict resolution and reconciliation – especially with the young • Churches work to eliminate poverty and build respect for human dignity Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Pentecostal delegates also stepped back to admit wrongs committed between churches, and acknowledged churches’ sins against people of other faiths. “We repent of having at times persecuted each other, and other religious communities in history,” the message states. “[We] ask forgiveness …and for new ways of following Christ together.” Church aid and development organisations Caritas and Act Alliance will join WCC programmes to carry forward the GCF guidelines in their work. Open Doors International and Aid to the Church in Need attended and vowed to continue their support for churches suffering persecution.

ANGLICAN TAONGA

EASTERTIDE 2016

Anglican Taonga

34 Environment: Phillip Donnell glories in a mountain of renewal 40 Worldwide: Brian Thomas shares news picks from the web 42 Film: John Bluck flinches at what ‘Spotlight’ finds in the church 43 The Far Side: Imogen de la Bere fears for her beloved CofE

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P S YC H O LO G Y A N D FA I T H

Snapshots along the

road out of ruin

They're self-starters. They just need a hand to get going again.

As darkness fell on February 20 Tropical Cyclone Winston struck Fiji. Forty-five Fijian lives were lost that night, and homes, businesses, plantations, schools, community halls, churches, electricity lines, wharfs, bridges, and boats throughout the republic were destroyed.

valley, high on a hillside in the province of Ra, on the republic’s main island of Viti Levu – and the epic winds being funnelled up that valley that night destroyed 33 of the 37 homes in Maniava, and laid waste to all its crops.

In some ways, the remote Anglican settlement of Maniava provides a snapshot of the havoc that Cyclone Winston wreaked.

So here’s an account1 by the Very Rev Claude Fong Toy, Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Suva, of how the people of Maniava have been walking through the valley of the shadow of death since then.

This ‘koro’ sits at the mouth of a

He was talking to Lloyd Ashton.

Alisi has defied the odds before, and she'll do that again Alisi Aloa beside her wrecked home. Archbishop Winston meets villagers on the road out of Maniava, taking the last of their yaqona to market.

pretty much all that Cyclone Winston left of her home. Everything else – including her canteen – went. Actually, Alisi was lucky to even survive, because she was knocked out by flying timber. Alisi has defied the odds before, and she’ll do that again. To me, she carries the spirit of Maniava. The people of that koro are hardworking people. They’re self-starters, and they just need a hand to get going again. They came to that remote place 20 years ago2, and by the sweat of their brow they brought the land into production and built a village there. And they’ll do that again. For sure. *

The nearest school to Maniava is Tokaimalo District School, an hour’s walk away along a rough road, which was never feasible for the children to walk each day. So with help from the Anglican Missions Board, the villagers built a dormitory just two minutes’ walk from the school. Every Monday morning, the kids would troop off to school – along with two mums and dads who looked after the children

during the school week. The before and after photos of that dormitory tell of the havoc Winston wreaked on our school system. The cyclone demolished the dormitory and ripped the roof off the Tokaimalo classrooms. Tokaimalo is a junior primary school. The nearest college, Ra High School, is about 45 minutes away. But that was trashed, too. *

The good news is Maniava’s children are now back learning. The Government has hired a 4WD, so Willy Sanegar from Maniava drives the children to and from Tokaimalo. UNICEF has pitched a couple of marquees in the school grounds which for the time being are the classrooms. And in the last couple of weeks, Lautoka prison inmates have begun to rebuild Ra High School. *

Media Officer Lloyd Ashton Ph 09 521-4439 021 348-470 mediaofficer@anglicanchurch.org.nz. Cover: Archbishop Winston Halapua visiting the Fijian village of Maniava in the wake of the cyclone which almost tore Fiji apart on the night of February 20. Clockwise (from top left): Raditoga Kubikidaku, Jesa Baro, Waisea Radrodro, Waisake Raikadroka, Archbishop Winston, Lesi Baro and Mosese Kakaramu. And young Waisake Baro in front.

God is not a medium-sized object.

ll Christians are theologians. Or so we are often told, in a well-intentioned move toward egalitarianism that too often collapses into antiintellectualism. We all are thinkers about God, with one important qualification: most of us aren’t very good theologians. The human mind developed to deal with medium-sized objects – in particular, medium-sized objects like us: other human beings and other non-human animals. This is why we are good at throwing and catching: the ability to quickly estimate trajectories would have been crucial in our ancestral past. We are also good at mind-reading: working out how people are feeling, even when they are trying to hide their emotions. Conversely, we are not very good at the mathematics involved in solving problems in theoretical physics or complex economic systems.

Our mind-reading abilities also tend to spill into inappropriate domains: we anthropomorphise all kinds of things, from animals to inanimate objects. Hence the temptation to believe our computers are out to get us. Human beings approach God humanly; after all, there is no other way. But God is not a medium-sized object, and therefore our mental tools are illequipped to form accurate intuitions about God. On the contrary, our religious intuitions tend to produce gods that are very much like the medium-sized objects our minds evolved to deal with. For example, we naturally think of God in human terms: at worst, this tendency gives rise to a bearded old man in the sky. But even sophisticated versions of this view, in which God loses the beard but retains the same human psychological features, are still at odds with what Christianity – and, for that matter, Judaism and Islam – teaches about God. God is not at all like a man or woman in

population thinking, or the fact that physical objects are mostly empty space (because atoms are mostly empty space). None of these are intuitive either. Despite rumours about their antagonism, science and theology have this in common, at least. In a way, psychological research into religious belief confirms something that theological educators have always known: idolatry is attractive. Just as it was easier to worship a golden calf than an invisible God, it is easier to believe in the gods we have constructed in our own image, rather than the God who is boundless mystery. We are, as John Calvin recognised, “a perpetual factory of idols.” Yes, all Christians are indeed theologians. But that does not mean our religious intuitions and idiosyncratic experiences are adequate guides for faith. It is not enough to rely on our own natural instincts and inclinations; nor to insist that God will reveal all things perfectly, downloading orthodoxy directly into our skulls. Down that route lies gnosticism, one of Christianity’s oldest heresies. Theology, like science, is a social enterprise, not an individualistic one. Given our cognitive limitations and biases, we need difficult and counter-

Lloyd Ashton has been talking to one Auckland family who, by their constant commitment in the face of all kinds of trials, bear witness to Jenni’s view.

They were stopping people in the streets: 'Did you pray? When did you pray?

The Rev Dr Jonathan Jong is an experimental psychologist at Coventry University and the University of Oxford and serves as assistant curate at St Mary Magdalen, Oxford. His forthcoming book, to be published by Bloomsbury, is entitled Death Anxiety and Religious Belief.

Scott Atra, In Gods We Trust -The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, Oxford University Press, 2004. Jonathan Jong, Christopher Kavanagh & Aku Visala, Born idolaters: The limits of the philosophical implications of the cognitive science of religion, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematicsche Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 57(2), 2015.

Where trees have

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Plenty good room

to share

When we constantly separate children, youth and adults, she says, we isolate the faithful in age-group silos where they can only relate among peers. “What will churches gain if we reconnect the generations?” she asks. “And what will we lose if we stick with the status quo?”

We've let go of the spiritual model.

ention intergenerational ministry and an illconceived “all-age service” often comes to mind. Many of us have endured them… “the service with something to offend everyone.” Such token nods to children’s involvement often happen only once a month, and end up more like a UN peacekeeping deal than a wonderful celebration of God’s family. But being an intergenerational church goes much further than that. If a church caters for all ages, or has them present in worship, that does not make it an intergenerational church. It reflects a multigenerational congregation perhaps, but intergenerational communities go far deeper. In their 2012 book Intergenerational Christian Formation, Holly Allen and Christine Ross write that intention makes all the difference: intergenerational churches

make it their business to build bridges across different peer groups. A Christian community becomes intergenerational, say Allen and Ross, when leaders make multiple spaces for everyaged believers to share their lives and faith. Throughout much of Christian history, this community model was the norm: the whole Body of Christ met for ministry, worship, social and service events. But over the last several decades, all but the smallest congregations have divided the ages for learning, and frequently kept them apart across church life. The Reformers sparked this kind of piecemeal ministry trend with their desire for every believer to meet Christ directly through the scriptures. Then advances in secular education split children into different developmental stages to foster age-specific teaching. Sunday schools followed, and Christian educators began to use teaching methods tailored to children’s learning styles. Parachurch groups strengthened the “divide to teach” approach with runaway successes in narrow peer group ministries,

Junior and senior pilgrims build connections at the crafts table.

again leading churches to adopt similar strategies. But as a result, churches have moved from a spiritual model (of the Body of Christ at work and worship) towards a learning model. Fast forward to today, and most books on church growth still reel off proofs that an exciting, entertaining hour of children’s ministry will lead to church growth. But we now know that churches lose up to 50% of their children in the move from primary age to adolescence, as they shift from one silo to another. The problem with our current model is disconnection. We have fenced the generations apart. And in the process, our young people have struggled to gain a sense of church community. They fail to find identity, security or belonging in their churches, other than through age-specific groups. There are still powerful reasons to gather by age, stage or interest. Spiritual growth occurs when teens interact, seniors meet for mutual support and care, and preschoolers learn and play together.

“People thought: ‘Now there will be peace.' So they gave the Taliban the cities…"

www.shure.com/asia

Diana Langdon works as Enabler for Strandz, the Tikanga Pakeha children and families’ ministry hub.

After a couple of weeks cooped up there, Mohammad and Fahima fled to an uncle’s house on the outskirts of Kabul. In some ways, though, the die was cast. That pattern – of sheltering their love in the teeth of a storm – was to play out for the next 20 years. *

When Mohammad and Fahima married, he was 22, about to start his last year of pharmacy studies at Kabul University. Fahima, 18, was also enrolled there as a first-year science student. But they never got to take their studies further. When the mujahideen groups that had driven the Soviets out of Afghanistan began

After a harrowing four-month journey he was on a plane, shredding his passport on the final approach to Auckland. He cleared the first hurdle here, too. The Immigration Department gave him a six-month working visa while they considered his plea for asylum. He got a job as a storeman at the pharmaceutical company where he now heads production. And he was told that in

six months – eight months tops – Fahima, Henna and Sameer could join him in Auckland. But then on September 11, 2001, Mohammad’s hopes came crashing down. In the wake of 9/11, New Zealand clamped down on all Muslims seeking refugee status. Especially those from Afghanistan. The Americans invaded Afghanistan, and in 2003 New Zealand authorities rejected Mohammad’s bid for refugee status. “They said: ‘You can go back to your country now. There is no Taliban’.” Never mind that Taliban fighters had gone to ground, and Kabul remained one of the most dangerous cities on earth. Then in 2004, Mohammad’s asylum appeal was rejected – giving him 40 days to leave the country.

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

ANGLICAN TAONGA EASTERTIDE 2016

EASTERTIDE 2016

MISSION

Following Jesus

in and out of season

1 Allen, H. and Ross, C. Intergenerational Christian Formation: Bringing the Whole Church together in Ministry, Community and Worship, 2012, IVP Publishing.

What needs pruning or throwing away to allow for new growth?’

Adrienne Thompson’s journey with Christ leads her through the Lenten labour of harvest and into the dying and rising of an autumnal Easter.

n the second Sunday in Lent, sun blazed in Wellington. In the market, red peppers and purple aubergines gleamed among piles of courgettes selling for half of nothing. I heard a student exult over tomatoes, plums and onions she had bought for $3, and I carried home a bounty of colour, taste and nutrition for the week ahead. In Aotearoa, Lent heralds Easter without the slow greening and flowering of spring but with high summer, harvest, an abundance of fruit. And yet despite the sun that shines, the shadows are lengthening. By Easter we’ll be into autumn. Though I grew up in Asia, apart from Europe’s snowy winter and dazzling spring, my mental and spiritual landscape was shaped by that continent’s stories, hymns and poems. Advent, I learnt, should be darkening, and Christmas wintry. Lent, in turn, should be a new awakening, and Easter a glory of springtime. So when I moved to New Zealand, the seasons no longer chimed with my northern hemisphere assumptions. And I sulked – perhaps to God’s amusement. Then, gradually, I realised I’d received a new assignment: learn to live here. Here is Aotearoa, where in Lent we move towards autumnal tasks. The Easy Gardener1 offers words that fit well our Lenten call to reflect and repent: prune, mulch, dig up, divide, replant, assess, discard, store. Autumn is a time to ask: ‘What harvest do I see?’ I can take time to recognise, name and give thanks for fruit growing from hard work, nourished by God’s life-giving sun and rain. And I can ask, ‘Which activities, commitments or possessions need pruning, or throwing away, to allow for new growth?’ Juliet Batten’s wonderful book ‘Celebrating the Southern Seasons’2 recounts the seasonal changes and practices of pagan and Christian Europe, of pre-European Maori and of European colonisers. She describes the kumara harvest in the month of poutu te rangi (March): At Autumn equinox, light and dark come once more into balance. It is time to give thanks and make offerings, to acknowledge the power of seeds to carry life over the dark months … the moment to tune in to the mystery of the changeover, knowing that what appears to be a part of the dying is really a part of the movement forward into renewal

Harakeke crosses mark Palm Sunday and go with me through the year. Flax stems strung with Easter eggs become a 'North meets South' Easter tree of life.

and rebirth. Yes. That fits deeply with the Lenten and Easter story. As Jesus said, speaking of himself and summoning us to follow: ‘I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.’ (John 12:24) Christchurch poet Ursula Bethell was born in Surrey and educated in Europe but made New Zealand her home. She never forgot England’s ‘vernal Lent,’ but she did discover the meaning of Easter in Aotearoa: Easter. And leaves falling. Easter. And first autumn rains. Easter. And dusk stealing Our bright working daylight… Summer’s arrow is spent, Stored her last tribute. So, now, we plant our bulbs With assured vision, And, now, we sow our seeds Sagely for sure quickening.3 Borders must be purged, she writes, and rubbish burnt. Then those ashes will fertilise next year’s roses. So in Lent and Easter here, I want to recognise the letting-go, dying and burial that fits so well with autumn, as well as the new life of resurrection symbolised by spring. I’ve found a symbol in harakeke, New Zealand flax, which grows wild on our hillside section. Red flowers in Advent turn to green seedpods in summer, then the pods turn black: drying, opening and releasing their shiny black seeds. I snap off a stalk or two and among their black pods or withered husks I hang brightly painted eggs, those ancient

Hannah and some of her Syrian friends.

annah1 has chosen to live within walking distance of the Syrian border. Nearby, there’s a refugee camp with a population greater than Hamilton’s. In the town where she lives, 100,000 Syrian refugees outnumber the town’s native population. The Syrians arrive, sometimes, without even shoes on their feet – having fled in panic from the bombing of their homes. Instead they carry images and memories that disturb. Hannah recalls delivering food at one home – and being riveted by a young boy’s screams. “He can’t handle strangers coming into the home,” she was told. Little wonder. Syrian soldiers had burst into his home, and dragged his father away.

Letting-go, dying and burial fits so well with autumn.

symbols of new life. This year the eggs come from Germany, sent by my sister, so northern and southern hemisphere symbols combine in my Easter tree. And I go back to harakeke for Palm Sunday’s folded crosses. My flaxen cross goes with me throughout the year, reminding me of Jesus’s call to follow him here in Aotearoa – where he has planted me. Easter no longer seems incongruous in autumn, but fitting and proper – just as appropriate as Advent in springtime and Epiphany in summer. But that’s another story. Adrienne Thompson is a spiritual director and professional supervisor in Wellington. She is involved in the Stillwaters Community and Wellington Central Baptist Church. lekhika@paradise.net.nz

The Damascus

Happy Birthday club Biggest news story of the last 12 months?

And no more bombs. No more rockets. No more being shot at.

1. The Easy Gardener for New Zealand Gardeners, Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd. 2. Juliet Batten, Celebrating the Southern Seasons: Rituals for Aotearoa, Random House 2005, p188. 3. Ursula Bethell, From ‘Dirge’ in A Garden in the Antipodes, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1929

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s romantic settings go, the spot where Mt Albert couple Mohammad and Fahima Tahir spent their 1992 honeymoon lacked a certain something. Privacy, for example. The chance to be alone together. That’s hard to achieve when you’re crammed in an apartment basement with 50 other families. Mohammad and Fahima come from Afghanistan. The week after they’d wed, mujahideen began firing rockets from the roof of their Kabul apartment block at a rival clan. The rival clan felt duty-bound to return the favour, so everyone in that apartment was forced to shelter in the basement.

Mohammad and Fahima had two children – Henna, their daughter, and then Sameer, their son – but by the year 2000, life in Kabul had become too menacing for the Tahir family. Mohammad had been interrogated by the Taliban, and imprisoned for a month – and one evening in 2000, the family decided they had to flee Kabul, overnight. They made it to Peshawar city, just across the Pakistani border, but Mohammad felt only marginally safer there as Taliban fighters were still everywhere. So he made contact with people smugglers – and by selling Fahima’s jewelry, they could just pay the smugglers to spirit Mohammad out of the country. He could speak some English, too, so when he heard a group were trying to reach Australia and New Zealand, he was in.

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But there are also important benefits to regular cross-generational learning, outreach and fellowship. The children's pastor at Tawa-Linden Anglican parish, Hayley Balmer, says one way to build friendships among adults, teens and children is through electives, where adult parishioners share their interests and skills with the children. “It allows different generations to form relationships in fun activities such as baking, sports, board games, flower arranging, K’nex & Lego construction, craft, knitting, chocolate casting, puppetry, beadcraft, origami, gardening, photography, ukulele, dance, first aid and carpentry.” Differently-aged believers minister to one another in these spaces, says Hayley, and can build up one another’s spiritual health. In her book Collide, Australian children’s ministry expert Tammy Tolman claims a biblical mandate for mixed age-group ministry and suggests different combinations of parents, children, grandparents, youth, respected elders and singles. But in the end, intergenerational community is not about adding one more activity to the annual schedule. It requires a sea change, where church communities expect to grow into fuller ways of living together. This year Strandz aims to build a better understanding of intergenerational ministry through workshops in Anglican communities around Aotearoa New Zealand. To take part, look for more information at: http://www.strandz.org.nz/intergenerational. html

diana@strandz.org.nz

to fight each other for control of Kabul, the university was shut down. In the face of that turmoil and danger, Mohammad and Fahima got hitched anyway. Over the next four years, the mujahideen pounded each other to a standstill – and then, in 1996, the Taliban swept into Kabul from Kandahar. “People thought: Now there will be peace,” says Mohammad, “so they gave the Taliban the cities, without any fighting.” But after a couple of months, the reality became clear. “The Taliban issued Islamic law. The schools and universities were shut. They said we didn’t need doctors. You just recite something from the Koran – and you’ll get well. “They were stopping people in the streets: ‘Did you pray? When did you pray?’ “Men got caned in the streets – and men beat women, as well. ‘Why is your ankle showing?’ or: ‘Why are you outside without your husband?’

polished leaves…

Is your wireless system illegal?

SPIRITUALITY

Kids and grown-ups put final touches on their baking during 'electives' at Tawa-Linden Anglican Parish.

Kabul: the city from which Mohammad had to flee.

Mohammad and Fahima Tahir, stroll in Auckland's Monte Cecilia Park.

jonathan.jong@anthro.ox.ac.uk Bibliography Justin Barret, Why would anyone believe in God? Altamira, 2004.

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EASTERTIDE 2016

ALL AGE MINISTRY

Diana Langdon believes our churches have gone too far in the drive for age-appropriate teaching.

ANGLICAN TAONGA EASTERTIDE 2016

EASTERTIDE 2016

In that last story, Jenni Broom suggested no issue looms larger for refugees in New Zealand than bringing their families together.

None of these aspects of God are intuitive to us.

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That’s got to be the desperation of the Syrian people. The millions who have fled the country’s civil war, or been driven from their homes within Syria. So it’s no surprise, that two of the best-attended workshops

at last October’s missions conference were led by a young Auckland woman who, as an NZCMS mission partner, moved to the Syrian border three years ago to work among refugees. Lloyd Ashton has been speaking with her.

If those Syrian refugees make it across the border, the immediate dangers are past. No more bombs. No more rockets. No more being shot at. But they exist, rather than live. They are forbidden to work – but if they live in the town (and they long to get clear of the camp) they must pay rent and buy food, and are frequently exploited. Often, as a result the refugee families depend on the UN to survive. But because the UNHCR receives only a fraction of appealed-for funds, those families survive

Now at least the refugees are out of the secret police’s reach

on skimpy rations. What’s more, their presence in the town is stoking tensions. While local landlords, farmers and merchants are doing well, citizens at the bottom of the heap are reeling from rocketing rents and price hikes. *

Into that environment, Hannah seeks to bring mercy and grace. She’s one of four young women building long term relationships with Syrian refugee women. ‘They aim to help in practical ways – and to share the Good News of Jesus Christ’. The irony is, it is easier to share that message now, than before the civil war. Back then, says Hannah, Syrians couldn’t trust anyone – because so many were either secret police themselves, or their informants. Hannah has a Christian friend who before the war, against all odds, set up a women’s Bible study in Damascus. Those women never met in the same house twice. “And at some point during their meetings,” says Hannah, “they’d sing ‘Happy Birthday’ – to throw eavesdroppers off the trail.” Now at least the refugees are out of the secret police’s reach. They are hungry – not just for food, says Hannah, but for hope. *

Long before the UN pulled into town, a

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local church was delivering that hope. The refugees began to flee across the border in mid-2011. They rented bare apartments in the town – and the church helped with mattresses, blankets, portable stove tops, gas bottles, and clothing. Good news travels fast. Because every day now, Syrian Muslims come knocking at the church door. “Before the war,” says Hannah, “there would have been questions about that: ‘Why are you going to church? It must be because you are going to betray your faith.’ “But now the people come, and no-one questions that.” *

Hannah and her friends seek to complement the church’s work. In pairs, they’ll drop by the homes of women who have sought the church’s help. They’ll sit with them. Drink tea with them – because that’s how you show honour in Syrian culture, says Hannah. They’ll then ask whether they want to hear a story about this prophet called Jesus – and, if the interest is there, whether their host would like to gather a group of friends to tackle a study about him?

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Time for a full body check

Advertising Brian Watkins Ph 06 875-8488 021 072-9892 brian@grow.co.nz

Looking deep into how the human psyche works, he has seen how often religious hunches make absolute nonsense of God.

idols

the sky: not physically, not psychologically, not in any way. God may be more like a person than like an impersonal force, but that does not mean God is anything like other persons whom we know and love. After all, ice cream is more like steak tartare (both edible, from cows) than jet fuel, but it would be misleading to think that ice cream is a kind of steak or vice versa. This means that when we apply human attributes to God – desires, emotions, even love – we must bear in mind that we are stretching these concepts to breaking point. Cognitive scientists have a name for the conflict between religious intuitions and theological teachings: the tragedy of the theologian. From a psychological perspective, theology is hard – not only for ordinary people, but also for professional theologians. Take the omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence of God, or the Trinitarian relations within the Godhead (no, it is not like water, ice and steam), or the two natures of Christ. None of these are intuitive things to believe, nor should we expect them to be, given how our thinking evolved. Equivalent problems in science are quantum indeterminacy, Darwinian

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Editor Julanne Clarke-Morris 786 Cumberland Street Otepoti – Dunedin 9016 Ph 03 477-1556 julanneclarkemorris@gmail.com

Distribution Aleshia Lawson Taonga Distribution Manager PO Box 6431, Dunedin 9059 taongadistribution@gmail.com

Jonathan Jong doubts whether common sense and an open heart are sufficient to get our heads around the nature of God.

Features

Design Marcus Thomas Design info@marcusthomas.co.nz

Toying with

The other good news is that the mobile phone network is up again. So now I’m back in contact with Vilimoni Veilawa, the new Turanga ni Koro (village headman) at Maniava.

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

REFUGEES

Plastic Christ in glory plays for Rio: solid stand-ins are easier to fathom than the truth of God.

eet Alisi Aloa. She’s 55 – and to me, she represents the spirit of Maniava. She’s known hard times. And not just the hard times that Cyclone Winston dealt out, either. But whenever Alisi’s been knocked down, she has dusted herself off, got up and gone again. Alisi moved to Maniava five years ago, from Bua in Vanua Levu, Fiji’s secondlargest island. She had her three children to care for: daughters Sera and Sainimere, and her younger brother, Waisea. Well, Alisi is resourceful. She spotted a market opportunity. Maniava is pretty much a subsistence economy. What little cash the people have, they make from the sale of yaqona – the plant used to produce kava. Before Alisi came along, the villagers used to trudge off to the Rakiraki town market – about 80km away – and they’d often sit in that market for hours, hoping that someone would buy their yaqona. That could be soul-destroying. Alisi could see that the villagers often needed money quickly, or wanted to avoid traipsing into Rakiraki. So she offered to buy the yaqona from the individual villagers – and, by hiring a ute and a driver, she’d take those bigger quantities of yaqona to market and on-sell them to companies and big buyers. That was a winning formula. Alisi didn’t rest on her laurels, either. She then added a little canteen on to her home where villagers could buy essential supplies. That caught on, too. From the profits from both ventures, Alisi has put both Sera and Sainimere through university. Sera is now a teacher, while Sainimere works for the Fiji Sugar Corporation in Lautoka. Right now, Alisi’s supporting her 22-year-old son, Waisea Rasoqila, at the Fiji National University in Lautoka. He’ll become a teacher, too. Just recently, Alisi even spent a little on herself. She added a small bathroom and kitchen to her Maniava house. The block walls of that addition are

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Contributing Editor/ Web Editor Brian Thomas Ph 03 351 4404 bjthomas@orcon.net.nz

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26 Spirituality: Adrienne Thompson meets Jesus in the southern seasons

Contents

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22 Children: Diana Langdon brings faith families back together

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REGULAR

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Jim White uncovers nine ways to diagnose healthy churches

On the road out of ruin Where to now for Fiji’s storm-battered souls?

Why idols are easier Jonathan Jong digs into the human psyche to dispel our godly myths

Right by my side Jenni Broome sides with refugees wanting a better life

Mohammad’s long wait Meet an Afghan family whose love and hope prevailed

Waging peace UN style Derek Tovey finds readymade tools for building the kingdom

On a mission to Syria A Kiwi woman shares the Good News with refugees in Jordan

Teens treading water Sue Bagshaw on youth mental health in Christchurch

For the latest on the Anglican world, check out our website:

http://anglicantaonga.org.nz Page 3

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au lo th co vin ent m g ic m un ity

v an ibra lif d p nt e ra fa ye ith rf ul

d w yna or m sh ic ip

MINISTRY

Time for a Bishop Jim White wants congregations to grow more fully into the Body of Christ. But first they have to know their strengths and pinpoint the weak or ailing spots that need healing or exercise.

We must hold the stethoscope to the heartbeat of worship.

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full body check

ometimes, as a church visitor, I sense that something is missing, that maybe all is not well in the Body of Christ. When I stay longer, I occasionally hear clergy or lay leaders describe their life in terms that make me uneasy. But vague feelings or intuitions apart, how can we measure a ‘healthy church’? It’s no simple task. For starters, communities have different personalities, just as individuals do – some are outgoing and loud, while others are quiet and reserved. So personality in itself is not a fair gauge of health or wellbeing. We cannot expect healthy churches to conform to a single mould. Then there’s the numbers question. Because the church at large is facing decline, it is tempting to focus on numbers – not an interesting place to start.

It’s reassuring to recall that Jesus chose no more than 12 disciples despite his absolute union with the Holy Spirit and obedience to God’s will. And while our Lord gathered crowds, he also ended his earthly life with betrayal and few by his side. Growing numbers may signal a healthy church, but not always. Growing churches, even large or mega-churches, can prove to be communities of disease and dysfunction. So while growth is a common byproduct of health, it is quality of life in Christ that should fascinate us, not church statistics per se. Talk of a ‘healthy church’ may also lead to false expectations, just as muscle-bound, airbrushed bodies conjure up the image of a healthy body. When Jesus said, “Go, your faith has made you well,” he meant wellness of salvation. That health and wellness comes not from adding vitamins, but from dwelling in the life-giving love of God, which offers

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true life, even life eternal. The health we seek comes by the grace of God, and we demonstrate it by our behaviour through a matrix of relationships. Only a web of connections and qualities can attest to a congregation’s health. The Anglican Communion’s Marks of Mission offer one useful pattern, as they imply the breadth of ministry in a healthy Christian community. However, the five-fold mission omits worship, the source and summit of all mission. So we must hold the stethoscope to the heartbeat of worship, too. Some churches appear indistinguishable from secular social service agencies. And the reverse is also true when communities worship together, but fail to walk the talk of their Sunday prayers. Both extremes are less than whole; mission needs worship and worship needs mission. One useful guide to assessing community health comes from the quick yet thorough overview in Robert Warren’s Healthy Churches Handbook1. In the Diocese of Auckland we have built on that material with a tool to help communities improve their health. We have digested a raft of books, held many workshops and called in the aid of psychologist and group cultures researcher Dr Joyce Pereira-Laird. Joyce usually works for businesses and corporates, but she’s also a spirit-filled

Christian, whose energy and specialist skills have helped us develop a finely tuned congregational questionnaire. We have now identified nine characteristics of a healthy church: • dynamic worship • vibrant faith and prayerful life • authentic loving community • good stewardship and governance • discipleship • gift-oriented ministry • empowering leadership • relevant outreach • sharing of the gospel Each characteristic fits within one of the four overarching dimensions: to know Christ, to love Christ, to grow in Christ, to serve and share Christ. We cannot unpack all that lies within these characteristics here, but in many respects the titles speak for themselves. Each category has clear features; for example, ‘authentic loving community,’ displays 13 distinct qualities to check – from dealing with conflict, to follow-up with newcomers, and a sense of concern and joy for one another. One delightful but slightly eerie thing happened when Joyce read a congregational survey to nut out its ‘findings.’ I asked whether she had met the community, because she described them with such precision. This diagnostic tool helps communities name successes and strengths, too. It is a powerful reminder when so few churches celebrate and value the blessings they are

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A delightful, but slightly eerie thing happened...

given. The tool also adds leverage for such issues as sharing leadership or resources, holding a stewardship campaign or committing to Bible study and prayer together. There are exciting possibilities here, if we know ourselves better and act on that new understanding. But then, so many people hear what the doctor says and yet ignore the stark reality of their condition. Many of us would rather leave the consulting room and make no changes to our eating or smoking or failure to exercise. Perhaps that’s why Jesus asked blind Bartimaeus the seemingly odd question: What do you want me to do for you? Ultimately, to get well, we have to want to be well. 1. Robert Warren, The Healthy Churches’Handbook https://www.chpublishing.co.uk/uploads/ documents/0715140175.pdf

If your provider’s KiwiSaver scheme doesn’t fit, you can easily transfer to Koinonia.

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Snapshots along the

road out of ruin

They're self-starters. They just need a hand to get going again.

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In some ways, the remote Anglican settlement of Maniava provides a snapshot of the havoc that Cyclone Winston wreaked.

So here’s an account1 by the Very Rev Claude Fong Toy, Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Suva, of how the people of Maniava have been walking through the valley of the shadow of death since then.

This ‘koro’ sits at the mouth of a

He was talking to Lloyd Ashton.

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The other good news is that the mobile phone network is up again. So now I’m back in contact with Vilimoni Veilawa, the new Turanga ni Koro (village headman) at Maniava. Page 7

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FIJI C YCLONE

I drive to the village every week but couldn’t on Palm Sunday, so Fr Tomu went. He took a communion set, palm crosses and fronds. He also took tin snips and a chainsaw. When I was talking to Vilimoni this morning, I could hear that chainsaw. They’re clearing debris and ripping fallen trees for timber. They’re beginning to build again. *

Right after the cyclone, the army brought in emergency rations. So they have enough basic food like rice, some canned stuff, and split peas – which Indo Fijians call dal. But Fijians often don’t have much clue about split peas. The other day one of the villagers asked me: ‘What else can you do with split

The villagers know they can't just rebuild in the old way.

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A view over the valley of destruction in early March. Still smiling.

peas besides boil them?’ So we arranged for some Indo-Fijian ladies from St Matthew’s parish in Suva to go into Maniava and teach the villagers other ways to prepare dal, so it’s not boring! In addition to the rations they already have, we’ve made a point of asking what their specific needs are – for the children, for women with babies, and for the elderly. So every time we go in, we take stuff for them. The only houses that withstood the cyclone were the four the Government built, to code. So the villagers know they can’t just rebuild in the old way. They know that on roofs, for instance, you must use screws, not nails. You must strap your walls, and your windows need to be designed well. They need to be rebuilt to a certain resilience. It’s an economic issue, of course. *

The House of Sarah is an AAW Polynesia project. They exist to help women and children who are in harm’s way. The days leading up to the cyclone were very stressful – so the House of Sarah responded by saying: ‘Let’s go and

talk to the women and the children.’ One day I took Nai Cokanasiga and Milly Fong into Maniava to talk to the ladies – and this is from Nai’s report: There we sat, Miliana and I, listening while they struggled to talk through tears – and we can still see the fear in their eyes as they relived the trauma of that time. They apologized as they told their stories, but we both understood how hard it was for them to talk. They told us later that this was the first time they’d shared their stories – and it felt so good to be sharing things that still haunt them and their families. They told us their

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Caption...

I don't understand, Lord. But I thank you that you still care for us.

The day in Holy Week when the Fijian Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama visited Maniava.

children still find it hard to sleep at night – they are afraid that TC Winston will return to tear up what’s left… We saw, too, that these women had been meeting all their family’s needs and demands, but never disclosing to anyone their own personal needs. They admitted they were all walking around feeling uncomfortable without spare underclothing or sanitary pads. But they were keeping quiet about that – until we asked: ‘what are your personal needs right now?’ *

So, are the people just intent on surviving, day to day? Or are they looking ahead? Actually, they’re holding both things in tension. I was speaking with Jesa Baro3 the other day. Jesa is a Sunday School teacher, and he and his wife Lesi and their two children live with his father. But his house got wiped out, too.

That's Jesa Baro's dad, Mosese Kakaramu, at left, then his wife Merewalesi, Jesa and their two kids.

Everything above the floor was taken. So now Jesa and his family are living beneath the floor. Jesa’s children are asking him questions about that: ‘How much longer are we going to be sleeping here, Dad?’ Jesa was a bit teary when he was telling me this. He told me, too, that he’ll find it hard to rebuild. ‘Every time I hear the wind and tin rattling,’ he said, ‘it takes me back to that night.’ Anyway: a couple of days after the cyclone he told me he was feeling down. He was thinking: ‘Lord: why has this happened to us?’ But just as he was forming that question, Jesa heard the church van coming to the village. So instead of brooding over that question, he breathed a statement of trust: ‘Even though I don’t understand what has happened to us, Lord,’ he said… ‘I thank you that you still care for us.’

Hope for tomorrow. Top right: Milly Fong and Nai Cokanasiga from the House of Sarah arriving at Maniava. And that's Deve Wakili, the Maniava church warden, at right.

1. See the earlier Taonga website report on Maniava: http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/TikangaPasifika/Maniava 2. The people of Maniava are descendants of Melanesians who were “recruited” to work on Fiji’s plantations. They originally settled at a place called Nabunikadamu, which is in Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second main island. But the lease for that land expired 20 years ago – so, with the blessing of the landowners in Ra, they came to Maniava. 3. See: http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/ Tikanga-Pasifika/Maniava Page 9

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‘And one of the messages this year for me is that while many will celebrate Easter Day in magnificent places… there are other people who will celebrate a very powerful Easter – but with no roof above them, and no shelter around them.’ – excerpt from Archbishop Winston Halapua’s 2016 Easter message1.

"I looked – and I knew everything was shattered. Everything."

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“Those two Sundays? They were very beautiful.”

o roof? Well, the people in cycloneflattened Maniava, in Fiji’s Ra province, actually did have a roof above them as they celebrated Easter. Not a flash one, mind. A makeshift, hastilyerected corrugated iron one which, to be sure, kept the rain off them and the dirt floor dry that Easter day. More or less. And for the ones who couldn’t squeeze into that shelter? There were the flapping blue nylon tents which the Fijian Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama, had brought with him a couple of days earlier. They were grateful for those, too. Actually, that rough-and-ready shelter tells you something about the people of Maniava. It tells you where their treasure is, and where their heart is also. Because thirty-three of the 37 homes in that village were trashed by Cyclone Winston. Not one had been properly rebuilt – because they’d needed

first to replant their gardens. But here they were, and almost the first shelter they re-erect, in the centre of their koro is a place where they can worship God. They’re Anglicans at Maniava. And Fr Tomu Asioli, a retired school headmaster who’s diocesan ministry educator, as well as a priest and choir director at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Suva, was chosen to walk with them through Palm Sunday and Easter day. So on these special days, Fr Tomu and his wife Ema set sail from Suva, long before sunrise, to make the three hour journey into the hinterlands. They arrived, in good time, for Fr Tomu to conduct services in Fijian at that makeshift Maniava shelter. Those services didn’t disappoint, either. We asked Fr Tomu to unpack what happened – and here’s what he shared with us, first about that Palm Sunday service: *

“After the hurricane I had looked at Maniava – and I knew everything was shattered. “Everything had been ruined. Their hopes, their dreams… Everything. “So I said: ‘OK. We’re not going to do what we usually do. Where we just walk around the

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church, and that’s the palm procession. “No. I will take us back to where you enter the village. “Why? Because this was where the founders of this community had entered this koro, 20 years ago. “In the second stage of our profession, I said: ‘Stop!’ right in the middle of the village. “Right in the middle. “And I asked them: ‘Do you know why we are stopping here?’ “I told them: ‘We are stopping here, because this is where your ancestors confirmed to you that you were going to settle. “And today, in this procession, Jesus Christ has taken you through the gates to the middle of the village to tell you: ‘I’m reentering your life – this day. “No matter what.’ “No matter what. “No hurricane – nor anything else – can stop me. “I’m entering into this village, once more, to stay.” *

Seven days later, Fr Tomu and his wife again set out before dawn for the 10am Easter Sunday service. “As I was driving down the hill towards the village, people saw us coming. “We arrived at 8:30am. And I could sense an expectancy. “Everyone starting running. ‘Hey. Father’s coming! Get ready!’ “They were looking forward to the resurrection service, eh? “That shelter we use as a church – it’s not a big shelter. But everyone wanted to cram inside. “There would be 60 plus in there. It was so crowded. There was just enough space for the altar, and for me to celebrate behind the altar. “So the wardens needed to shift the children, to make sure they were comfortable in one corner, and they cleared space for the older people and for those taking part in the service. “The rest just had to stay outside. “The altar? That was just an old desk, which they’d managed to salvage. “But the cyclone had taken their linen. So my wife had prepared linen for the altar… and I brought a corporal, chalice, paten and purificators from the cathedral for the celebration. “But flowers? We had beautiful flowers. Whatever was left after the cyclone, and was blooming, we had them. In bottles, mostly… but there were some vases, too. The flowers

were very beautiful. “When we drove back that afternoon, I tried to imagine a theme that fitted what I had seen. I came up with this: Resurrection breaking into the darkness of Winston. “Because during our celebration, they were so happy! They were enjoying every minute. “And their voices! They were singing from the bottom of their hearts… “They were praising the Lord, listening attentively, and they were responding to everything that went on. “And I saw that they had left everything behind. “They just disregarded everything. “They left the world behind. They left their sorrows, their losses, their pain… everything – because they sensed Resurrection. “That’s the way I saw it, you know? It was so encouraging. “We sang: Satucake, Satucake. Jisu Satucake Mai. “Which means: ‘Jesus is Risen.’ “That just went along with the sermon, which I called: “The difference that a day brings”. “Disasters are inevitable, I told them. “Disasters, in varying degrees, and magnitudes, are part of life, eh? “However, the resurrection of Jesus Christ has transformed the whole world – with all its disasters! This is hope that supersedes any fears, any darkness that any believer may have. “On Saturday there was fear, confusion and worry, and no hope. And then, the next day, there is surprise – and joy. This is the difference a day brings. “Ahh… You just needed to be there, to see the glow in their eyes… “They came in with all this weight upon them. “When we began the service, things began to lift… And then, when the preaching time came, the horizon seemed to open up for them… “That is what I sensed, anyhow. “I knew what it was like for them. And I knew that I needed to prepare something in Jesus’ power, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, to meet that. “I could also sense that they were expecting to be met. Yes!” *

“I saved the blessing for the children to the last. “Normally they come first, and are blessed before the others take communion. “Or they are blessed as their parents come forward to take their communion.

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Fr Tomu Asioli.

“But in this case I felt to do it differently. So after the Holy Communion I invited all of the children – there would have been 40 plus there – to come forward. Then I invited parents to stand behind their children, and then I blessed the children. “I did it this way because in the long run, the children are the ones who will carry everything that we experienced with this hurricane. “These children will be the future leaders of the church, and of Fiji. “So we were blessing their futures. The children should be encouraged. Christ is risen. He’s there to hold their hand and to lead them forward. “The service ended after 11am. Then I took the reserved sacrament to the sick, blessed them, and then came back and we had bread and tea together. “Then we had a feast. The diocesan secretary, John Simmons, had come the day before, and he’d brought a pig big enough to feed the whole koro. They hadn’t eaten meat since the cyclone – so our feast was another way we celebrated new life together. “My wife and I left for Suva at about 3:00pm. “And as we drove back we just felt satisfied. We felt peace. And we were thankful. “Because we felt that we could leave that community, that Easter Sunday, in peace. “Knowing that whatever lies before them – and their needs are very great – God will take care of them. And they will look after one another.” 1. http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/CommonLife/Floorboards

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FRIUJ R I A C LY CMLIONNI SE T R Y

Anglican Missions CEO Robert Kereopa. Washing flies before a row of emergency tents given by Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.

The Cyclone Winston Disaster Response Plan

o what’s the plan, Stan? It couldn’t get much simpler. Thirty-three houses were destroyed at Maniava, the remote, poor Anglican settlement we’ve been talking about in this package of stories. This church’s Cyclone Winston Disaster Response Plan, Stage 1, is to rebuild those 33 houses. That will provide decent shelter for the 138 Maniava people who survived the mayhem of February 20, but lost pretty much everything else. The Anglican Missions Board reckons rebuilding those homes will take NZ$7000 a piece, for a total cost of $231,0001.

Reslience, says Robert, is absolutely key.

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Robert Kereopa, Anglican Missions CEO, says everyone agrees they need to rebuild stronger, better-engineered houses more capable of withstanding an event like Winston. With climate change driving more frequent extreme weather events in the South Pacific – such as Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu last year, and Winston this year – that’s a must, he says. “Resilience is absolutely key,” says Robert. “And it’s not just resilience in your buildings. What we want to do is rebuild homes, rebuild gardens – and rebuild lives. “So if there’s a need for trauma counselling, well, that’s important. One of the massive things about Fiji is community spirit. It’s the fact that people naturally help one another when they’re in need. So by helping people become resilient, you help them to help one another.” The Diocese of Polynesia formulated the Disaster Response Plan in conjunction with Anglican Missions, on behalf of the provincial church. Immediately after the cyclone, Archbishop Winston Halapua underlined the urgent need for action by telling five diocesan leaders to park normal tasks for two months and respond to the cyclone – in particular, to Maniava’s2 needs. Subsequently, AMB formed a disaster response committee to wrap around those

five leaders. These steps are ‘Stage 1’ of the disaster response plan. Robert Kereopa is holding open the possibility of a Stage 2, too. “My gut tells me they could do with a community centre that’s even more robust”, he says. “So no matter what comes their way, they’ll be safe. A community hall is a good thing for building community life, too. That’s my thinking. But the community and Diocese of Polynesia might disagree with me about that.” “The point is, this plan focuses on partnership…with the families and communities, to help them as they help themselves to rebuild their homes and lives.” *

We’re probably about one third of the way to reaching the $231,000 target, says Robert. “That’s a good start. Reaching that is going to require quite an effort. “But one of the good things about rebuilding houses is that they’re tangible, and can be rebuilt in blocks, without anyone needing to be overawed by the $231,000 figure. “We’re on the way. And we’ve got to move for the people.” 1. Building a home at Maniava is not like building one in Auckland. People will mill the timber themselves – they’re highly skilled at ripping timber with a chainsaw – and they’ll then build their own houses. 2. That involves liaising with the Fijian government’s own relief and rehabilitation campaign, too, so there’s no duplication of effort.

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We need ‘a clear resilience strategy’ The three-tikanga church is in a unique position to respond to natural disasters in Polynesia, says Fe’i Tevi, but we need to frame a coherent, longer-term response, rather than fronting up case by case.

e’i Tevi is a member of General Synod Standing Committee for the Diocese of Polynesia, and he’ll be behind a motion at May’s General Synod that urges a new approach to Pacific disasters. His motion (endorsed by Polynesia) asks that General Synod mandate the Anglican Missions Board to develop “a clear resilience strategy” that strengthens our provincial response to natural disasters. A diplomat by training, Fe’i has experience helping Pacific Island churches step up when natural disasters strike.1 He finds three compelling reasons for a longer-term provincial disaster plan: In the first place, he says, it is a “given fact” that with climate change, disasters like Cyclones Pam (2015) and Winston will happen more often. Secondly, Pacific Islanders “always turn to the church for shelter and security in the event of disaster.” Thirdly, our province includes Pacific Island countries prone to extreme weather. Fe’i also believes the three-tikanga church will find renewed meaning if it can respond “in a more programmatic and deliberate” way. In February, Fe'i was at the Tikanga Youth Synod in Wellington. “The synod was saying – ‘It’s been almost 25 years since we began this threetikanga church. Where are we going with it? Is it working? What can be improved?’” “Well, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands are all in cyclone-prone areas. All are under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Polynesia. So how do we respond to this reality as a provincial church? “I believe that if we looked at disasters from that perspective, we would gain a very useful insight into how we can strengthen the 3T church.”

Fe'i Tevi - seen here at the 2014 General Synod.

When disaster strikes, aid agencies are quick off the mark. They’re at the scene, in full force. But after about a month, they usually move on. In Pacific communities, however, the church is always there. So Fe’i believes we have a unique opportunity to help communities to prepare better for emergencies – thereby reducing risk – and to rehabilitate once the agencies have vanished. The church could help prepare for disasters, he says, by formally training and mobilising the Diocese of Polynesia’s parish youth groups. So in normal times, they could regularly fan out to communities, making sure they have candles, rations, water and first-aid kits at the ready. And when a disaster is looming – Fiji knew Cyclone Winston was coming, four days before it struck – they could move through the villages again, making sure, for example, that the elderly are first into the evacuation centres. “So no one is trying to move them,” he says, “when their homes are flying apart around their ears.” Then there’s rehabilitation. Typically, says Fe’i, the secondary effects of a disaster are felt most keenly six

So no one is trying to move them... when their homes are flying apart around their ears.

to eight weeks after a cyclone has struck. “People have eaten all the staple crops left by the cyclone. They’ve gone through their aid agency rations, prices of staple crops have risen sharply in the markets, and replanted crops are not yet ready to harvest.” One way the church could bridge communities through those lean times is by stockpiling for emergencies. So an archdeaconry might have a container on standby, says Fe’i, stocked with the goods communities need to get through those meagre weeks: canned food, rice, pills to clean the water, seeds for crops that mature quickly, building materials, tools, machete knives, chainsaws.” Fe'i's motion (No. 13) is at http://www. anglican.org.nz/News/General-Synod/ GSTHW-2016-Motions 1. He spent years, for example, serving the WCC’s Action by Churches Together programme. Page 13

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lazyllama – Shutterstock

P S YC H O LO G Y A N D FA I T H

Toying with Jonathan Jong doubts whether common sense and an open heart are sufficient to get our heads around the nature of God. Looking deep into how the human psyche works, he has seen how often religious hunches make absolute nonsense of God.

God is not a medium-sized object.

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idols

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Plastic Christ in glory plays for Rio: solid stand-ins are easier to fathom than the truth of God.

None of these aspects of God are intuitive to us.

intuitive truths to undergird our faith journeys. And those truths come from theological education. If we are not to be unwitting heretics, we must be properly catechised and clergy must be rigorously trained in the Christian theological tradition. The Rev Dr Jonathan Jong is an experimental psychologist at Coventry University and the University of Oxford and serves as assistant curate at St Mary Magdalen, Oxford. His forthcoming book, to be published by Bloomsbury, is entitled Death Anxiety and Religious Belief. jonathan.jong@anthro.ox.ac.uk Bibliography Justin Barret, Why would anyone believe in God? Altamira, 2004. Scott Atra, In Gods We Trust -The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, Oxford University Press, 2004. Jonathan Jong, Christopher Kavanagh & Aku Visala, Born idolaters: The limits of the philosophical implications of the cognitive science of religion, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematicsche Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 57(2), 2015.

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REFUGEES

For many of us, refugees came into full view only last year. But Lloyd Ashton has been talking with an Auckland Anglican who’s been working with refugees for almost 40 years. And he’s learnt that sometimes the price of an airfare makes the difference between heartache and happiness.

Clearing the

uestion: when is our national anthem belted out with most gusto? If volume is your measure, then it may be when Kiwis sing before a rugby or cricket world cup final. But if you’re looking for meaning – as in, heartfelt expression – then Jenni Broom thinks a much smaller group should take that prize: the children of refugees. “I’ve never been so moved,” she says, “as when hearing these young children sing the

"That experience," says Jenni, "became life changing for me."

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final hurdle

anthem. They sing it so lustily, and with such swelling pride. “Guard Pacific’s triple star, from the shafts of strife and war… “They may not understand that line. But they are an embodiment of it.” *

Each year, besides our annual quota of 750 refugees (and a one-off intake of 600 Syrians), our government offers 300 visas to reunite families. And it’s that last category which concentrates Jenni’s mind. Refugees who have been accepted here – but who are on their own – are “invariably desperate about the safety and survival of those left behind. They can’t settle well until they are reunited.” That’s where the extra 300 visas come in. But they expire after 12 months, and refugees – who are usually skint – may face a nigh-impossible struggle to buy tickets for their loved ones by the deadline. “It’s heart-breaking,” says Jenni, “if the last hurdle – finding enough money for airfares – can’t be cleared.” That’s the role of the Auckland Refugee Family Trust.

ARFT – which Jenni helped set up – buys air tickets for refugee families to reunite in Auckland. *

Jenni’s own refugee journey began in 1977 when she was a young secondary school teacher. World Vision recruited both Jenni and her doctor husband, Alan, to work with Laotian refugees in Thailand. “That experience,” says Jenni, “became life and vocation changing for me.” Denomination changing, too. In Thailand, Jenni and Alan began going to an Anglican Church, and these days they are parishioners at St Matthew-in-the-City in central Auckland. When Alan and Jenni came home in 1980, New Zealand was opening its borders to refugees flooding out of Vietnam and Cambodia. Jenni became part of a refugee support group in Mt Eden. And when her youngest started school, she took a job with the new Refugee and Migrant Service (RMS), whose Mangere office was the nerve centre for resettlement of New Zealand’s national quota. Then, in 1995, Jenni was asked to set up an RMS office in Central Auckland, focussing

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solely on the resettlement of refugees there. In 2005 she became the National Manager of RMS, and she only moved on from that role in 2010. New Zealand is a more diverse multicultural society than in 1990. There was definitely a need, says Jenni, to move from an exclusively church-based resettlement programme “to a much more organised professional operation, where resettlement workers and social workers became involved. “The other thing that happened was that the refugee communities themselves began developing a strong voice on resettlement issues.” And that’s how ARFT came into being, in 2011. The Auckland Refugee Community Coalition asked for help to raise money to reunite scattered refugee families. *

But why do the families get split up in the first place? “The trauma and the complexity of the refugee journey is enormous,” says Jenni. “It’s sudden. Forced by danger. It’s very different from the migrant journey, which is chosen and planned, with time for farewells.” Sometimes, for example, the father must flee – he’s in acute danger – while the rest of the family wait behind, at least for a time, in relative safety. Sometimes, too, the refugee journey is so perilous that the family choose one member to be a pathfinder. Then there’s the stark reality that in the confusion of fleeing, families sometimes get separated. Whatever, says Jenni, the refugee journey begins with flight to a country “of first asylum.” That country – usually a neighbouring state – is where the exiled person claims refugee status and has his or her case tested according to the 1951 UNHCR Convention on the Status of Refugees. The exile must then wait for an outcome. Even if they succeed, though, they may still have to wait years before being resettled in a new country. In that case, if a dad is granted asylum here but lands alone, almost inevitably he’ll want to be reunited with his wife and children. But that’s not the only scenario the trust deals with. For example, it recently bought air tickets for two Ethiopian sisters, aged 15 and 10. Their mother had died, and they’d spent almost four years as ‘urban refugees’ on the streets of Khartoum, living in constant fear

Fahima and Mohammad Tahir reconnect with Jenni in Auckland.

"The trauma and complexity of the refugee journey is

of deportation. *

enormous."

The trust is not a big outfit. But small can be beautiful: no overheads, no salaries, and no infrastructure to maintain. All the trustees are volunteers, so all the money raised – from donors, charitable trusts, dinners and film evenings – helps families. “We talk about donating the cost of a cup of coffee a week,” says Jenni. “That’s $20 a month. “We’re aiming to lift the number of our committed givers, and to increase the range of small charitable trusts which support us.” Since 2012, ARFT has helped 24 families to reunite in Auckland – 53 adults and teenagers, 28 children and four infants, mostly from the Middle East and Africa. So, how does the trust choose whom it will help? Refugees living here are interviewed by three ARFT trustees. Like Jenni, those trustees are veterans of the scene – and yet they’re seldom unmoved by what they see and hear. “Every time we finish an interview,” says Jenni, “we just look at each other and feel very humble. “Every case has its own compelling story. We have to be there for the applicants if we can, because there are so few other ways of raising the money for airfares.

“We are fortunate that we don’t have to check the credibility of their relationships or their story – because the government has done that before issuing their visas. “We accept cases only from people who have visas, and then we are very concerned to take into account how soon the visas for entry to New Zealand are going to expire.” *

It’s wrong, says Jenni, to think of refugee families as charity cases. By helping them get a toehold here, we’re actually investing in New Zealand’s future. “It’s support for people who bring enormous resilience, strength, commitment to their own families – and to their new-found country. “The richness of what they bring to our communities, and the way they have overcome such adversity without bemoaning their fate… it’s the strength of humanity, really. “The work of the trust,” says Jenni, “is really about recognising and nurturing families. “And by nurturing families, we build strong communities.”

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REFUGEES

In that last story, Jenni Broom suggested no issue looms larger for refugees in New Zealand than bringing their families together. Lloyd Ashton has been talking to one Auckland family who, by their constant commitment in the face of all kinds of trials, bear witness to Jenni’s view.

Mohammad and Fahima Tahir, stroll in Auckland's Monte Cecilia Park.

Where trees have

polished leaves…

“People thought: ‘Now there will be peace.' So they gave the Taliban the cities…"

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bruno pagnanelli – Shutterstock

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They were stopping people in the streets: 'Did you pray? When did you pray?

thomas koch / Shutterstock.com

Kabul: the city from which Mohammad had to flee.

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Shutterstock

REFUGEES

Henna, Sameer and Fahima in Kabul. Fahima sent this photo to Mohammad during the long years they were forced to live apart from one another.

His parents warned him not to return to Kabul: “‘The same people are still here,’ they said. ‘They will find you’. There were killings, and dead on the streets everywhere.” Mohammad’s lawyer said he could make a last-ditch appeal – to the Removal Review Authority. But there was a catch: RRA applicants are forbidden to work or draw any kind of benefit. They are on their own. So for almost three years, Mohammad had to survive by begging and borrowing. At the end of 2006, the RRA issued its verdict: the Immigration Department must grant Mohammad Tahir permanent residence forthwith. His nightmare wasn’t over yet, though,

“They said: ‘You can go back to your country now. There is no Taliban.’”

because his wife and children were not allowed to join him. Fahima, Henna and Sameer had returned to Afghanistan – and in 2008, while he waited for the Immigration Department to decide on their status, Mohammad took leave from his Auckland job to visit them in Kabul. On arrival at Kabul airport, Mohammad was startled by a young man running straight at him. It was his son, Sameer. “I had last seen him when he was 4. He was 13 now. “We had not seen each other for almost nine years. I had missed his childhood. “My daughter Henna was 6 when I last saw her. She was now 15 – a young lady. “I did not recognise my own children.” After two months in Kabul – the longest time off work he could take – Mohammad came back to Auckland, alone. Then, in 2009, after 18 months deliberation, the Immigration Department rejected Mohammad’s application for his family to join him. In doing so, they invoked logic straight from the pages of Catch 22. How could it be, they ruled, that Mohammad Tahir could be alone in New Zealand for seven years – and yet claim to be in a “genuine and stable relationship” with his alleged wife? *

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Mohammad was, by now, teetering on despair. He’d been living in a dark, dank basement so he could send as much money as he could to Fahima. He was losing weight and seriously depressed. He’d long since retreated from company in Auckland, he says. “I used to go to gatherings of my community here – but I would get very disturbed. They were always with their families, and I was always alone… it made me very, very sad. “So I was just going to work, and coming home, talking to Fahima and the children on the phone. “That was my life.” Acting on his lawyer’s advice, Mohammad decided that to prove he was in a “genuine and stable relationship,” he had no choice but to quit his job and return to Kabul for one year. So in November 2009, that’s what he did. *

In some ways, though, Mohammad’s descent into depression was a turning point. Because that’s when he met Dr Tony Wansborough, an Auckland GP who specialised in treating refugees. She took an interest in his case. She wrote to Immigration on his behalf, and because she suspected Mohammad was

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getting poor legal advice, she spoke to another lawyer on his behalf. A few months into Mohammad’s second visit to Kabul, he heard from that second lawyer. He’d been wrongly advised, she claimed. In fact, this lawyer said, it wasn’t necessary for Mohammad to spend a year in Kabul. “But I had already been there for months, so I said: ‘Now I am here, let’s complete this requirement’.” At the 10-month mark, his new lawyer lodged a second application. Mohammad returned to Auckland in November 2010 – and in October 2012 Fahima, Henna and Sameer were finally approved for permanent residence in NZ. *

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“We have a lot of dreams. Still…” Fahima and Mohammad in Auckland.

“I didn’t want to waste any more time!” says Mohammad. “But then I had to face another problem – I couldn’t afford tickets for them. “I was still repaying my debt. During those three or four years when I could not work, I had borrowed money from everywhere. “The tickets would cost me $5000 to $6000 – and I would’ve been lucky to have $1000.” That’s when Dr Wansborough introduced him to the Auckland Refugee Family Trust, who help reunite refugee families with the right visas but no money for airfares. Jenni Broom, with two other ARFT trustees, interviewed Mohammad – and promptly offered to help . So that’s how, on November 20, 2012, at Auckland Airport, the Tahir family were joyfully, permanently reunited in

safety – 12 years after they’d separated in Peshawar. *

“At one stage,” Mohammad reflects, “we’d lost all hope. Everywhere we went, the doors were closed. “They were an incomplete family there, and I was an incomplete person here.” Things have changed now, he says. “We’re just enjoying every moment together. We have a lot of dreams, still. “Those dreams will take time to fulfil. But we are together. “We go here, there, together. “We barbecue together. We plan together. “And for them, it’s like a dream. For me as well.” *

As they drove from the airport to begin

a new life in New Zealand Henna and Sameer could scarcely take on board what they were seeing. The only trees they’d ever known, for instance, were permanently caked in dust. “They were thinking,” says Mohammad, “that here the trees were washed. “Maybe somebody here even polishes the leaves?” Maybe not: but at long last the Tahir family could begin to rediscover what being together feels like. 1. “Taliban” means “students” in the Pashto language – and many of the Taliban fighters had grown up in refugee camps in Pakistan, where they were taught in Saudi-backed madrassas. 2. Dr Wansborough had, in fact, managed to tap another Trust for some money to buy airfares, but the Tahirs still depended on the ARFT’s help to navigate the travel and diplomatic process.

Essays to Mark the 25th Anniversary of the Ordination of the 1st Woman Diocesan Bishop in the Anglican Communion: The Rt Rev’d Dr Penelope Ann Bansall Jamieson Retail price NZ$25.00 plus postage and packaging Order your copy now directly through the General Synod Office on +64 9 521-4439 or email gensec@anglicanchurch.org.nz Publication sponsored by the Council for Anglican Women's Studies, The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia

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Shutterstock

ALL AGE MINISTRY

Plenty good room Diana Langdon believes our churches have gone too far in the drive for age-appropriate teaching.

to share

We've let go of the spiritual model.

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Kids and grown-ups put final touches on their baking during 'electives' at Tawa-Linden Anglican Parish.

Junior and senior pilgrims build connections at the crafts table.

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‘A Way Forward’ on

same-sex blessings

In 2014 General Synod set up a special team to study “a way forward” for same-sex blessings. The findings of that team are now about to be tested by this church.

wo new rites of blessing will be considered by General Synod in May. The liturgies are the outcome of 18 months’ study by a 13-member research team known as the 'A Way Forward' Working Group. The Working Group has sought “a process and structure” by which samesex relationship blessings could happen; and “to ensure that clergy who believe that same-sex blessings are contrary to “scripture, doctrine, tikanga or civil law” remain fully free to dissent. The proposed rites offer a service of blessing for couples already married in a civil ceremony under New Zealand law, or those who were married in a legal ceremony in any of the Pacific Island nations in this church. The Working Group was not asked to

revisit the “traditional doctrine of marriage,” which the 2014 General Synod affirmed as being “between a man and a woman… lifelong and monogamous.”

‘Crucial matter for debate’ In offering the new forms for blessing, the Working Group spells out how the church’s 1992 constitution, Te Pouhere, allows for additions to agreed patterns for worship (known as formularies). New rites can be deemed legal, they argue, as long as they do not “represent any departure from the Doctrine and Sacraments of Christ as defined in Te Pouhere’s own Fundamental Provisions.” “It is the view of the majority of the group,” the report notes, “that the proposed liturgies do not represent a departure from the Doctrine and Sacraments of Christ, and are therefore not prohibited by Te Pouhere; however, the group also recognises that this will be a crucial matter for debate.”

A canonical ‘lacuna’ The group has uncovered an existing legal gap, where the canons do not cover a situation

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The Anglican Church in these islands requires candidates for ordination to either remain celibate or live in a ‘rightly ordered relationship.’ The 'A Way Forward' Working Group agrees that a relationship qualifies if it is “one that has been committed to God and received the blessing of the Christian church.” Here, the Working Group has uncovered a “lacuna” (legal gap – where existing laws don’t cover a situation) in the church canons. Since the 1970s, New Zealand law has

allowed couples to marry in fully secular ceremonies. Yet the church has never questioned that these couples were validly married, and has not required a further blessing in recognition of their unions. The two proposed liturgies deal with that lacuna. Should these rites be adopted, heterosexual couples married in a civil ceremony (or ceremony of another faith) would be able to request that their marriage be blessed by the church. The Working Group also proposes a separate, but similar, rite of blessing for same-sex couples who have married in a civil ceremony. “The two rites,” says the report, “will be found to be largely similar. It is necessary to present both… to allow for the possibility of any diocese or amorangi choosing to adopt the rite of blessing for opposite-sex couples only.” This church’s canons already allow for any priest or bishop to refuse to marry a particular couple. The Working Group argues that the same legal protections would extend to clergy who declined to bless the civil marriages of same-sex couples. The Working Group has also headed off the possibility of “flying priests” or bishops, by strengthening local bishops’ authority to decide which rites may be used in his or her diocese. Under the proposed changes, it would become mandatory for visiting clergy to request “permission to bless” from the local bishop.

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COMMENT

Rosie Staite looks forward to a lithe and mobile church, no longer confined by antique expectations but ready to respond with God’s love in any time and place.

Break out

of those hallowed halls culture. Talking with people at their kitchen tables, I heard too many stories where church meant hurt and disappointment, irrelevance and old thinking. I realised it was time to reassess what I was doing. How could I faithfully serve the gospel and God’s people through the church, when the church itself seemed such a barrier? I read widely to find answers. For starters, “homogenous Christians” are not the answer. Jesus chose many kinds of people as his disciples, and did not confine his teaching and pastoral encounters to synagogues or temples. Instead, he went into homes and walked the roads. He met people where they were, touched their hearts and used the apprentice model to train those closest to him. Then he sent them out to proclaim the good news, giving people hope and strength, and ways to live the new commandment: to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength; and to love your neighbour as yourself. It was as simple and as difficult as that. It was accomplished in the strength of the Spirit, and it is still our calling. But even 20 years ago, it was increasingly difficult to reconcile the needs of those in the churches with those outside it. The only option for non-attenders seemed to be ‘Come to us because we have

the only answer.’ But that’s tricky when your neighbours hold very different views or another faith; when a family member is gay or has suffered abuse within the church. Some churches have also dragged their feet on social justice and climate protection issues, though that is changing. Religious violence has not helped people see the peace of God’s message, institutional exclusion has raised hackles, and the information revolution has provided a multitude of answers to anything people want to know. When Bishop Graham Cray came here in 2010 to share Fresh Expressions, he compared the present-day church to a bridge in the wrong place, when a storm has moved the river to a new course. That same year, Barbara Brown Taylor spoke in Christchurch about why we can no longer rely on old patterns. I found treasure in her books: from ‘Gospel Medicine’ and ‘The Preaching Life,’ to ‘Leaving Church’ and ‘An Altar in the World.’ Brian D. McLaren and Bishop Richard Holloway also talked of struggles with institutional rules that prevented them serving all people with respect, as the hands, heart and feet of God. Churches have good reasons to resist change, but without growth and change few systems survive. And as believers we must grow spiritually and change. But that is where the tension lies. Will the church go where we need to be? For me, good news arrives in services and homes, cafes and pubs, hospitals and airports. It appears in conversations where hope is offered and where people ask for prayer –

Will the church go where we need to be?

anywhere. It also happens when people stand up for refugees or social outcasts, and work to break down unjust structures. The word “priest” has its roots in the Latin word pontifex, which means bridge builder or path-maker. All the baptised share this priestly duty to build bridges, one at a time, opening pathways for people to explore. Perhaps we need to send more people out as bridges, rather than keeping them within church activities? Churches offer a community for belonging, prayer and teaching faith. But that’s not the end of the brief. It’s what we do next that is most important. Rosie Staite has worked in Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist churches and is presently a celebrant, writer, supervisor and choir director in South Canterbury. Her recently published book of reflections acts as one easy-to-share bridge. ‘Take a Minute’ is illustrated with Rosie’s photographs, and texts that invite the reader to ponder ancient wisdom through contemporary language. It is available direct from rosie_staite@xtra.co.nz or you can buy it online from sales@epworthbooks.org.nz $25 plus p&p

ATWC has commissioned oral historian Ruth Greenaway to prepare an authentic and powerful historical record of the rewarding and sometimes challenging work of ATWC. We are interested in recognising and acknowledging compelling stories from the families’ perspective: from the mothers, children and staff of ATWC of yesteryear. We invite anyone who would like to participate to contact us. We would love to hear from you. Please contact Judy Matai’a ATWC Chief Executive on 09 276 3729.

10 Beatty Street, Otahuhu 1062 | p: 09 276 3729 | e: info@atwc.org.nz | www.atwc.org.nz Page 25

Teerayut Somprasong – Shutterstock

ver my years of work in all-age ministry I've seen a growing divide between church and contemporary

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SPIRITUALITY

Following Jesus

in and out of season

What needs pruning or throwing away to allow for new growth?’

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Adrienne Thompson’s journey with Christ leads her through the Lenten labour of harvest and into the dying and rising of an autumnal Easter.

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Harakeke crosses mark Palm Sunday and go with me through the year. Flax stems strung with Easter eggs become a 'North meets South' Easter tree of life.

Letting-go, dying and burial fits so well with autumn.

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Shutterstock

DEVELOPMENT

Ugandan girls carry grain bags home from market.

17 ways to wage peace on earth Derek Tovey believes Christians should look beneath the daily despair played out on our screens and instead try to dig out the roots of human suffering.

That will take prayer, vigilance and the sharpest tools we can find, he says. Which is why Christians should grab hold of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, and use them to help build God’s kingdom.

It not only hauls people out of poverty, but demands rich nations rein in their excesses.

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ay after day we listen in as refugees pour into Europe from Turkey, Greece or North Africa, via perilous sea journeys, crammed into trucks or trekking miles on foot. We watch as bombs pound Syria, while countries across the Middle East and Europe struggle to handle the world’s largest-ever refugee crisis. And as bomb attacks flare outside the conflict zones, they betray the spread of ISIL that leaves no nation beyond threat. Yet as these crises hold sway over our screens, another world-changing story has failed to grab media attention. This news event took place without any picture-ready human drama, nor video footage of graphic events as they unfolded. But with God’s help,it could stand for the most far-reaching news moment of our time. In late September last year, the United Nations member states set course to end the toughest edge of human poverty in the world – in only 15 years. At the 2015 UN General Assembly in New York,

193 nations signed up to 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that target sweeping changes to living conditions for the world’s poorest by 2030. Unlike their forerunners, the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), the SDGs sponsor a major change in thinking, where development not only hauls people out of poverty but demands that rich nations rein in their own excesses. Known as the “Global Goals,” the 17 UN guidelines take momentum from the first eight goals which aimed to stem: • hunger • HIV and AIDS • malaria • tuberculosis • childhood and maternal deaths • environmental degradation And to build: • gender equity • primary education • and global development partnerships The Sustainable Development Goals expand the MDG brief to include: • food security

• • • • • • • • • • •

affordable clean energy decent work and economic growth innovation, industry and infrastructure reduced economic inequality sustainable cities responsible consumption and production climate action ocean health biodiversity and forest protection preventing desertification promoting peace and justice

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Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock.com

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Some commentators questioned the UN goals when only one of the MDG eight reached its ambitious target (goal No. 1 succeeded: extreme poverty halved by 2010). But despite criticism, the UN’s final MDG report shows that even while falling short, every goal won better conditions for many of the world’s worst off. • In 1990, 23% of the world’s people were undernourished; now that is 12.9%. • 26 years ago, 90 babies died per 1000 live births, but by 2015 those deaths were 43 per 1000. • Half as many women died in childbirth in 2015 as in 1990, with survival rates rising most steeply since 2000. • Between 2000 and 2013, up to 37 million people escaped an early death from tuberculosis, due to increased prevention, diagnosis and treatment. • Anti-retroviral drugs and HIV-AIDS education slowed HIV infections and AIDS deaths between 2000-2015. • Today 91% of drinking water sources are classed as ‘improved,’ in contrast to 76% in 1990. • In 2016, 2.1 billion people have healthier, cleaner sanitation (and open

Mother and son load water containers onto a trolley in Antanananarivo, Madagascar. India: girls and boys attend school in their inner city slum. Children rush to the camera in Chiangmai, Thailand.

defecation has halved since 1990). • The ozone layer is set to recover by 2050, due to ozone-depleting substance bans, and nature reserves now take in more zones than 25 years ago. The MDG track record proves that global goals compel governments to demonstrate their progress; international pressure to perform draws leaders’ attention back to the needs of their poorest citizens. These goals align with our Anglican Communion’s Marks of Mission, and mirror our biblical imperative to lift up the poor and marginalised. So this all makes the Sustainable Development Goals a useful ready-made tool for Christians to help us wage God’s peace, justice and fullness of life for all. Rev Dr Derek Tovey is a biblical scholar and former New Testament lecturer at St John’s College in Auckland.

Travel Stock / Shutterstock.com

FIRST STEPS TO USING THE UN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS SCHOOL YOURSELF AND OTHERS

The more you understand the SDGs, promote them and pressure governments, the more traction they will get. To read more go to: www.ua.undp.org www.undp.org STAY IN TOUCH

Follow advocacy groups online, such as One, the United Nations Millennium Campaign and the Anglican Alliance. www.anglicanalliance.org www.globalcitizen.org www.one.org

derekt48@gmail.com

PRAY FOR ACTION ON POVERTY

Pray for the SDG outcomes and those who promote and implement them.

Narit Jindajamorn / Shutterstock.com

Pray for UN Development Programme staff as they help nations and civil society to activate the SDGs. Pray that our parliamentarians will catch the vision of these goals, both here and round the world. Support aid and development agencies like Christian World Service, Anglican Board of Missions, TearFund and World Vision as they work to alleviate poverty through sustainable development. Page 29

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ENVIRONMENT

Phillip Donnell tells the story of Mt Karioi, once a place of death but now a parable of new life.

Where mountains

It needed repair, from shore to summit.

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n this season of Christ’s resurrection, Mt Karioi signals a hopeful flip-side to tales of environmental woe. On Mt Karioi’s slopes and shores, a humble colony of seabirds has captured the hearts of a community that is determined to save them – but only because a group of Christian environmentalists alerted them to a crisis. Mt Karioi rests on the west coast of the upper North Island, not far from Whaingaroa and Raglan. Once teeming with wildlife, by 2009 the mountain hosted only the hardiest few. Among the survivors were the Oi (Grey-faced petrels) that still returned to ancient nesting grounds on Karioi’s seaward face. Seven years ago, Christian conservationists A Rocha Aotearoa New

Zealand caught on to the plight of the Oi, along with its brother species Taiko and Titi (Black and Cook’s petrels). The petrels' mountain habitat needed repair from seashore to summit: a daunting prospect for A Rocha A-NZ. So they turned to locals for help. Soon Te Whakaoranga O Karioi came on board, along with the Whaingaroa Environment Centre, Department of Conservation, Waikato Regional Council, local hapu and Whaingaroa community. Before humans arrived, thousands of seabirds had bred at Karioi, vastly outnumbering the hundred or so found there today. Anecdotal evidence suggests Taiko and Titi still nested in large numbers on the mid-to-high slopes of Karioi after humans arrived, while many Oi inhabited

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rise its lower reaches. All petrels burrow to breed, making them easy prey to stoats, possums, feral cats and rats. So the Karioi project took on wide-scale pest control. Without the regime of trapping and fencing, the remnant Oi that burrow the Karioi shoreline probably would have perished. In 2015 volunteers expanded pest control from 150 hectares to more than 2000, working in coastal forests across conservation, private and hapu land. Last year the Te Whanga Ahu Whenua Trust team also cut 30km of new predator control tracks, while volunteers spent 3500 hours on maintenance and trap checking, upgrading tracks and markers, and installing 200 new stoat traps. It was a big task, and yet it gave this

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Karioi volunteers take a break after a day of predator trap checking. Taonga species, the Oi, or grey-faced petrel. Mount Karioi reveals its different moods.

tiny fragment of Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creation real hope of abundant life, in a place of impending death. The Karioi project also provides a parable for churches. When Christians step up to care for creation, they can lead an entire community to embrace renewal. Is creation crying out for your church communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s help? Phillip Donnell is on the national team of Christian environmental organisation A Rocha Aotearoa New Zealand.

wordsbybexie@gmail.com or to help sponsor the project contact Kristel.vanhoute@arocha.org.

...the remnant birds probably would have perished.

phillip.donnell@arocha.org To find out more about the Karioi project, visit www. karioimaunga.co.nz or the Karioi Maunga ki te Moana on Facebook. To volunteer, contact Bexie Towle at

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BOOKS

Mining for Anglican riches THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF ANGLICAN STUDIES CHAPMAN, MARK D.; CLARKE, SATHIANATHAN; AND PERCY, MARTYN (EDS.) OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015. HTTPS://GLOBAL.OUP.COM, £95 PETER CARRELL

nglican Studies get a good run in these islands, both at St John’s College and around the regions. This is part of the phenomenon where Anglicanism is seen as a distinctive form of Christianity, with theology and practice that merit deeper enquiry. In The Oxford Book of Anglican Studies, three crack editors (and Anglican scholars) have compiled a handbook for students of the Anglican Church. The book’s seven sections cover historiography, methods and styles of Anglicanism, contextualization, Anglican identities, crises and controversies, the

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practice of Anglican life and the futures of Anglicanism. Forty-five contributors provide diverse views from across the Communion, and include Kiwis Cathy Ross and Jenny Te PaaDaniel, alongside a ‘Who’s Who’ of Anglican scholars. The introduction notes that Anglican Studies are in their infancy as an academic discipline. This handbook should help the field grow to greater maturity, not least because it maps a considerable range of interests in the domain. Yet parts of the map are missing. It is odd to find chapters on Anglican wisdom, spirituality and aesthetics, but none on Anglican theology or liturgy. Given the past decades’ ‘battle for the Bible’ over the role of scripture in Anglicanism, the four biblical chapters scattered across three sections could easily have justified their own category. But there are gems here, too: Martyn Percy on ‘Context, Character and Challenges:

The Shaping of Ordination Training,’ Norman Doe on ‘Canon Law,’ and Thabo Makgoba on ‘Politics,’ to name a few. This is a pricey book, but it offers an investment that will help readers mine the riches of Anglicanism. Rev Dr Peter Carrell is Director of Theology House in Christchurch. director@theologyhouse.ac.nz

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

EASTERTIDE 2016

Chaplaincy in the trenches A STRONG SENSE OF DUTY: THE FIRST WORLD WAR LETTERS OF CHAPLAIN THE REVEREND CLIVE MORTIMER JONES 1917-1920 EDITED BY HERBERT H. FARRANT, ELIZABETH MOREY AND DELYSSE STOREY NEW ZEALAND MILITARY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 2013. WWW.NZMHS.ORG.NZ, $40 PLUS $3.30 P&P ALLAN DAVIDSON

s we reflect on the WWI centenary, it is easy to lose sight of noncombatants like the 140 chaplains (55 Anglicans) who accompanied the NZ army overseas. Though chaplains’ primary duties were services and funerals, their ministry with injured and dying soldiers brought them face to face with war’s most gruesome side. Chaplains also collected belongings of the dead, recorded their burial places and wrote to grieving relatives. Assigned as censors of soldiers’ mail, chaplains were often unofficial social workers, boosting morale with games and concerts. Clive Mortimer Jones was vicar of Cambridge when he responded to a ‘A Strong Sense of Duty.’ Accepting his

conscription, Jones failed his soldier’s medical but proved fit to serve as a chaplain. In 1917 he set sail with the 26th New Zealand Expeditionary Force Reinforcements (NZEF), less than a month after his marriage. The 25 letters that Jones wrote for his Cambridge parish magazine form the major part of this book. These letters do not glorify war, calling it ‘inhuman and cruel.’ Instead, they share the trials of living in trenches with water, rats, bombing and gas, through winter cold and summer heat. Amid the tedium of censoring thousands of letters, Jones also describes the joys of a confirmation, of church services, and bringing cigarettes, chocolates and biscuits ‘to the boys in the front line’. On one occasion, he assists Padre Charles Dobson to bury 95 fallen soldiers in scattered graves, and writes 300 letters to the families of missing or dead soldiers. Detailed notes enhance Jones’ letters, including an introduction to New Zealand chaplains, biographical background and a comprehensive outline of the NZ Division’s actions in France, 1917-18. Appendices cover Cambridge’s war

memorial windows and list NZEF serving chaplains. Well-selected illustrations add to this modest but well-produced publication, which provides excellent insight into a chaplain and his ministry in the most demanding of circumstances. Allan Davidson taught church history at St John’s College for many years. His forthcoming book deals with Methodist chaplains in the First World War. nzallan.davidson@gmail.com

Pearl of great price... But there’s no need to sell everything you own to buy it. Sign up as a Friend of Taonga and we’ll mail four issues of Anglican Taonga (Treasure) direct to your home – for just $20. We’ll even throw in a copy for a friend. Taonga covers the big issues of Anglicanism, fairly and honestly. And our writers include some of the sharpest, best-informed minds in the church. Keep up with what Anglicans are doing and saying. Join the Taonga team now by filling out the coupon and sending it to:

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

EASTERTIDE 2016

CANTERBURY QUAKES: FIVE YEARS ON

Dr Sue Bagshaw – and a typical Christchurch street scene.

Christchurch: Dr Sue Bagshaw is a legend in youth health in Christchurch. She’s a founder and senior doctor at the city’s 298 Youth Health Centre. She is also a senior lecturer in paediatrics at the Christchurch School of Medicine, and founding director of the Collaborative Trust, which drives research and training on youth health and development. Sue, who is a committed Anglican, spoke with Lloyd Ashton about how she sees Christchurch’s state of wellbeing five years on from the 2011 earthquakes.

“…they go into a rage, or cry buckets of tears

Let’s stop talking about recovery

ow are you travelling now?

We’re all still very stressed. That stress is ‘in the air’. When you’re driving, you’re always coming across road cones, and the way you go is always being changed. That stretches your nerves. When you’ve got a house that’s still not fixed, and you’re still wrangling with insurance companies – that’s nerve-fraying. And when you know friends whose homes are still not fixed… even though those homes are not yours, that can put you on edge, too. When you have to keep changing school – and therefore make new friends – that’s stressful, and when you keep having to move because the house you’re living in needs earthquake repairs, and they take forever, that’s very stressful, too. Some people in Christchurch have had to move house five times in the last two years – and that’s terrible for young people and their families. And all of that is on top of the normal stress of life. AT: How does that stress manifest itself

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among the young people you see? I see a lot of young people who find it hard to control their emotions, their impulses. Or whose mood is really low. I see a lot of anxious young people with arousal symptoms. So they’re jumpy all the time, they can’t sleep well, the younger ones wet the bed, they need constant reassurance – and some of the older young people find it hard to keep a job. They find it hard to keep relationships, and it’s really hard to form trust – because they haven’t been able to trust. AT: What do you mean: ‘hard to control emotions, hard to control impulses’? I’m talking about young people who fly into a rage for no reason. Young people who are used to being quite agreeable and doing as they’re told – now just don’t. They go: ‘No. Not going to.’ Young people who decide they really want to keep a job – but when their employer tells them off they go into a rage or cry buckets of tears. And they lose their confidence. Some can’t even leave the house. They can’t live

ANGLICAN TAONGA

without somebody with them. A significant proportion of young people in Christchurch are either not going to school or not going to work because they’re anxious about meeting people and being with other people. And the trouble is, once you don’t get out there it becomes more and more difficult to do so – and then you really are stuck at home. AT: Any other thoughts about what you’re seeing now, five years on? We’ve just done a literature survey to see what helps people recover. And the word coming through is that we need to stop talking about ‘recovery’. There are two things about that: one is that recovery implies you’ve been bad or sick and you’ve got get back to normal again – and actually, we’re not bad or sick. A devastating thing has happened here, and people have reacted in different ways. We’re never going to get back to how Christchurch was, ever. So the word we’re trying to push now is ‘adaptation.’ Life throws different things at you, so you adapt to those new circumstances in the best way you can. One of the tools in helping people to adapt to ‘the new normal’ is spiritual awareness. Being aware that there’s something bigger than you – some people call it God – is part of that. So it’s about saying, ‘Well, life changes all the time, but God is the permanent bit. ‘And the Christian God actually cares enough to come down and be with you.’ We can trust that permanence – and therefore, that helps us to adapt. And we don’t have to feel guilty if we can’t adapt. We just keep asking for help, and we help each other do that adaptation. AT: In March, the Government announced cuts in per capita mental health funding for Christchurch. And you responded by writing a public letter to the Minister of Health.You warned him that unless the Government intervenes, the next generation of Cantabrians will be costlier to fix than the city of Christchurch will be to rebuild. Do you stand by that? Absolutely. Because young people with poor mental health do not get jobs. They’ll be on the benefit, and they will end up in jail. And keeping people in jail or in mental hospital or on benefits is way more expensive over 20 years than building a city.

Last year in this region, the police scrambled to 2877 suicide-related calls. That’s 55 percent more than in 2011. And over the same period, there was a 30 percent increase in demand for school counselling services. Yet in the face of these figures, the Government had proposed a $20 million cut in funding for mental health services in Christchurch – from $275 per head per annum to $205 per head. That was ridiculous. So I’m very pleased to see that the Government has done an ‘about turn’ on that one.

EASTERTIDE 2016

Jonathan Coleman has announced a $20 million funding package for Canterbury’s mental health services. That’s not largesse. That’s not new money. It’s simply restoring what should never have been cut in the first place. In the next issue of Taonga magazine, we’ll tell of plans being hatched at 298 Youth Health to dramatically increase the care available to Christchurch’s most vulnerable young people. mediaofficer@anglicanchurch.org.nz

Lloyd Ashton is Media Officer for this Church.

Churches boost post-quake mental health Research from the Christchurch-based All Right? campaign has found church involvement improves mental health for many Cantabrians. Led by the Mental Health Foundation and Canterbury District Health Board, the All Right? campaign was set up to aid Cantabrian’s emotional recovery after the earthquakes. For four years, All Right? has used surveys to gauge how people are coping. The latest survey shows 42% of Cantabrians feel more able to deal with earthquake-related stress because of their religious faith. That pattern continues in the face of aftershocks, road works, damaged homes and life in a construction zone.

There, men of all ages can meet, bring their skills and create things for their community (such as woodwork or toys) or just learn something new.” says Glenn. “While they’re working in the Shed, guys often take the opportunity to catch up, or spin a yarn in a safe community,” he says, “Chatting can overtake production, and sometimes that’s exactly what’s needed.” Faith also provides meaning and purpose – one of the essential “Five Ways to Wellbeing” now recognised by international psychological research. But taking part in faith communities also leads into the four other ways to wellbeing: • connecting with people

“One fact we uncovered was that numbers of people who feel connected to church, worship, prayer or karakia has risen slightly since the earthquakes.” says CDHB Public Health Specialist, Dr Lucy D’Aeth.

• giving or helping people

“Our research also suggests that many Cantabrians, but particularly men, have a limited number of people they feel comfortable opening up to,” she says.

“I can see all 5 Ways in action when I go to St Faiths,” explains Cr Livingstone.

However men involved in churches may be better off. “Church communities have been pillars of support and wellbeing for many, as safe places where people are available to listen and share.” says Dr D’Aeth.

• taking notice of the good things going on • learning new things • being active

“St Faith’s Wednesday shared lunch (for example) provides food, but more than that, it’s an opportunity for people to give, connect, learn and take notice.” All Right? thanks churches for their great work and urges them to keep it up.

Minister and Christchurch City Councillor Glenn Livingstone says many churches and other faith communities have stepped up since the quakes,

“When Canterbury lost so many church buildings, we learnt the church is the community, not the building.” says Dr D’Aeth. “Healthy church communities can offer a person access to all five ways to wellbeing.”

“In my ward, St Faith’s Anglican Church in New Brighton runs a Menz Shed.

For more information on All Right? visit allright.org.nz

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

EASTERTIDE 2016

NEWS

Worldwide

http://anglicantaonga.org.nz

Contributing editor Brian Thomas takes his pick of what’s happening on the worldwide web...

The ABC of redemption Week, of all times, after a DNA test prompted by evidence pieced together by Charles Moore of the Daily Telegraph.

GRUB STREET IS generally the last place to ring the praises of clergy, let alone archbishops, but Justin Welby won plaudits for the way he handled the stunning truth about his biological father.

The Archbishop’s mother, Jane Williams, had a brief relationship with Montague Browne before her marriage to Gavin Welby, but always believed that Justin was Gavin’s son.

Until a month ago, Archbishop Welby believed that his father was Gavin Welby, an alcoholic who divorced Justin’s mother when the lad was only 3 and who died when Justin was 21.

“Although Gavin and I had a short and sadly dysfunctional marriage, neither of us ever doubted that we were the parents of Justin, who was born We can only imagine the almost nine months to the day Archbishop’s “complete surprise” after our marriage in America at discovering his real father was on April 4, 1955,” she said the late Sir Anthony Montague following the revelation. Browne, Sir Winston Churchill’s “I still recall our joy at last private secretary. his arrival. So this DNA evidence… has come as an The revelation came during Holy

almost unbelievable shock.” The Archbishop was no less stunned, and yet he managed to salvage gold from the grey. “I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes,” he said in a courageous statement. “Although there are elements of sadness, even tragedy in my father’s case, this is a story of redemption and hope from a place of tumultuous difficulty and near despair in several lives.” Archie Bland, of the Guardian, was one of several secular commentators to shower the Archbishop with superlatives. “Justin Welby’s response was extraordinary for its

unabashed acceptance of the compromises that decorate most human relationships, and for his insistence that the news could not define him,” Bland wrote. “Welby’s story, messy and ordinary as it is, also gives Anglicans, Catholics and other faiths alike a glimpse of a model that is surely more likely to sustain their relevance in an ever-more sceptical world: one which understands that, in the end, the influence of their commandments will always be dictated by the voice in which they are spoken.” An Eastertide testimony if ever there was.

The lost garden IS NOTHING SACRED in this Age of Change? A Wellington nun’s famous organic garden in Island Bay has been bulldozed because there simply aren’t the staff to keep it lush and bountiful. Sister Loyola Galvin, 96, tended the garden at the Home of Compassion for 15 years and became a movie star of sorts after starring in an awardwinning documentary, Gardening With Soul. But her retirement to a rest home in 2013 saw the garden head down that slippery slope – until it was no longer viable. At the same time, the Home of Page 40

Compassion itself was remaking itself into a spiritual retreat and conference centre, so the garden became a liability rather than an asset to the community. Sister Margaret Anne Mills, the congregational leader, told Dominion Post reporter Thomas Manch that it was Loyola’s passion and input that kept the garden going, “and no one could replace that.” Sister Loyola was named Gardener of the Year by New Zealand Gardener magazine in 2008, and received the NZ Order of Merit in 2013. All is not lost though. The vacant site is being filled with native

Sister Loyola in full bloom after being named Gardener of the Year in 2008. Picture: Craig Simcox

plants as an extension of the neighbouring bush at Tapu Te Ranga Marae. Sister Margaret is sad but

philosophical. "One garden goes and another comes,” she says.

ANGLICAN TAONGA

EASTERTIDE 2016

Grave prospects MPS WARN THAT Britain is heading back to the days of “miserable pauper’s funerals” as the costs of dying continue to spiral out of control.

According to the Church Times, the average funeral cost £3700 ($7600) in 2015, almost 4 per cent more than in 2014, despite very low inflation.

The work and pensions select committee has released a report, Support for the Bereaved, which concludes that much of the help on offer from the state to the bereaved is inadequate in the face of rising costs.

In New Zealand a basic funeral costs around $9000, depending on whether the deceased is cremated or buried. But the main government benefit for Britons unable to afford a funeral — the Social Fund Funeral

The MPs’ report urges the Government to negotiate the true cost of a simple funeral with industry bodies, then update the SFFP to reflect this, and allow the amount to rise with inflation.

Payment — has been frozen at £700 ($1500) since 2003, which in most parts of Britain cannot cover even a stripped-back funeral.

A CofE funeral, burial in a churchyard and the erection of a wooden cross costs around £500 ($1100). In 2011 this would have cost £320 ($650) – a rise of more than 57 per cent in four years.

Bible makes the blacklist THE BIBLE HAS joined a raft of dubious bedfellows – as the sixth “most challenged” book in America.

of the Bible, that’s seen by some as a violation of church and state,” said James La Rue, the Library Association’s director.

That’s only four places behind E.L James’ erotic shocker, Fifty Shades of Grey,” which came second.

The book to receive the greatest number of challenges was John Green’s young adult novel Looking for Alaska – a giddy first foray into offensive language and explicit sex.

It’s the Bible’s religious viewpoint that upsets people, according to the American Library Association which compiled the blacklist. “If a school library buys a copy

The Library Association defines a challenge as “a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials

be removed because of content or appropriateness.” Here’s the full list of titles you may wish to cross off your Christmas list (with the exception of No. 6, of course): 1. Looking for Alaska – John Green 2. Fifty Shades of Grey – EL James 3. I Am Jazz – Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings 4. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out

– Susan Kuklin 5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon 6. The Holy Bible 7. Fun Home – Alison Bechdel 8. Habibi – Craig Thompson 9. Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan – Jeanette Winter 10. Two Boys Kissing – David Levithan

With this ring… WE ALL KNOW the symbolic power of a wedding ring, but how many realise there’s also a ring symbolising enduring affection between Anglicans and Roman Catholics? The exchange took place at the Basilica of St Paul outside Rome in 1966, between Pope Paul VI and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey. The two had just agreed to begin a serious dialogue on doctrinal and practical difficulties, when the Pope drew the Archbishop aside as if to show him some ancient frescoes.

Instead, the Pope said something that the Archbishop could not catch, so the Pope’s secretary quietly told Cantaur to remove his ring. The Pope then took Archbishop Ramsey’s right hand and placed on his finger a ring with a green stone mounted on a thin gold cross, the angles marked by four square diamonds. It had been given to him by the people of Milan when he became Archbishop there in 1954. Archbishop Ramsey wept, and the two churchmen stood almost alone in the vast basilica for several seconds.

As Christopher Howse recently noted in the Daily Telegraph, the Pope’s spontaneous generosity may not have mended a 400-year rift, but it did say something direct and tangible about his respect for Archbishop Ramsey’s episcopal status. That historic meeting in 1966 – the first since the Reformation – also had a significant spin-off for the worldwide Communion and the church downunder. Archbishop Ramsey decided it was time to have his own permanent representative to the Holy See, in Rome. The Anglican Centre now occupies an upper floor of the

Doria Pamphilj palace, above a fabulous art gallery, and comprises a library with 14,000 books and a chapel where the Eucharist is celebrated every Tuesday at 12.45pm. Aotearoa, NZ and Polynesia has a special attachment to the centre because the present director is our own Archbishop Sir David Moxon, joint chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. And the green ring? Archbishop Ramsey wore it till his dying day, and successive Archbishops of Canterbury have also worn it when visiting the Pope.

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

EASTERTIDE 2016

FILM

The truth will set you free Tom McCarthy’s Academy Award-winning film Spotlight is a chilling tale, says John Bluck, and its harrowing diary of faults calls every church to repentance.

potlight is a terrifying film, especially for anyone who trusts their church to do the right thing. It’s all about the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston a decade ago. It could equally have been about our own Anglican Church a little earlier, before we established rigorous child protection policies and zero tolerance protocols on sexual abuse. Spotlight tells the true story of the Boston Globe uncovering a long-standing paedophilia coverup in the archdiocese, originally involving up to six priests, then 86, and finally 245. The film shows in painstaking detail how that investigation evolved; through fearful survivors, stonewalling church officials and lawyers who created a whole cottage industry of legal evasion and linguistic gobbledegook. Alongside are the dogged journalists and their nervous editors, and faithful lay people who, like the ‘good Germans,’ couldn’t believe their leaders would ever betray them. Director Tom McCarthy, who

the underlying culture breeds abuse...

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also made the memorable Station Agent and The Visitor, tells this incendiary story with measured calm and restraint. But there are no shining knights on white horses. Even the crusading newspaper sat on the story at the beginning. And clergy who could have blown the whistle got transferred and promoted. The world will watch how the Catholic hierarchy worldwide responds to this film and the critical acclaim it’s enjoying in the longer term. It's encouraging to see they have not reacted defensively, as they did to the earlier Philomena. I don’t know how any church can withstand this sort of critique, other than with openness, accountability and deep remorse. Lifelong damage is done not only to the children and other survivors of abuse (the “lucky” ones, as they’re called in the film) who didn’t resort to suicide. Damage is also done to the credibility of all churches that ordain men and women and entrust them with great power and responsibility to ensure justice is served and truth is told, then fail to monitor how that power is used and abused. The failures are so easily hidden and avoided. I say that without joy, as someone who spent a lifetime working inside such systems. In 1969 I worked as a journalist for this very same Catholic archdiocese, surrounded and befriended by men who must have known all this was going on.

And as a dean and bishop I’ve dealt with cases of abuse in our church and helped establish policies to stop them ever happening again. But as this film shows so vividly, it’s the underlying culture that breeds abuse. If the prevailing church culture is authoritarian, secretive and evasive; if sexuality is defined by fear, prohibition and denial of difference, then abuse will flourish. As it did in this Catholic archdiocese that I knew so well. And if all that is not enough, the film ends with long lists of dioceses and church institutions around the world that have similar stories to tell. New Zealand is there, too. Spotlight shows there is still work to be done by our Catholic brothers and sisters. We can support them in that task by continuing to get our own house in order and building a culture of sexuality that is inclusive, respectful and tolerant. Evidence of that happening is good news we’re all waiting for. Bishop John Bluck is a writer living in Northland. blucksbooks@gmail.com

ANGLICAN TAONGA

EASTERTIDE 2016

F R O M T H E FA R S I D E

Leonid Andronov – Shutterstock

Imogen de la Bere looks on in dismay as tightening red tape stifles every breath of fresh life in her church.

So there we have it. Stalemate.

Open, ye pearly gates

elonging to the Church of England can feel like attending the deathbed of a beloved old relative, whose time to die has come – and gone. Much though you love the dear old thing, you wish, for her sake and the family’s, that she would peacefully slide into the next world. But she grips your hand with a strong old claw, so elegant and still bedecked with splendid rings, and will not let go. Latterly we have been suffocated by the drawn-out death rites of the CofE. Our congregation (average age 78) would like handgrips along the vicar’s porch steps. These can be bought for around $25 and installed for free. But no, we must install aesthetically and historically consistent handrails in wrought iron, at $1100 plus labour and 20% VAT, and only if granted a ‘faculty’ (approval from the diocese to change the church fabric). But don’t start me on CofE faculties; they are a work of the devil. The good women of the social

committee (average age 75) would like a new kitchen. We have the money, so they have plans drawn up. But lo, it is decreed that three quotations and a faculty are required for all church works. The good women of the social committee are in tears. Twenty years ago I came to England on a middle-aged OE, armed with a shiny preaching licence from the Bishop of Christchurch. I duly applied for permission to speak at my local, and it went through with minimum fuss. But not so these days. I stopped preaching 10 years ago when the parish gave me one 10-minute sermon per quarter, pending a criminal records clearance, to protect the parish youth. With the young people not even in church for the sermon, it hardly seemed worth it. But of late my conscience has pricked, and I decided to help our dwindling band of preachers breathe some life into the congregation. Even if it means a criminal records check. But, lo, in the annals of the book it is written otherwise.

On my reapplication to preach, the bishop pronounced that only Readers (Lay Ministers to you) may preach. Assuming I passed the selection criteria, reader’s training is a 2-3 year course, with retirement age 70. At 63 I’m working full time, plus running a theatre, writing and directing. Reader training is neither a feasible nor sensible use of my time. So there we have it. Stalemate. I have a vocation to preach and cannot use it for God’s work. Hurry up and die, dear old CofE. But one thing the gospel of resurrection teaches us is that after death is life abundant. How passionately I long for the new church that will be born out of the ashes of the old. If only I could find a way to help bring about this particular Easter dawn. Imogen de la Bere is a writer and director living in England. delaberi@googlemail.com

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