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yes September – December 2006 Church Mission Society
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Quotable Quotes Pray inwardly, even if you do not enjoy it. It does good, though you feel nothing. Yes, even though you think you are doing nothing Julian of Norwich
Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself
Blessed are the single-hearted, for they shall enjoy Madeleine L’Engle much peace. If you refuse to be Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow hurried and pressed, has not yet come. We have if you stay your only today. Let us begin Mother Teresa soul on God, nothing can keep Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. Security is you from that mostly a superstition. It does not clearness of spirit exist in nature Helen Keller which is life and peace. In that The Church has given bread to the stillness you will poor and has kept the Bread of Life know what his for the middle class Viv Grigg will is Amy Carmichael
No one has ever become poor by giving Anne Fran
Prayer is the greatest power God has put into our hands for service – praying is harder than doing, at least I find it so, but the dynamic lies that way to advance the Kingdom Mary Slessor
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Trinity Edition
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nspired by the memory of the late Diana Witts OBE, former General Secretary of CMS, we dedicate this issue of YES to her.
‘Pioneering’ aptly sums up Diana’s life and work as an educator and mission strategist. She was dedicated to taking the Gospel into uncharted territory, but her gender wasn’t incidental to this work. The fact that Diana was a woman was central to her personal mission, and some of her greatest battles were against sexism, convention and ignorance. The emergence of women of this kind of pioneering character, time and again in different places across the world, has been a vital thread running through CMS since its first days.
8 fullest flow at lowest ebb
Some of our readers may question our cover message – are women really lost on mission’s frontline? What about all the female pioneers in our leading article and our late General Secretary Diana Witts? Well, despite these notables, the Church and most mission agencies worldwide are still male-dominated. The irony is not lost on me that here is a man editing an issue of the magazine on this theme. In her time, Diana did more than anyone to try and get women into senior posts at CMS. As this magazine is in her honour we owe it to her not just to celebrate the contribution of women in mission, but ask some of the tough questions that still need asking today.
14 pioneering women
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16 diana witts tribute
Mission News From our correspondents Fullest flow at lowest ebb: interview with Pat Gilmer Stepping out: short-term mission Cover story: pioneering women, extraordinary lives Canon Diana Witts OBE: a tribute People and events Dawn ’til Dusk Jeremy Woodham
It would be all too easy to give the impression that CMS always got it right as it drew women into mission. It’s closer to the truth to say that in every generation there were new lessons to learn. And we continue to learn. We ask the provocative question, page 6, “Women in mission: what are they good for?” We invite you to celebrate their contribution and to take the discussion further.
John Martin
Editor john.martin@cms-uk.org
YES Magazine Trinity Edition. Published by CMS. General Secretary: Canon Tim Dakin. Editor: John Martin. Staff writer: Jeremy Woodham. Designer: Gareth Powell. Printers: CPO. Printed on Arctic the Volume, a sustainable paper that has been accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council. Cover Shot by Gareth Powell. Views expressed in YES are not necessarily those of CMS. CMS is a community of mission service: living a mission lifestyle; equipping people in mission; sharing resources for mission work. CMS supports over 800 people in mission and works in over 60 countries with offices in Cape Coast, Kampala, London, Lusaka, Nairobi, Seoul and Singapore. Church Mission Society, Partnership House, 157 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8UU. Registered Charity Number 220297.
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“Go forth into all the world...”
Mission News Urquhart is going Brum. Photo: CMS
Chair gets new seat
David Urquhart, Chair of CMS Trustees since 1994, is the new Bishop of Birmingham. The Scottish-born former Bishop of Birkenhead, who converted to Christianity in Uganda, took over the post after the enthronement of John Sentamu, a Ugandan, as Archbishop of York. Bishop David, who also previously served eight years as a vicar in Coventry, said he was excited to be going back to a city, “particularly one with lots of energy and prospects for social and economic development.” He took the opportunity of his appointment to welcome the Church of England’s new Faithful Cities report which highlights the growing gap between rich and poor in Britain, saying he wanted to work with Birmingham’s civic leaders “to create a city in which all can participate.” Four score Young people who pioneered an all-Africa crosscultural mission programme have returned home reporting “exhilarating success”. The Mission Adventure Galore (MAG) team comprised two Kenyans and two Ugandans visiting Madogo, north-eastern Kenya. During the 16-day trip the team used songs, drama and preaching to encourage local Christians in the predominantly Muslim region. They also helped the host, a Sheepfold staff member, install electricity and build toilet facilities. MAG is an initiative of the Nairobibased Mission Together Africa, which gives African Christian youth an opportunity to participate in mission through short-term placements among unreached-people groups.
At the heart of the quake Food and aid for survivors of the Indonesian earthquake have been co-ordinated by mission partners Michael and Rachel Duff, who provided on-the-ground knowledge for a disaster-relief team from the Anglican Church in Singapore. In the frantic aftermath they linked with local pastor Pak Timotius, who was commuting two hours each way by motorbike to visit stricken areas. Michael described his first journey towards the epicentre by saying, “It was rather surreal to drive southwards from the centre of a beautiful, historic and fully functioning city, where no earthquake damage could be seen, past residential areas where one or two isolated buildings had collapsed, to an area full of crumpled buildings and piles of rubble, in which only one or two buildings were still standing.”
People sit and chat in the Dekhomai stand. Photo: Gareth Powell/CMS
Wear a flower in your prayer Nexus of the New Age scene, the Mind, Body, Spirit festival in London, played host to a hospitality, prayer and foot-washing stall set up by CMS. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the event was held over five days in May and saw 30,000 people through the doors. The CMS stall was called Dekhomai, Greek for ‘welcoming place’, and featured interactive prayer and meditation stations. “Much of the literature on display at the festival used Christian concepts and language,” said CMS organiser Gareth Powell. “We estimate that we prayed for over 300 people during the five days. Many people were incredibly moved by our insistence that the prayer and foot-washing we offered were free of charge.” Mind your own business Intent on being “part of emerging solutions to some of Africa’s biggest social challenges”, Serah
Wambua is a new member of the CMS Africa Team. The new Programme Manager for Advocacy and Social Transformation says she will make special priority for the Business As Mission (BAM) initiative which uses business development as a way of tackling poverty. “When Jesus launched his ministry, among the first people he called were businessmen and professionals,” says Serah. BAM was launched in Kenya as a pilot project in March with plans to replicate the work in other countries.
Blessing the new CMS mission centre in Seoul. Photo: CMS
It’s all about Seoul A new venture in mission in north-east Asia has begun with the opening of a CMS centre in Seoul, Korea. Set up at the invitation of the Anglican Church of Korea, the centre will be a catalyst for new forms of mission work in Korea, Japan and China. At the official opening in June, the Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Korea welcomed the new partnership with CMS and said he was excited by the possibilities it brought. Journalists from both Christian and secular newspapers and TV stations covered the event and interviewed CMS Regional Director Chye Ann Soh, who described Korea as a hotbed of missionary activity. The Church in Korea is the biggest Protestant Church in Asia. “They send out
“Many were incredibly moved by our insistence that the footwashing was free of charge” more missionaries per head than anyone else in the world,” said Chye Ann. All take and no give? Setting its sights on mobilising African Christians in world-wide missionary work, a new mission agency has been launched in Uganda. The Uganda Evangelical Mission Agency (UEMA), headed by Peter Asiimwe, was launched in Kampala in June amid cheers from various church leaders and missionaries. Asiimwe says that if the Church in Africa is to thrive, it must get out of the mode of receiving without giving. “The Dead Sea is dead because it keeps receiving without giving,” he says.
More news updates every week at www.cms-uk.org/news
Andy Hart building for the future. Photo: CMS
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from our correspondents CMS partners report from around the regions Mission partner Andy Hart in Tanzania finds that there is more to a simple chat about the weather when the doctor calls
A nearly premature end to Gloria and Peter Davies’ posting puts Western leaders’ claims of stability in Afghanistan under question
This evening, try squeezing your normal routine into two hours: ironing, emailing, cooking, getting the children fed, bathed and into bed. When rains fail in the UK, you expect a hosepipe ban. Here the effects are more far-reaching. Tanzania gets over 90 per cent of its electricity from hydroelectric plants so when rivers barely flow, we get about two hours of electricity daily – in the evening only. The number of people who rely on agriculture (and thus rain) for most of their income and food security is about the same percentage. But lack of rain has brought another, unexpected, challenge. It cropped up during a visit to a very poor, largely un-churched area where I’ve been working. The people live at the foot of ‘Witch-doctors’ Mountain’, a historic domain of that vocation and venue for various ceremonies. Some time ago, together with village elders, I helped the church start a community-tourism programme for visitors who wanted to see authentic rural Tanzanian life and climb the mountain. The work is a direct threat to the witch-doctors. Now they are telling the people there is no rain because too many ‘white people’ are coming to the village and the mountain. Now we have to reassess and address some of the spiritual issues here. It shows how development work, relationships with local people and spiritual teaching, must all progress hand-in-hand.
In the course of one week earlier this year we saw how volatile the political situation in Afghanistan remains. We were forced to spend four days confined to our home waiting to see if we would require a militarysupported evacuation. The trouble came with a public demonstration against the publication of Dutch cartoons of Mohammed which sparked hostility across the Muslim world. While most of the 4,000 demonstrators were satisfied to march and vocalise their anger against the perceived values of the Western world, a large mob tried to attack and loot the local Danish aid office. Two days later, the Shia community began celebrating Ashurah, which marks the betrayal and murder of one of their leaders, Ali, over 1,300 years ago. It involves a traditional parade with the young men publicly carrying out self-flagellation. The parade started quietly but verbal abuse quickly boiled over into a violent clash between Sunni and Shia. Some kind of peace was only restored after a few days; but four people were left dead and over a hundred injured. Due to our home being near the main government office, we were safely located behind national army lines. It appears that the violence may have been orchestrated for political reasons, and certainly the situation in Iraq will influence how and whether harmony can now ever be fully restored here.
“Some kind of peace was only restored after a few days; but four people were left dead and over a hundred injured” Richard Hovey is forced to question his motives after visiting the villages and churches of north-eastern Gujurat I was moved to tears. Adorned with flower garlands and overawed by the sheer joy of the music and dancing, I felt I was meeting characters from Acts leaping into reality. As recently as 150 years ago there had been no church where I was standing. Now here were people expressing deep gratitude for the sacrificial work of CMS missionaries, the first of which arrived in 1880 and the last of which left in 1963. The first made little headway in evangelism: the local Bhil people did not trust them. This changed after a two-year famine (1899–1900) which was followed by a one-year plague of rats. Half of the Bhil died. The missionaries organised food distribution and orphanages. One of them, CS Thompson, died in a cholera outbreak. After this demonstration of care, the trust of the local people grew, resulting in requests for baptism and increased attendance at catechism classes. And so, today, there is a thriving church. I wonder about the way we sometimes seek to do mission without first building trust with people; and often seek to separate evangelism from social action. I find myself convicted, as I wonder about my motives in past attempts at evangelism. Was I looking for ways to express God’s unconditional love; or was I just trying to ‘tick the box’ labelled evangelism, for my own kudos?
Deep questions for the future of Lebanon. Photo: CMS
Our anonymous correspondent in Lebanon Things are really boiling over between Jews and Gentiles here now. It’s open season on the streets. I’ve seen some extreme clashes lately, but nothing compares to one a few days ago. We’re all standing round while this nice-enough Jewish guy comes up with some novel ideas on the peace process. Then suddenly we all hear her, long before we see her. Typical Syrian, typical woman, we’re thinking. Hysterical. It’s her sick daughter, she wants the Jew to sort it out. While we’re avoiding eye contact, the poor guy struggles on. All his heavies are trying to shut her up. But she gets through, as these people do. And now he seems really wound up. And I’m thinking, why is it every single time someone special tries to say something truly useful and important, they get shouted down by some small-minded loudmouth woman. And in fact he cuts her down with a really withering cuss along the same lines, only he uses the word “dog”. But she comes right back, in his face, “even dogs deserve scraps”. You can hear a pin drop and now I’m actually scared. A Syrian woman is daring to pick an argument with a Jewish VIP. Any minute now someone’s going to let off a live round. But then comes something truly violent, but so beautiful. He embraces her. He’s got this look that says, “You’re right. That’s not fair.” It’s almost like she knew he’d say that. Then there’s this amazing silent exchange between them. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
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Fullest flow at lowest ebb The ultimate cost of being a pioneering woman broke Pat Gilmer. But it also led her to something she says is deeper even than baptism in the Spirit Sometimes you meet someone who reminds you that no amount of activism is a substitute for a deep and honest relationship with God. Sitting in a floral armchair in the suburbs of Coventry, Pat Gilmer, who has spent 40 years working with poor and disabled people in Uganda, is enthusing about a TV show. “Did you see The Monastery? I wish everyone could go.”
This might sound surprising from a Charismatic, Revival Christian but the discovery of a deeper, more contemplative faith is something she is very ‘evangelical’ about. It’s what she wants to tell the UK church: to literally preach to the converted. “You heard what the young man in the programme said. He’d been to this church and that church and he’d never felt at home. I empathise with him. Because we are superficial here.”
Pat has spent just over a year in the UK after retiring as a mission partner. “You see the pain in people here, which is not being met.” Her voice strains slightly. All too often we quote Scripture like using a sticking plaster, she says. “The wisdom to know how to say or what to say to the person is not there, sometimes because you’ve never allowed him to touch your pain.” Pain is something Pat is qualified to talk about, not just because she has spent a lifetime seeking to relieve other people’s, but because she herself was broken by the pioneering lifestyle she led. In 1966, she was sent to work in a church-run leprosarium on an island in the middle of a lake. But it was an institution whose time had come and gone. “What I realised straight away was that the leprosarium was actually spreading the disease. By that time the drugs were sufficient to be able to contain leprosy within a patient. But if you have to leave your family and come to an island and live the rest of your life there, then you’re going to hide leprosy for as long as you possibly can. So I thought, let’s stop this.” The bishop and district medical officer agreed. Visiting every kind of leprosy centre in the country for inspiration, she concluded: “I hated everything.” The answer was clear to Pat: the leprosarium had to close and treatment must be integrated in the community. But the decision needed the backing of the diocesan synod. “The two doctors who started the leprosarium were our founder missionary doctors, very much revered. Here comes a spit of a nurse – not even a doctor – a new missionary, hardly knowing the language and doing something absolutely radical – never been suggested before.” Fear of leprosy dominated everyone. “People were so scared of it. It was such a disfiguring disease. They couldn’t see anybody getting better.” It was a stormy debate and to this day Pat doesn’t know how the synod carried the vote. But it did. Pat hit the road, setting up leprosy programmes in local health centres, whether government or church-run, Protestant or Catholic. From the beginning it was a struggle. Though the scheme had official backing, she was given only
“It really broke me to live in that situation, where everybody was frightened, where we’d had public executions” junior nursing staff or orderlies to work with. Fear of leprosy even gripped the senior medical staff. “They wouldn’t even touch the record card that was in the patient’s pocket.” Pat was to spend the next 19 years constantly travelling from centre to centre, making sure the patients kept up with their tablets. Sure enough, she began to see a change in attitudes as people saw the drugs having an effect. She was thrilled at reactions both by senior nurses as they began to be excited about the treatment and by the Church. “Some of the most crippled had been made church wardens.” Then Uganda was shaken by Idi Amin’s uprising. Pat was vulnerable, living and often sleeping in her white camper van with the red cross painted on the side, parked up in church grounds. “There were nights when I dared not move in the van because I knew if I turned over there were soldiers the other side of the fence and I didn’t want them to find out that I was there.” Despite the chaos, Pat and other mission partners stayed. She’s glad of that decision. “It took strain from me, don’t doubt that.” Her life on the road meant she saw things others in institutions didn’t. “I saw people killed, I saw dead bodies on the road, I picked up people who died in my car after beatings, I found patients who had had their backs beaten raw. ➥
Pat assessing a baby with her colleague Evas. Photo: CMS
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I even nearly got shot once. I heard some terrible screaming near where I was working and I ran out and they were dislocating a man’s shoulders and they’d put another man on the ground and they were pegging him out for the sun to make him blind. I screamed at them, I really screamed at them, ‘You stop it! You’re not allowed to torture!’” Perhaps stunned, the soldiers stopped what they were doing. But the constant strain of travelling through barrier after barrier, maintained by troops looking for bribes or just on a power trip, never knowing when things might turn nasty, took its toll. “It broke me, it really broke me to live in that situation, where everybody was frightened, where we’d had public executions. But I found something happening inside myself which made me hunger to know God. I said, ‘Father, I need a reality with you, deeper than even I’ve got now, to live in world like this.’” So after carrying the leprosy programme for 19 years, and describing herself as “absolutely flaked”, Pat came back to the UK. But she describes her lowest ebb as a real gift. “God met me at a great depth then and my whole prayer life changed. I became much more contemplative in my praying and my thinking.” She describes this experience as “far, far deeper” than ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’. You just know God in some way has taken you in his arms and given you such a hug – and changed your mindset.” She came to understand how different prayer can be from the “shopping lists” we so often make. “There were nights when I wept for the country, and my own inner pain was my prayer.” Returning to Uganda after five years, she went on to lead an innovative project which empowered AIDS orphans and their families through growing chillies as a cash crop. Shocked at the number of orphans (25,000 in south-west Uganda), she also saw the results of a post-Amin flood of aid. “I was devastated at what aid had done, because it had made beggars out of people it shouldn’t have made beggars out of. And that is why I insist so much that everybody does something towards their own rehabilitation whatever it is, because it’s demoralising not to.” It’s important to Pat that the Rukungiri Growers Orphans and Disabled project – known to many
simply as “the chilli project” – makes the whole family group wealthier. She’s a critic of sponsorship schemes which pick out individual children for help, and not just because it’s unfair on those not chosen. “Psychologically you’re damaging the child because you are constantly pushing it back into being dependent and an orphan.” Asked what she values most about Uganda, she immediately replies, “It’s people-centred, not taskcentred.” This may be something of a truism, but for Pat, you sense, an honest relationship is to be valued above all. “Reality with God means absolute truth inside ourselves – with others and with ourselves. It’s knowing yourself well enough to be yourself and not what you think the church wants you to be, and how they want you to pray and how they want you to respond. “We need to be just ordinary people in church. I don’t know how to say it any better than that,” she shrugs. If a look can be both steely and mischievous, Pat has it, as she orders, “You know, just be yourself.” Interview by Jeremy Woodham, June 2006.
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short-term mission
Stepping out! There’s a new plan afoot for CMS to help you risk being vulnerable Connecting more deeply with our brothers and sisters in the multicultural Body of Christ doesn’t fit with the traditional image of mission as outreach. That’s the view of Debbie James, Cross-cultural Engagement Adviser at CMS, who says that for such a connection to happen, we need to step into another’s shoes and step out of our own, to risk being vulnerable, to see things from their perspective. Guided by this idea, CMS has created a new programme which affords opportunities to do just that, enabling each other to grow into God’s fullness. The Encounter and Praxis programmes are being integrated into one flexible programme with crossgenerational appeal. It’s geared towards a range of ages, different groups and lengths of visit. The nub of what CMS offers, however, remains opportunities to meet, share with Christians from other cultures, learn with them and jointly engage in an authentic experience of grassroots mission. “It has been so encouraging to see how Encounter and Praxis visits have changed and grown exponentially in 2006,” says Debbie. Ever more churches are getting CMS to facilitate and organise tailor-made visits for them and their youth groups. Of 16 visits provided this year, over half were in response to churches’ requests.
In Summer 2007, you could visit China, France, Ghana, India, Romania or Russia. Later in 2007, another trip to Ghana and one to the mid-Africa region are planned. “By supporting the vision of churches in these places, we’re participating in what God and other Christians are already doing. We may be powerfully challenged about our part in injustices and problems they face and, through that, be impelled to bring about change in our own countries. “The more we experience others’ fullness of life, the more we’re called and inspired to grow with them,” says Debbie. Group leader Dione Mcdonald notes, “It’s a great way to see Christianity lived in a different context. Your perception of the world will change but for the better.” “It changed my life because it enabled me to see what God was doing somewhere else in the world and, as a result, it challenged me to think about how I could actively engage in God’s Kingdom on an international as well as local level.” Group leader Jonathan Brooks agrees, “Our visit to the Congo made an indelible impression on us. You will want to engage in mission somehow, in any way you can, after being on a visit like this.” For more information, visit www.cms-uk.org/ encounter.htm or contact Debbie James on 020 7803 3326.
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What’s the point of a magazine about women in13 mission? We don’t do issues on men in mission. Is this needed or is it tokenism?
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How do church structures undermine women in mission? Is it inevitable that a woman will hit a glass ceiling?
Why are women consistently left off the list of ‘greats’ in mission history? Why are there so few women in senior posts in mission organisations? What kind of relationships did Jesus foster? Did he treat men and women differently? Was his attitude to women unusual among men of his day?
What messages about gender did missionaries export to the majority world? What should mission learn from feminism? Is the mission of women different to that of men? Are women ‘naturally’ more spiritual than men? What compromises does a pioneering woman in mission inevitably have to make? Will future generations find our attitudes towards women in mission completely archaic?
Women in Mission
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Pioneering women, extraordinary lives Pioneering women have long been a golden, if at times thin, thread in the CMS story. By Julia Katorobo, John Martin and Cathy Ross Women in mission: what are they good for? It is true that CMS in its infancy was not exactly swift in finding an answer to this question. It would be easy but misleading to paint CMS as a mission ahead of its times in its advancement of women.
to India as independent educators. Such was Mary Anne Williams (nee Cooke) who went to Calcutta at the invitation of a local committee for education of Hindu girls. The work ran into financial problems and she was ‘taken up’ by CMS in 1822.
There were no women among the founders of CMS. The most notable woman to share a place at the table with the leaders of the evangelical movement which founded CMS was the educator and philanthropist Hannah More (1745–1833). Publication of her poem, Slavery, coincided with the first parliamentary debate on the slave trade in 1788.
Life for a single woman in Victorian England could be threadbare. But someone with a modest income could travel to India and achieve a good lifestyle and make a valuable contribution by running a private, English-medium school for Hindu girls. There are many famous CMS-founded girls’ schools.
Nor has CMS latterly got it right in assessing raw talent. Among the women applicants CMS rejected were Gladys Aylward and Jackie Pullinger. Even so there is in the story of CMS a golden thread of mostly ordinary women living extraordinary lives. A full 180 years before the UN’s third Millennium Development Goal of promoting gender equality and empowering women, CMS was trying at least. By 1820 women were applying for mission service in numbers and it proved a significant gateway for independence and improved opportunities for them, especially in the professions – particularly in the fields of education and healthcare. For years the wives of CMS missionaries were invisible. One of the late John V Taylor’s wellremembered Newsletters is titled ‘The Little M’, recalling how wives were listed anonymously as a small ‘m’ beside the name of their male missionary husband in the Missionary Register. Mission opportunities in India were a profound driver of change. Many of the earliest CMS women first went
In the Muslim world CMS quickly discovered that medical mission was a strategic contact point because only women could work with women. By 1897, Dr Emmeline Stuart was head of a team of no less than 15 women missionary doctors in Persia. Soon ‘Zenana’ women’s medical missions throughout Asia were providing hundreds of openings for qualified women doctors at a time when the opportunities for women doctors at home were limited. Back home in England the prevailing mores of the Church meant, however, that high-powered professional women were not allowed to speak to congregations and deputation for years remained a male preserve. Which brings us to one of the last frontiers, ordained ministry. Throughout Asia, especially, ‘Bible Women’ were at the forefront of evangelistic mission. Most had only basic education, but their contribution was so important that it would be only a matter of time, albeit a long time, before theological training for women and the recognition of their ministries would follow. The galaxy of CMS pioneering women is vast. It’s impossible to do it justice in the space available, but here are some pen portraits from past and present.
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Mission Educators Florence Allshorn (Uganda and later Warden for CMS Women’s Training) and Esther Mombo (Kenya, see picture page 16 top). In 1928 CMS invited Florence to be Warden of St Andrew’s Hostel, one of its two training centres for women. She came with neither academic qualifications nor formal missionary training, but knew from experience some of the stresses affecting women on the field. Later she founded ‘Foxbury’ training centre. She once wrote: “There is all the difference in the world between religious people and Christ-like people. You can be religious and yet somehow keep self as the largest thing, because being consciously unselfish isn’t necessarily selflessness at all.” Esther is a pioneer in theological education whose studies were supported by a CMS bursary. Currently, Academic Dean of St Paul’s United Theological College, Limuru, Kenya, she teaches church history and theology from women’s perspectives. She is a member of the Inter-Anglican Doctrinal and Theological Commission and served on the Commission that produced the Windsor Report on the future of Anglicanism. She strongly campaigns for the advancement of women, commenting recently, “The ideology of patriarchy is alive in church; it needs to be tested by integrity, if the Gospel is to be credible.” Ordained Ministry Joyce Bennett (UK mission partner, Hong Kong, pictured above left) and Joanna Udal (UK mission partner, Sudan). Joyce was ordained as a priest with Jane Hwang by Bishop Gilbert Baker in 1971. Theirs was the
first fully-constitutional women’s ordination in the Anglican Communion. Joanna Udal is a current mission partner who assists Archbishop Joseph Marona and is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative in Sudan. She says, “The early Christian missionaries saw few results. But in recent years, the Church has experienced exceptional growth amidst the dislocation and isolation caused by the civil war.” Justice and education Elizabeth Colenso and Kate Hadfield (missionary wives in New Zealand). Elizabeth (born 1821) was “sincere, humble, unselfish and generous, someone who lived for others and never spared herself in any way.” Born of CMS parents her childhood was tough with many “terrors and sufferings when they first settled among these savage tribes.” Her loveless marriage to William Colenso was fraught with tension and Elizabeth founded and taught in a mission school. She suffered humiliation when her Maori maid gave birth to her husband’s child. Her latter years were spent on Norfolk Island where she translated the Book of Common Prayer into Mota. Kate, like Elizabeth Colenso, was an accomplished teacher. Born of CMS missionaries Henry and Marianne Williams, she married Octavius Hadfield, another CMS missionary. She was the first white woman to make the arduous overland journey from Auckland to Otaki, travelling by litter and foot, sleeping in Maori villages and eating local food, in all weathers. The Hadfields championed the Maori cause in a bitter controversy over land sales. In 1870, Octavius Hadfield was chosen as the second Bishop (later Archbishop) of New Zealand.
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Revival Voice Julaina Mufuko (south-western Uganda). Julaina experienced the East African Revival when it began in the 1930s in south-western Uganda. “I remember two preachers from Buganda and an English one called Sharp.” She gave her life to Jesus at the Kabale Convention in Uganda in 1935, aged 15. Soon she started preaching and she was often beaten up. Later she was imprisoned for her faith. “Mparo jail was a filthy place with urine on the floor. I was put in the dirtiest place because of my faith.” Julaina is among a few pioneers of the East African Revival still alive. Now in her 80s she never married, which was peculiar for her generation. She has advice to the youth of today: “You must be a praying generation. Be serious about your salvation. I was beaten for it. You are living in an easier time. Be committed.” Tough times, remote locations Judith Main (nee Wilson, see picture bottom left). Judith was evacuated from Sudan in 1988. For six weeks with Louise Wright and Carol Boardman (nee Fallows) of CMS, she holed up in Juba, a town under siege with all roads cut off by mines and antipersonnel landmines preventing even excursions on foot. Her next posting was to Yamofaya, Zaire, with her new husband Clive. It was a small village in the depths of the rainforest, 20km from the nearest road or river and 40km from the nearest place of any size. “It was a conscious decision to try to understand the local way of life of the students whom Clive had previously been teaching. We lived in a traditional mud hut with traditional furnishings, eating only local food. We deliberately stripped ourselves of most possessions. Clive very quickly found his feet. I found it a lot harder, being completely de-skilled, no language, no idea how to look after a mud hut and light and cook on a wood fire, no idea how to prepare the food (smoked monkey, caterpillars), no stamina for the weekly washing down at the stream... and loneliness. What kept me there? Feeling this was a joint adventure was important.” Advocating for the weak Susie Hart and Katharine Maycock. Susie’s work with people with disabilities is groundbreaking. After studying textile art she went to Uganda in her summer vacation to set up a therapeutic, income-generating craft workshop for the L’Arche community. Susie is married to Andy (a vet) and has two little girls. They are based in Iringa, Tanzania,
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where Susie founded Neema Crafts for people with disabilities to make and market stationery and crafts. In its first two years Neema Crafts has trained and employed 56 people, who are now skilled paper makers, quilters, jewellery makers, weavers, cooks and wood carvers. Katharine did her first CMS assignment at Mediahouse, a video production company in Egypt. Her passion for justice for the Palestinian people led to placements with the Israeli committee against house demolitions in West Jerusalem and the Arab Education Centre in Bethlehem during her time as an international observer, which inspired her book Checkpoints and Chances, Eyewitness Accounts from an observer in Israel-Palestine (ISBN: 0852453663 Quaker Books 2005, £9). Here’s a taster of her honest musings: “There’s an Arabic proverb which says ‘the one watching the beating is not the same as the one being beaten’. The longer I stay here the more I realise I am the one watching the beating. However much I empathise with the suffering, I remain free and able to walk away any time and am not enmeshed in the same confusion of lies and emotional conflict that a conflict brings.” VIGNETTES Past Mary Bouffler, the first woman in her own right on the CMS Missionary Register. A London schoolmistress, she arrived in Sierra Leone in January 1820. Less than five months later she was dead, one of many to succumb to tropical disease. Georgina Gollock (page 15 top right) was the first woman appointed as a full-time CMS staff member, leading a Women’s Department formed in 1895 and welcoming hundreds of schoolgirl visitors to CMS at Salisbury Square, one of the foundations for CMS youth work. Dr Christine Matthews left a promising career in medical research to pioneer community health programmes in South India. The simplicity of her life was an enormous challenge to people who met her. Christine was tragically killed in a motorbike accident in 1988. Dr Emmeline Stuart went to Persia (now Iran) in 1897 to lead a team of 15 women doctors. These women also ran Bible classes and devoted themselves to evangelism. Katherine Tristam, a graduate in mathematics from London University, was the first CMS female
“Wives were listed anonymously as a small ‘m’ beside the name of their husband” missionary with a degree. She was accepted for service in 1888 and sent to Japan, becoming headmistress of the CMS Girls’ School in Osaka. Present Judy Acheson (see picture left centre) has pioneered youth work in war-torn DR Congo since 1980. There are 64 youth groups within Boga diocese, and a youth centre in Bunia. In 1992 she brought a group of young adults from the Diocese of Boga to visit Britain. Many of them are now engaged in projects serving the victims of the war including rape counselling and working for reconciliation. Sara Afshari is pioneering Persian-language Christian satellite broadcasting as executive director of Iranian Christian Broadcasting. ICB aims to strengthen the fragile Christian communities so that they can be confident in sharing their faith. Patricia Nickson worked successively in Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and DR Congo and has a fund of hair-raising stories about being caught up in wars and revolutions. In Congo she pioneered training for village-based primary health centres, dialogue with local healers and use of local herbal remedies. She has kept close links with the World Health Organisation and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Christine Stone is quite probably the most published author in Nepal, “But that’s only my hobby,” she says. She writes textbooks for schools. At 65, most people are thinking of putting their feet up and retiring, but Christine has returned to Nepal to head up a new teacher training institute. She is part of a country-wide teacher training programme that is set to transform the schooling of one-and-ahalf million children in the next three years.
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Canon Diana Witts OBE (1936 – 2006)
Diana Witts was the first woman and second lay person to lead the Church Mission Society in its 200-year history. Diana’s life was one of pioneering, innovating and rising to new challenges, of which her leadership of CMS was the culmination. Her schooling was more suited to turning out girls as debutantes than to earning their living so she took a crash course in science and went on to read physics at Bristol University. Her first jobs were as a hospital physicist in London and Montreal before she turned to teaching maths and physics at a London girls’ school. The holidays gave ample time for her to indulge what became a lifelong love of travel, walking, skiing and mountaineering. From London she went to the Highlands School in Eldoret, Kenya. Her two years there were to change
her life. Africa captivated her. She was to become “essentially an honorary citizen of Africa”. It awakened her personal Christian faith – “a deep awareness of the creative love of God through a fleeting vision of a figure hanging from a cross – the most illumined and meaningful memory of my life.” She went on to teach at the Alliance Girls’ School, Kikuyu. At the end of the contract she successfully applied to be senior mistress at Gordonstoun, responsible for implementing the change to coeducation. It was a challenge – six of the masters had resigned in protest at the change the term before and many of those still at the school were deeply opposed. By the time she left in 1975 there were two full girls’
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houses with a total of 130 girls, so she reckoned her contribution was complete. Her next move was to CMS and to the rest of her life’s work. CMS sent her to pioneer a secondary school for girls at Meto, a tiny village in the heart of Maasailand on the border of Kenya and Tanzania, 30 miles from the nearest road. Here she made profound friendships with the Maasai, becoming known as ‘mother of the girls’ and Di-ya-na. In 1980, with the school established, she was asked to undertake a survey of possibilities for rural development in north-eastern Zaire at a time when the Anglican Church there was expanding rapidly. Her tireless travel and report laid the foundation for some remarkable grass roots community health and development work during the 1980s and ’90s. She moved to become CMS representative in Nairobi, charged with developing a new pattern of relationships with the Anglican Churches of East Africa at a time when CMS policy was to ensure that the pastoral care of missionaries was taken over by the local Church. In this role she travelled widely in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania before spending a year in Boga, Zaire, setting up a basic level of Theological Education by Extension. CMS called her back to London in 1985 to become Regional Secretary for West Africa, Sudan and Zaire. Much of the next 10 years were spent travelling across Africa including, at the invitation of Desmond Tutu opening CMS connections with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. A focus of those years were Diana’s visits to the Episcopal Church caught up in the civil war in Sudan. She was to become a great advocate for a largely refugee Church that was expanding dramatically in most demanding circumstances and had little or no voice in the wider world. To her surprise in 1996 she was appointed CMS General Secretary, a daunting role as she would be the first laywoman, would follow four bishops and would lead the Society as it celebrated its bicentenary. She rose to the challenge, working to bring new vision and purpose to the Society, visiting Churches in Europe, the Middle East, China, South and East Asia and continuing to press the cause of the marginalised and advocate for those who had little public voice. A highlight of 1999 was to return to Sudan to celebrate the bicentenary. As guest preacher in
Yambio Cathedral she processed with 10 Sudanese bishops and was deeply moved at how the faces of the Mothers Union workers lit up in delight and joy as they saw a woman walking among the men. A courageous woman who was never afraid of the public eye, Diana was also a very private person. She rarely spoke of her own deep spiritual pilgrimage but those who had the privilege to work with her, whether for a day or a decade, could not but hear the fruits of that inner journey spoken in every action of her life. Shortly after her retirement she was diagnosed with serious bowel cancer requiring major surgery and lengthy recuperation. But she came to a deeper acceptance within herself, enabling her to write and – just after the cancer had returned as terminal – publish her autobiography Springs of Hope. She approached her death by living life as fully as the cancer allowed, including a final visit to friends in Kenya. She died peacefully in her own home. Mark Oxbrow, CMS International Mission Director, paid tribute by saying, “Her grasp of the implications of the cross of Christ on her own life, and for humanity in general, was profound. ‘Cross’ culture mission was her life. She was courageous in her judgements and generous in relationships. Diana faced her final illness with confident faith, still active in local ministry.” Obituary written by John Clark, Director of Mission and Public Affairs, Church of England
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People & Events WELCOME New Mission Partners
FAREWELL Mission Partners
Angus and Helen Crichton, with Joshua (6), Samuel (4) and Anna (2), are just settling in at Kampala Evangelical School of Theology in Uganda, where Angus will teach church history and mission. He was previously on the staff of a large Anglican church in London. Helen, a nurse and midwife, will focus on settling the family in Kampala before exploring her contribution to women’s health and welfare through discipleship and care through childbirth. Their vision is “to learn from and contribute to the missionary vision of the Church in Africa”. Meanwhile, the CMS Sudan team welcomes Robyn (Robbie) Langford. Experienced mission partner Robbie has said goodbye to Afghanistan after eight years, where she provided a first-class education for the children of international development workers with our partner organisation there. In Sudan she’ll be training primary teachers for the 200 schools run by the Episcopal Church of Sudan, joining the Church’s education team, led by CMS mission partner Rob Watson.
Christine Stone won an OBE for services to education in Nepal, where she has been working for over 20 years. She may well be Nepal’s most published author, as she has written so many textbooks. She has recently been the main teachertrainer in a programme that will train teachers for one-and-a-half million children in three years. Retiring as a mission partner, she returns to Nepal in the Salt programme. Adrian and Fiona Lough have supported the Episcopal Church of Sudan for the last five years. They were based at Arua, Uganda, at Bishop Allison Theological College, the ECS training centre-in-exile. Fiona taught English to trainee pastors, and Adrian was instrumental in developing training on a biblical approach to HIV/AIDS, a course which has been taken up by other colleges. Gloria and Peter Davies have returned from western Afghanistan where they have spent the last three years, helping to run the only mental health clinic in the west of the country and setting up education and training about mental health. Now, with the project firmly established, they have returned to fulfil commitments to the Church in Wales.
Staff A Tall Skinny Kiwi called Andrew Jones has joined the Mission Movement team as part-time Missional Cell Developer, working to foster mini mission explosions all over the country. Originally from New Zealand, he now lives in Orkney and on the internet – http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com shows you his world. Sung Kwon Na (he’s Korean – English speakers can just call him Simon Na) was appointed North-East Asia Regional Co-ordinator ahead of the official opening of the CMS mission centre in Seoul on 7 June. The new centre is already attracting some excellent volunteers, including Chris(tine) Kim. The Finance team recently welcomed Marcia Cunningham to become Income Accounts Assistant. Also new there are Natalie Bacon, Pensions Manager, taking on the role for the transitional year of CMS’s move to Oxford, and Sharon Green (Income Data Processor). Hope Kahwa arrived in July to work with Sharon processing all that data. There’s clearly a lot to do in the Income team, for which we thank you – the generous givers. Congratulations to Lyn Danino on her promotion to Expenditure Team Leader. Meanwhile, helping out the Personnel team with all this, as Admin Assistant, is James Rogers, a new graduate in War Studies. He comes in peace.
Staff The Fundraising team said goodbye to their manager of seven-and-a-half years, Louise Gibson, at the end of May. Louise pioneered many aspects of fundraising at CMS, with a sense of fun, determination and a generous spirit. The staff of the RAF Benevolent Fund are now benefiting from her benevolence as Relationship Marketing Manager. Pensions Manager Brian Johnson moved to Hays plc after two years gently guiding CMS through the turbulent waters of the current pensions world. We also said a fond farewell to our first-ever Advocacy Officer, Jamie Bird, who’s moving from part-time to full-time law studies after 18 months of working hard to develop a distinctive advocacy strategy for CMS.
Deaths Dr Donald Duck, who died in June aged 81, had a lot of fun with his name. He was 10 when his Disney namesake was created. He once referred a patient to an Edinburgh hospital, which almost called in a psychiatrist when the patient claimed to have been referred by Donald Duck. He was a mission partner in India and Pakistan in the 50s and 60s. Afri Chandra, with CMS/Crosslinks in Kenya 1998–2004, died
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on 13 May, still in his 40s. He leaves a wife, Pam, and children Simeon, Judah and Benji. Rev George Darley Bennett, Sudan and Zambia 1953–76, died 19 March. Millicent Goodwin, Nigeria 1950–57, died 23 March. Eric William Pawson, CMS Finance team 1955–70, died 24 March. Dr Isobel Adeney, Burundi and Rwanda 1939–82, died 28 March. Godfrey Callender, CMS Education department 1964–72, died 16 April. Rev Mary Harrison MBE, Jordan 1948–72, died 16 April. Majorie King MBE, Pakistan 1956–81, died 16 June. Olive Gladys Wroe, India 1937–72, died 18 June.
Updates We celebrate the following births: Aaron to mission partners in Birmingham Felipe and Sarah Yáñez, on 7 January. Innes Gregor to mission partners in south-east Asia Katherine and Tony Paton, on 5 March. Kai David to Beth and Darrell Jackson, mission partners in Hungary, on 28 April. Hayoung to Personnel and Training Team administrator Charitas Cho and her husband Paul, on 14 May. Zachary David to Alister McLeod (CMS web guru) and his wife Fiona on 2 July. We also congratulate mission partner Jenny Green in Uganda on completing the long process of adopting five-year-old Hannah.
Events Short-term mission trips for all ages (well, over 25s) are taking place in Kenya, Romania and Rwanda this September. If you think you might want to be part of one next year, get in touch with Abby Peggs: abigail.peggs@cms-uk.org or 020 7803 3347. “Supporting Mission in the Parishes” is the theme of the CMS East Central day conference on 30 September at Oakington School, with Gaenor Hall of CMS Church Relations Team and the Rev Michael Roden. Contact David Nobbs on nobbs@ dellfield.freeserve.co.uk or 01923 269480. On the same day, the Northern Mission Partners’ Fellowship meets at Bishopthorpe, York from 10am – 4pm. Contact Evelyn Wroe on 01904 780852. The CMS Wales day conference takes place on 14 October. Contact Ros Capper on r.capper@zoom.co.uk or 029 2061 3286 to find out exactly where. The CMS Mid-Africa conference takes place at Swanwick, 24–26 November. Email graham.atkins@ cms-uk.org or call him on 020 7803 3309 for more
details. You can download a booking form from the Mid-Africa section of the CMS website. CMS trustee Penny Minney is organising another concert evening at Auckland Castle, Durham, on 30 November. Details from pennyminney@onetel. com or 0191 3711295.
Members’ Day Partnership House, 28 October. Your chance to catch up on CMS news around the world, the latest thinking and developing vision for the future. You will receive and be invited to approve the Annual Report and hear the results of the Trustees’ election. To book a place get hold of Elizabeth Martin on elizabeth.martin@cms-uk.org or 020 7803 3304.
CMS – Some Key Contacts Mission Partner Openings & Salt Enquiries Stuart Buchanan 020 7803 3348 stuart.buchanan@cms-uk.org Donations Information Paul Bigmore 020 7803 3329 paul.bigmore@cms-uk.org CMS Resources Richard Long 020 7803 3376 richard.long@cms-uk.org Short-term Individual Placements Alex Gough 020 7803 3357 alex.gough@cms-uk.org Short-term Team Experiences Debbie James 020 7803 3326 debbie.james@cms-uk.org Youth/Emerging Church Jonny Baker 020 7803 3343 jonny.baker@cms-uk.org Enquiries & Prayer Linda Howell 020 7803 3332 linda.howell@cms-uk.org Speakers & Membership Enquiries Elizabeth Martin 020 7803 3304 action@cms-uk.org Mission Partner Links Julie Whitfield 020 7803 3339 julie.whitfield@cms-uk.org Northern Team Leader Ian Smith 01904 659 792 ian.smith@cms-uk.org Southern Team Leader Richard Hovey 01249 712446 richard.hovey@cms-uk.org
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dawn ’til dusk
Kashmir Paul Bigmore takes a trip to the foothills of the Himalayas 0600: It’s a rude awakening by the alarm on my mobile phone, although the cockerel has been crowing since 5am. The hotel is half-finished and we’ve all walked mud in – Gulmarg feels like a tourist town waiting for the tourists to return. We’ve been up in this town in the clouds for the second diocesan youth festival and I’m still aching from the enthusiastic Bangla dancing of the evening before.
0730: The buses from the CMS school arrive to take us down the mountainside. They’re bright yellow and could be straight out of 1960s suburban America. We finally get a glimpse of the Himalayas as the cloud lifts on our way down – I used to think the Alps were big, until I saw this mighty range. We go the ‘scenic route’, not because we’re lost, but because the bridge has collapsed on the main road. I see the terraced and tilled fields and wonder what the life of the farmer is like in this beautiful but harsh environment.
0930: Into Srinagar – the number of soldiers has been increasing along the roadside and now there’s a man every 10 metres or so. I don’t feel safe in the city, yet my natural curiosity means I still get outside the school compound whenever possible – even just to cross the road to buy a local paper (available in English thankfully). Second breakfast (a rare treat) is served in the school mess and is delicious. I think I could get used to curry for breakfast.
1030: The school was founded by CMS more than 125 years ago – a brave thing to do then and a brave thing to maintain now. There are thousands of children and the little ones especially swarm around us all saying “Good morning Sir”.
1400: After lunch we rejoin the youth who have come for the festival. We take a Shikara, a canopied small gondola, out onto the lake. I’m reminded of Michael Palin’s visit as part of his Himalaya series, though we can’t get onto a houseboat – they’re all fully booked by tourists from across India. The lake is flat calm and there are no motorised craft – all there is to do is take in the mountains, the chinar and poplar groves and dip my toes in the cool water.
1700: There’s a break before supper and just time to pop over the road from the school to the British cemetery. There are virtually no foreigners here now, but at one time there must have been a large community given the number of graves. It feels like an overgrown English churchyard transplanted to the Kashmir Valley. I stumble on the headstone of Lieutenant Edwards, “killed while falling over a precipice while out shooting” – violent deaths appear to be nothing new in this land. Nearby is the grave of Cynthia Morgan, a CMS mission partner who died of ill-health whilst I was still at school. As we wander around we hear the call to prayer from the adjacent mosque.
1800: The closing service of the youth festival is a moving time. The songs are all in Hindi or Urdu, but we do our best to join in. The young people from across the diocese commit themselves to peace and justice and I add my ribbon to the pole, but know the challenges will be different for me.
2100: Another excellent meal in the mess and a chance to talk to some of the teachers who work in the central and satellite schools. Like those at the nearby Anantnag Hospital they’re an inspiring group – living and working as a minority, but serving the people and clearly respected and even liked by them.
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jeremy woodham
Am I a Christian? I have no ID-er One tries to dress respectably. Of course, come summer certain colleagues seem to think it perfectly acceptable to turn up to the office in shorts and Birkenstocks (which is what we call sandals nowadays; so I suppose we get to rename the ultimate fashion crime of socks with sandals ‘socks-n-’Stocks’, which at least has a pleasing ring to it.) I, however, step out proudly in my olive-green linen suit during the hot weather. It’s made by Racing Green, a name that conjures up sporty minis (the cars, not the skirts) and a classic British look. Underneath the brand name on the label in fine script are the words “Fine Tailoring”. So it must be. Racing Green tell me all their clothes are “made in Europe”, and there was I assuming it would be China. Anyway, the tailoring is just fine and I’m not hung up on where it was made. I am hung up on our obsession with labels. In fact I’m fast becoming obsessed with it and risk being labelled a labelomaniac. So I’m going to beat my concerned friends to it and call my new psychological condition tag-o-phobia. Liberal. Evangelical. Conservative. Orthodox. Inclusive. Bible-based. I don’t care what the label is, it gives me the willies. The problem is, like the brand image of my suit against the reality of its provenance, labels usually imply one thing, while the thing they’re labelling is quite another. It all started off well enough, but just went a little too far. After all, the words on this page are mere labels for objects and ideas. And I seem to recall from Sunday School that God told a chap he called
Adam to label what the Almighty had created. You know, things like “Apple”. But look what that started. And before we’re even out of Sunday School, we start handing out labels, the more easily to see how other people are different from us. Rather like arriving at a conference to be given a name badge with ‘Mickey Mouse’ already on it. Then we think up a label for ourselves, to point out how much better we are than Mickey, who’s well known for being a bit of a dilettante. When I was 18, I woke up and found out I’d been going to an ‘evangelical’ church all my life. I’d arrived at university to find this word was less a label and more a flag that people liked to wave about a lot. It astonished me that during my upbringing in what I now realise was a fairly mainstream Baptist church, nobody had ever thought to mention it. Do we give ourselves these qualifying tags because to simply be ‘Christian’ is too daunting a prospect? It seems we are drawn to labels like moths to a Space NK Scented Candle, just because we can’t bear the thought that there isn’t somebody more wrong than we are. I grew up a feminist, another label that gets Christians into trouble. At least I assumed I was a feminist, because what I understood of feminism (equality and freedom) rang true with what I understood of Christianity. Even Dear Old Paul (as we feminists like to call him) says that in Christ Jesus “there is no longer Jew or Greek ... slave or free ... male and female”. Not to annihilate difference. But to hammer home the message that in Christ, labels are meaningless.
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