A Brave New World for Twenty-First Century Christians?
Two Books that Might Help us Decide...
by John L. Kater

At first glance, these two books stand apart by their differences. Horizons of Mission is written by a single author, a parish rector in Massachusetts, and clearly addresses a North American audience. Beyond Colonial Anglicanism is edited by two scholars — one a white male American priest, the other a Chinese female lay theologian. Its fifteen authors, and the concerns they address, are global in perspective. Yet they deserve to be reviewed, and perhaps read, together since both offer significant resources for Episcopalians who wonder about what it means to be committed Anglican Christians in the twenty-first century and who ponder some of the complex dimensions of that question.

Beyond Colonial Anglicanism originated in a consultation on "Anglicanism in a Post-Colonial World" held at the Episcopal Divinity School in 1998, and most of its chapters are re-written versions of its presentations. It also bears the clear effects of the tendentious discussions of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, held a few months later; indeed, a number of the authors represented in the book were also participants in those conversations.

After a brief preface by Glauco Soares de Lima, the primate of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil and a conference participant, Beyond Colonial Anglicanism is divided into three sections. Essays in the first section examine the nature of contemporary Anglicanism in the light of its ever-increasing diversity as well as the obvious effects of its long alliance with colonialism and imperialism. Part II examines some selected "Challenges of the Present World", including reconciliation after violence, an examination of some "cultures" that co-exist at the beginning of a new millennium, and some thoughts on the environmental crisis. Other chapters address debt relief, issues of human sexuality and urbanization. The third section, "Visions for the Future Church," contains six chapters re-thinking some of the implications of an Anglicanism which is truly global and postcolonial. It includes articles on scripture and worship which were originally delivered at Epiphany West conferences at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and appeared earlier in the Anglican Theological Review. The section also includes a contemporary approach to baptism, a study of leadership based on the experience of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand, and a reconsideration of the African experience of episcopacy. The book concludes with a "postcolonial revisioning of the Church’s faith, witness, and communion."

As with any such undertaking, the quality of the essays varies widely, though there is not a single one from which I did not profit. Some seem more like reminders of things we have already known for a long time, but need constantly to have called to our attention; in this category I would include the chapter on "Debt Relief" by John Hammock of Tufts University and Anuradha Harinarayan of Save-the-Children USA. Others, while based on realities of which many of us are already aware, approach them in from fresh perspectives; in this regard, I particularly appreciated the essay on "Global Urbanization" by Laurie Green, Bishop of Bradwell, England.

Other chapters are valuable for their clear reminder of how our past continues to haunt the present; Kwok Pui-Lan’s study of "The Legacy of Cultural Hegemony in the Anglican Church" is useful in this regard. Building on this perspective, others offer help in how we might conceive of this Anglican Communion of ours in the strange new world of the twenty-first century; I commend especially Ian Douglas’ "The Exigency of Times and Occasions: Power and Identity in the Anglican Communion Today" and David Hamid’s "The Nature and Shape of the Contemporary Anglican Communion."

The most exciting contributions of this book are those essays that open genuinely new paths towards the future of Anglicanism by bringing the tradition as it was received into creative dialogue with aspects of culture and religion to create a "new thing."

The most exciting contributions of this book are those essays that open genuinely new paths towards the future of Anglicanism by bringing the tradition as it was received into creative dialogue with aspects of culture and religion to create a "new thing." In my opinion, the three essays that are the most noteworthy successes in this regard, and to which I will return again and again, are Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane’s "Scripture: What Is at Issue in Anglicanism Today?", Jenny Plane Te Paa’s "Leadership Formation for a New World: An Emergent Indigenous Anglican Theological College," and Bishop Simon Chiwanga’s "Beyond the Monarch/Chief: Reconsidering Episcopacy in Africa." And I can anticipate using Christopher Duraisingh’s concluding essay on re-visioning Anglicanism in a variety of classroom and workshop formats.

Most, perhaps all, of the authors of this book are what some call "bridge people," able to move with varying degrees of freedom between the culture in which they were raised and others with which they are also familiar. Perhaps the future of postcolonial Anglicanism will depend heavily on the contributions of such "bridge people." I believe this book will be most useful to Anglicans in North America and other English-speaking churches of the industrial world, in part because the authors represented here, though drawn from around the globe, are able to communicate in ways that make sense to first-world English-speaking Christians.

As someone who also lived for a number of years outside the USA, I am aware of other voices, other realities that make up part of postcolonial Anglicanism that are not heard here: those voices that caused people like me such exasperation at Lambeth.

Beyond Colonial Anglicanism offers significant resources for moving beyond the disappointment, anger and yes, racism revealed at the 1998 Lambeth Conference. Certainly as an Episcopalian born, raised and living and working in the United States, I found its agenda and perspective a congenial one. But as someone who also lived for a number of years outside the USA, I am aware of other voices, other realities that make up part of postcolonial Anglicanism that are not heard here: those voices that caused people like me such exasperation at Lambeth. Ian Douglas acknowledges that some of those voices are painful for American Episcopalians to hear, and indeed, many would not be willing to enter into conversation with those represented in this book. Archbishop Ndungane took those voices seriously in his sober assessment of the multiplicity of approaches to scripture co-existing in postcolonial Anglicanism. After concluding this book, I wished more of the authors had done so. I would like to hear Kenyan Esther Mombo’s nuanced feminism and Ugandan Francis Mutatiina’s work on African concepts of family in dialogue with the perspectives of First-World authors. I would like to hear African, Asian and Latin American critiques of the individualism that distorts our North American approach to Christian faith. And I would be most encouraged to hear Christians from the older churches re-thinking their approach to matters of faith because of what they have learned from Anglicans in other parts of the world. That, I think, would be the surest sign that we are truly moving into a postcolonial Anglicanism, a vision that remains today more a promise and a challenge than a reality.

Titus Presler’s book, Horizons of Mission, is just such an enterprise. It reflects the author’s many years of living and working as a Christian in settings on the other side of the world from the parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he is rector. It represents a vigorous attempt to define the nature of Christian mission, and to suggest some guidelines for how it is done, with awareness of the diversity of Christian experience and in an atmosphere of mutual respect, both for other churches and other religious traditions. The book is haunted by the memories of mission badly conceived and badly done, both in the past and in the present, but Presler does not allow the worst to overshadow or negate the possibility of better.

Presler admits that, given the legacy of mission, it is appropriate to ask whether we can even use such language or concepts, but insists that the most basic Christian understanding of the Holy is the one he calls "the Missionary God" and that this fundamental perception cannot be ignored. Like some of the authors in Beyond Colonial Anglicanism, Presler considers that the church’s mission is not an end in itself, but rather is meant to serve God’s mission of bringing into being a new creation. Such a perspective shifts the thrust of his book from a narrow focus on "making people Christian" to the much wider, more ecumenical and global perspective of identifying, witnessing to, and serving what God is doing in this world of pain and hope. Mission, Presler says, "encompasses all that God asks us to be and do" as well as the narrower definition of "respond[ing] to God’s call to move beyond who we are and engage someone who is different from ourselves" (pp. 16-17).

Presler raises what is perhaps the most troubling question for those who wonder about mission in a world that truly respects religious diversity: the issue of whether or not Christians should try to "convert" others, especially those whose commitment to another religious tradition is a profound one.

Early on, Presler raises what is perhaps the most troubling question for those who wonder about mission in a world that truly respects religious diversity: the issue of whether or not Christians should try to "convert" others, especially those whose commitment to another religious tradition is a profound one. He delays his answer until his fifth chapter, and acknowledges that it is one on which Christians differ. He does, however, argue that the heart of mission is witness to what we have known of God; for Christians, that means witnessing to what we have known of God in Christ. Respect, witness and invitation, not judgment or coercion, lie at the heart of mission as he understands it. In this regard, he cites the 1998 Lambeth Conference affirmation that "Christians want to make Christ known and give others the opportunity of following him" (p. 174).

Horizons of Mission ends with "A Vision for Mission in the Twenty-First Century," and a brief chapter on "Energizing Communities for Mission." In both chapters, the author suggests a style and emphasis for mission appropriate for Christians who value diversity and understand the importance of culture.

Not everyone will be satisfied with Presler’s approach to mission. Those who remain wedded to the idea that the point is to turn non-believers into Christians will find its approach lukewarm. Those who are immobilized by the negative side of history will find him too willing to put the past behind us. Those who consider mission itself to be an outmoded concept will believe he does not go far enough. But for those of us who wrestle with the meaning of mission in a multi-cultural world, who ask questions and seek a way forward, his honesty and experience and the wisdom he draws from it offer enormous resources.

John L. Kater is Professor of Ministry Development and Director of the Center for Anglican Learning and life (CALL) at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, CA. He previously served as rector of Christ Church in Poughkeepsie, New York and as Education Officer of the Episcopal Diocese of Panama. John is the author of Christians on the Right: The Moral Majority in Perspective, Making Sense of Life: Theology for Teenagers, and Finding Our Way: American Christians in Search of the City of God, as well as two books for children. He assists at the Congregation of El Buen Pastor in Redwood City, CA and serves on the Diocese of California's Hispanic Commission and Multiculturalism Task Force.