MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR

One of the wonderful advantages of only becoming “churchy” after the age of 50 is that it was much like travelling to a new country.

Your senses are in top gear. You get excited about stuff the locals take for granted. You ask: why? You take measure when others feel that’s unacceptable, simply because it’s never been done before. Change doesn’t bother you because you have no norm.

Preconceptions take a dive

For example, I like so many whiteys, had assumed that Anglican Church services would be far less formal in the townships than in the leafy suburbs. Wrong! In Soweto the best of British liturgy rules. Our Sunday altar party would be at least a dozen people, all superbly trained by their guilds.

Our choir was about 30 strong. Although African choruses were integral we also sang those ‘deep English’ hymns from old green hymn books, mostly passed down from parishes on the other side of town that had replaced them with Songs of Fellowship.

Another fallacy is that a black skin guarantees a wonderful singing voice. Not true. The objective is to worship God with the voice you’ve been given.

Incense was mandatory. The swinging of the thurible an art form.

A 45 minute sermon was par for the course and never warranted surreptitious glances at one’s watch.

My misconceptions included an assumption that my parishioners would be far more enthralled by a darker skinned Jesus.

When I suggested we should retouch a large mural so that Jesus would look less like an Oxford don dressed for a Nativity play and more like a darker skinned Middle Eastern Jew, the refusal was gentle but firm.

Fact is, the extra white Jesus is deeply loved. Those early missionaries who worked so hard at branding colonial standards as superior did a pretty good job. They were subsequently affirmed by apartheid, advertising, the education system, movies, nursery rhymes and even toys. 

What some scientist think Jesus looked like

In a country where the colour of one’s skin is still a major differentiator a Messiah of a darker hue doesn’t stand much of a chance. Sure, some parishes have painted their statues dark brown but the pointed Caucasian nose is a dead giveaway. 

The Queen is also loved
I remember taking a BBC TV crew to film a typical Anglican Eucharist in Soweto. The opening hymn (in their honour) was God Save the Queen and the choir, which was at least 60 strong, opted for a black tie and evening dress code. The film crew’s intention was to get a few good shots and then head back to the pool at their Sandton Hotel. 

I had to explain that the parish and gone to extraordinary lengths for their visit, including items by the Sunday School and a major feast afterwards. Initially, they were a bit grumpy but as we headed home three hours later it was declared ‘an experience of a life time’.

Meanwhile, through Archbishop Njongo, I was working closely with Canon Ted Karpf and the Revd Jape Heath in the HIV/AIDS and gay arenas.

Confession time (once again).
Although I’d grown up in a family that regarded homosexuality as nothing to get excited about, few of my gay and lesbian friends had ever shown affection in public. There was a dinner party to which Jape arrived late. His partner had joined us earlier and they kissed each other hello. It was a Damascus moment. 

As I registered my discomfort and was ashamed I suddenly understood how awful it must be for same-sex couples to have to refrain from everyday gestures of affection and the level of trust I’d been afforded in that moment.

I’d always understood how incredibly difficult it was for gay priests to honour the Church’s call for celibacy – usually from married heterosexual clergy. But never quite how this stretched to the daily fabric of their lives.

It didn’t help that HIV/AIDS was still largely viewed as God’s punishment for homosexuality and depraved promiscuity.

An inside job

Ironically, the likes of Njongo, Ted and Jape were being hugely undermined by their own Church.

That brings me to another facet of Anglicanism. Some call it ‘diversity’ others speak of ‘schizophrenia’.

Somebody once told me that theologically the pulpit tends to be 19 years ahead of the pew. For me the fissures were less between clergy and laity and mostly between clergy and clergy.

People in the pews tend to take what they are dished.

The three pillars of Anglicanism, i.e. Scripture, reason and tradition are not adopted or applied in equal measure across the Church. The same priests who laugh off St Paul's injunction that women should cover their heads and are horrified by the Old Testament custom of offering one’s virgin daughter to an overnight visitor, continue to interpret other sacred texts literally.

Instead of examining our sacred texts by taking into consideration who wrote them, the circumstances as the time, the audience and the agenda they ignore reason and wield verses like weapons.

Schism. what schism?

Within our global Anglican Communion we used to laugh off our differences and speak of bonds of affection. We scorned suggestions of a schism because historically the Anglican Church has shown a remarkable ability to accommodate differences.

Jongo would often urge his clergy and laity to come out of their corners of difference and find strength in diversity. He had every right to, having proved this could be done.

I’ve told how at the 1998 Lambeth Conference he’d chaired a 30 hour session, on homosexuality. Sixty bishops of diverse theologies, cultures and traditions had hammered out a proposal on the anvil of their pain. Yet the one and a half hour plenary session that followed ignored their 180 hours of input and produced ‘Resolution I.10: Human Sexuality’.

The resolution upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage i.e. gay priests must be celibate. It also refuses “to advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions or ordaining those involved in same gender unions.”

Behold the chasm

Subsequently 182 bishops would see fit to apologise to gay and lesbian Anglicans in a ‘Pastoral Statement’ but the pain and the resolution remain. That fissure would turn into a chasm.

I was working for Jongo and picked up stories of how several African bishops and their entourages had been financed by American conservatives who had set up camp just outside Canterbury. At the end of every meeting with the Archbishop they would meet to strategise for the next day.

Williams, an academic, a renowned theologian, poet, author and social activist would prove a babe in the political woods.

Despite him having persuaded a gay priest in a relationship to withdraw his controversial candidacy for Bishop of Reading, 250 bishops out of 800 boycotted Lambeth 2008 in protest against his perceived liberal sympathies. 

Photo: Reuters

Instead they hived off to Jerusalem where they held a seven day Global African Future Conference (GAFCON) to address the rise of secularism, HIV/AIDS and poverty.

Notably, Welby has indefinitely postponed the 2018 Lambeth and we continue to tip-toe around that awful word “schism”. We can afford to. Each of the 38 provinces that make up the global Communion does its own thing anyway.

More recently Rowan Williams, has admitted he has "no problem" with legal parity for same-sex couples. But he feels the State rushed into "redefining" marriage without giving the Church enough time to think about it.

His biography, Rowan's Rule, by Rupert Shortt tells how the Archbishop, now a baron, was tackled by a disappointed friend at the Hay Festival: "A venerable Roman Catholic priest and scholar confronted Rowan after the ceremony for 'letting us down', by which he meant gay and pro-gay Catholics hoping for a lead from the Anglicans.

Rowan clasped his head in his hands – a characteristic gesture – in apparent acknowledgement that his questioner (also an old friend) had a point."

He would share with Shortt, "Let me just say that I think the present situation doesn't look very sustainable."

Gay marriage
On gay marriage, he said: "I have no problem with legal parity for same-sex couples. But I'm not sure it's an appropriate use of the state's power to change a social institution. It felt as though we were being bundled into redefining a word without sufficient time to reflect."

On the failure of General Synod to pass the legislation on women bishops (It has since changed its mind), Shortt writes: "Rowan fell into a pit of depression on returning to Lambeth, during which he hardly spoke to anyone but [his wife] Jane – invariably a model of calm as well as charm."

The book also tells of the massive emotional toll Williams suffered over the sexuality battle. In 2005 he had slumped against a doorway during a bishops' meeting and said to a colleague, 'I can't tell you how much I hate this job.'

Shortt’s own recent comment is, "It seems to me that the Church of England has got to the point on the formal affirmation of same-sex relationships that it had reached with remarried divorcees 40 years ago. A once rigid discipline is being gradually relaxed.

"Some traditionalists will see this as yet another example of the way Anglicans have buckled in response to changing attitudes in society at large. But that is not where Rowan Williams is coming from. The pro-gay arguments he voiced in the 1980s and 90s sprang from a belief that church teaching on sexuality might evolve for solid theological reasons, not through a desperation to keep up with the times at any cost.

In describing current teaching as very unstable, Dr Williams is echoing opinions also voiced by other retired archbishops.”

More important things
With millions of refugees needing help, terrorism and police brutality you’d think we Christians would stop worrying how people choose to express love. 

This week I presided at the funeral of a parish stalwart. His last words to his children were: “Love each other, don’t fight.” 

A prophet for our times.

You may find these interesting: 

At COP21, the UN climate summit in Paris, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba joined other members of the international ecumenical grouping, the ACT Alliance, in handing over petitions signed by 1,7 million people, urging political leaders to take decisive action to curb global warming and deliver a strong, fair deal that helps poor countries adapt to their changing climate. In the photo with Archbishop Thabo is Cristiana Figueres, who as executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is the UN's top official dealing with the issue.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByhUzBudvygeU2xNYnZ3RHoyejA/view?usp=sharing

Arcbishop Thabo Makgoba's reflection on Advent : http://archbishop.anglicanchurchsa.org/2015/11/audio-archbishop-thabos-reflections-on.html

Rupert Shortt speaking about difficulties Christians are experiencing across the world //ow.ly/V5TRd

THE CORRUPTION OF A PRIEST

I’ve skipped a week in my postings. Partly because I had to fly to Jo'burg for a church committee meeting.

Mostly because I have been doing some serious soul searching.

In my previous post, I recounted how the heady ‘New South Africa/’Rainbow Nation’ era had coincided with my ordination and a ministry in Soweto. Yet, even as I was recording those happy times, our University of Cape Town students were forcing their way into the parliamentary precinct and were being fired on by police stun guns. They and other students across the country were demonstrating against proposed fee hikes. 

There was a point at which I wondered if I shouldn’t stop writing the blog post and hare across the mountain to join those kids. Would they accept a granny activist priest in their midst?

SA in demo mode
I couldn’t put this to the test. 

Our nearest township was also on the march, protesting against the arrest of a community leader who has campaigned incessantly for better policing. Our village road to Cape Town was blocked. Just as it would be a few days later when Anglicans staged a silent vigil outside St George’s Cathedral.

South Africa is in permanent demo mode. Once again we speak of end times.

 Among the non-partisan university students arrested outside Parliament was our Archbishop Thabo Makgoba’s son, Nyakallo.

Kgotsi Chikane was another. His dad Frank is President of the Apostolic Faith Mission International and a former Director General of the presidency of South Africa. 

Notably both the high profile clergy fathers support the protests and are proud of their sons.

 Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (right) comforts  Archbishop Thabo

Archbishop Thabo commented, “As parents we find it difficult to hold back our tears. This is a hard one… they are kids. We had a wonderful conversation with him and I told him welcome to adulthood, and I have to be strong for him,” 

He added, “I told him be strong, and not forget dad wants you to have a social conscience and equally to pass.”

A matter of principle
Yes, he worried about Nyakallo and the other kids being injured, “but otherwise they made a choice for a principle… this is a principled position and it is not about him or an ability to pay, it’s about the rest of people who are poor and have to pay.”

The following week-end our State President lambasted church leaders for their involvement. 

This confirmed my suspicion that some of the kids who were arrested while Parliament did a ‘Marie Antoinette’ and carried on with a budget speech had been cherry picked for arrest.


On social media the dominant hashtag was #FeesMustFall. Our State President announced that the proposed increase for 2016 would be put on hold. As the situation escalated government was promising to consider free tertiary education. The big question being how to fund this.

Corruption has left our state coffers very low. But deep down in my soul I know that this is about so much more than university fees.

Where were we?
Where were we adults as government steadily reduced its subsidies for tertiary institutions to the point that they have been forced to raise fees dramatically in order to survive? Why didn’t we protest?

Where were we when black students, two decades after Nelson Mandela was sworn in, were being made to feel like second class citizens on their campus?

Where were we when our politicians slurped at the trough of excess?

What did we, white and black parents, do to correct racist remarks at the dinner table. How many priests, pastors, imams and rabbis have preached on racism or corruption in recent years?

What have I done to stem corruption other than to post remarks on social media? In fact, to my eternal shame, I’ve contributed to our system of bribes.

My corruption
I own two semi-detached student houses and two cottages behind the University of Johannesburg and one Friday afternoon several years ago I was called by my house manager. The City Power guys were there to disconnect the electricity. I’d forgotten to pay the bill. The accounts office was closed so there was no way she could rush there and pay.

I explained to the disconnection guy that I had 17 students who needed to cook, bath, study and watch TV that week-end. That I was in Cape Town. He was sympathetic and had a solution. For R600 he would postpone the disconnection until the Monday afternoon which would give us time to sort the problem out.

It took a few minutes to call a hardware store proprietor a block or two from the student houses and he was happy to lend us R600. Problem solved. All was well.

Not quite.

No right to cast stones
I hadn’t hesitated to do what I had preached and pontificated against. I was no better than the guys who had strategically timed their visit to the student houses. Only a lousy steward would have forgotten to pay the bill. My own value system had been corrupted.

It was a humbling and deeply troubling experience.

An architect friend used to speak about God being in the detail of a design. I believe it is equally true of our lives and of our national well-being.

Stepping off my soap box
Okay, I’ll get off my soap box but I must share that I have since my previous blog post experienced real pain. 

How did I allow the cocoon of self-interest to be spun? At my age do I still have time to make a difference? Or do I sit back and pray that our youth will do better than I did?

I don’t have an answer but I do know that I am increasingly proud to see the Anglican Church in Southern Africa don the mantle of prophetic ministry.

It seems that Archbishops are tempered by the challenges they face – Desmond Tutu by apartheid, Njongo Ndungane by Third World Debt and HIV/AIDS, Thabo Makgoba by our education crisis and corruption.

I am reminded of the folly of denying that Church and politics are first cousins, perhaps even more intimately related. It is when we allow politics to drive religion that the wheels fall off.

#AllLivesMatter
To quote Archbishop Thabo: “Covenant is entirely ubuntu-shaped – we find our humanity through the humanity of others – we flourish through promoting the flourishing of others. SePedi has a proverb for this: Mphiri o tee ga o lle – one bangle makes no sound. But working in harmony can create a beautiful symphony!"

#WeAllHaveAPartToPlay
The challenge is to identify our roles and to play our part.

Addressing a protesting crowd outside Parliament in September Archbishop Thabo said, "We need to stop marching against corruption. Yes, you heard me right. We need to stop debating and discussing anti-corruption. We need to start being pro-courage." 

He reminded that courage is not the absence of fear but the conquering of it. 

I assure myself that if we could overcome apartheid the struggle against corruption can also be won. And methinks its time to re-read some Liberation Theology.

Audio links you may find interesting:
In April Archbishop Desmond Tutu issued  a stern warning to Government http://ow.ly/UCRVe

Archbishop Thabo speaks to radio host Tim Modise about courage: http://ow.ly/UCWcd

Nyakallo Makgoba speaks to AM Live about being arrested http://ow.ly/UDKcA

POLITICS, SEX AND BRIDGE

I am certain that if one grows up with Gentle Jesus on one shoulder and a cute guardian angel on the other your entry to priesthood would be quite different to mine. God was not an issue in my home so I’m not sure whether my family were agnostic or atheist. Dinner table conversations tended to revolve around politics, economics, topics such as the Kinsey Report on male sexual behaviour and my grandmother’s latest ‘brainless’ bridge bid.



The tone was often heated but never boring.

THE END IS NIGH
Perhaps the reason I’ve remained optimistic about South Africa is that I’ve been hearing predictions about my homeland’s demise ever since I was five years old. As with so many diet fads, it just hasn’t happened.

How clearly I remember my grandfather, who’d just failed to win a United Party seat in parliament, declaring in 1948 that the end was nigh. The Nationalist Party, architects of legislated apartheid, had clocked a landslide win.

My grandmother was more concerned about being raped by black men. This did require a basic sex lesson over breakfast which went largely over my five year old head. But I loved the hat pin she gave me as my very own weapon to carry in my school satchel.

A RELIGIOUS SMORGASBORD
The nuns at the nearest convent had accepted me at ‘big’ school early because I could read and knew my times tables.

They also offered a smorgasbord of Mary, Jesus, God (in that order) and a host of useful saints. It is a credit to my doting family that there were no snorts of derision when I advised my grandmother to consult St Christopher whenever she lost her spectacles.

Ironically it was because I’d been taught by my elders ‘to think’ that  by 14 I was seriously questioning their politics and my own perception of black people. 

My first mentor was a ‘domestic helper’ who used to clean our bathrooms at the convent boarding school I later attended. How patiently she answered my questions about life in the township and her family.

We’d always had ‘help’ in our home but I’d never perceived them as having a life beyond my personal needs.

BEWARE GERMS
Although our domestic helpers (note the plural) lived on our property I was not allowed into their quarters. A while before I started school my mother had shown me a tiny bug in a basin and explained that germs were a thousand times smaller which was why we couldn’t see them. 

And, she added, there were lots in those rooms in the backyard. So I was never to visit them and never to eat off a helper’s plate or take mealie pap out of  a pot. 

 Oh, and it wasn’t a good idea to play touch tongues with the neighbour’s kids either – those damn germs were everywhere!

I wish I could tell you I’ll never forget the name of my first black mentor. I'm not sure if I ever knew it because the friendship ended quite soon. The Irish nun in charge of our boarding section forbade the friendship and the cleaning lady was allocated to another part of the school. As the sister explained, it was ‘a class thing’.

NO COUNTRY CLUB
Not that I had much social clout to spare.

Although my grandfather was a pharmacist, politician and intellectual he’d died when I was about six, having dropped while on a walk along the main Lyndhurst road. 

We had a large property and I still remember a ‘green mamba’, what we used to call the buses for black people, slowly winding its way up our long driveway. The driver had emptied the vehicle of passengers and brought his body to us.

My father inherited the family canvas business but left most of the shares in his mother’s name so that when my mother divorced him there wasn’t a very generous maintenance settlement. 

As a single-parent my mother couldn’t afford private school fees so a convent boarding school was our best option. 

I’m sure many who read this will horrified by the overt racism in this tale. Fact is even if we didn’t have Country Club membership, we whites were privileged beyond sensitivity. Even the  kindest, most religious folk lived in blissful ignorance of the cruelties of apartheid. 

Frankly, my dears, many were of the opinion that the early missionaries hadn’t done much to civilise the locals. 

Religious folk, including our Prime Minister, a pastor, were really clever at quoting the Bible to justify legislated segregation.

Most of us probably knew more about other planets than we did about the nearest township that provided our labour. Incidentally those townships were spatially designed so that if the ‘natives’ became troublesome they could be easily closed off with half a dozen tanks.

I’m not going to take you too deep down that atrocious pit. You may not be able to bear the pain. 

Suffice to say that by the time I matriculated my political genes had kicked in. I was, and still am, aware that sorry doesn’t do the trick.

BYE BYE PARTY POLITICS
As I look back on my priesting I am reminded of the pain of having to disassociate myself from party politics. I cannot tell you what it meant to serve as an observer in our first democratic elections in 1994. The hopes, the dreams, the path towards a rainbow nation. Our beloved Madiba.

Looking back entering the priesthood was much like matriculating. So many years focusing on a particular goal. Then you leave school and the door opens on another chapter in your life. The expectations are invariably unrealistic and reality can be harsh.

However, my years in Soweto were a privilege. 

In 2001 there was such a huge sense of new beginnings and of an emerging middle class. I’m often amused by those who are surprised by the growth of the cell phone industry in this country. 

What did they expect? By far the majority of our population had not been served by Telkom, our state owned telecoms provider. There were very few landlines in Diepkloof but I remember so well my first ‘Baptism class’. Of about 15, mostly young unemployed women, by far the majority owned a cell phone.  

For the first time in their lives my young parishioners were experiencing connectivity!

AN INTEREST TREADMILL
Meanwhile Archbishop Njongo was waging his battle to have third world debt cancelled. Among the many lessons I learned from him is that the debt incurred by emerging nations had already been repaid several times over. 

They were on a hamster wheel fueled by interest. 

More money was pouring into the global north than the other way round! Jongo’s allies included the world renowned economist Prof Jeffrey Sachs. They were both part of the Jubilee 2000 movement, named after the Biblical exhortation to observe a Jubilee year once every fifty years, in which debts would be forgiven. 

As they campaigned for the UN’s Millennium Development goals and cancellation of debt for highly indebted poor countries they were joined by U2 frontman Bono. (It was never boring working for Jongo.)

A FOUNDATION
At yet another level, Jongo had Ted Karpf serving under him as an Episcopal Provincial Canon Missioner. This was on a HIV/Aids project called Isiseko Sokomeleza (Building the Foundation). 

You may remember an earlier blog in which I mentioned how the then President of the United States, Bill Clinton had agreed that Ted should be seconded to Africa.

In 2001 Ted was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop an international development pilot project under an initiative with the 10-million member Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa i.e. Jongo’s domain. (Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and St Helena)  

The project would run for nine years supported by the UK Department for International Development  and the US President's PEPFAR programme. These provided more than USD10 million a year. 

Two years later our ‘Big Gun’, as my son used to call Canon Ted,  was also named HIV/AIDS Coordinator of the world-wide Anglican Communion. He developed faith-based responses and community planning programmes globally. 

Traditionally the SA National Aids Council is chaired by our Deputy State President who at that time was Jacob Zuma. 

It may surprise you that in the midst of the Mbeki denialism and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala’s much derided beetroot campaign he provided Isiseko Sokomeleza with welcome support. 

This included addressing the All African Anglican Conference on HIV/AIDS in 2001.

Zuma lamented that the stigma attached to AIDS had resulted in horrific forms of discrimination and violence including rejection, ridicule and death. He spoke of the many families who had suffered untold pain and discrimination.

Jongo, who opened the conference warned the 130 delegates representing 34 countries, "We have an alarming tendency to be dazzled by statistics and a great need to put a human face to the people who are infected and affected."

It would become his mantra.

FORGET LEVITICUS
Ted was also a gay rights activist with a wonderful son and daughter from a marriage of 13 years. He'd ‘come out’ at age 40 in 1988, reporting that the role models were “few and far” between, but sexual liaisons were not. His partner for 12 years was HIV+ AIDS activist Warren W. Buckingham III.

At that conference I met another gay priest, Jape Heath. HIV positive, he was a founder of INERELA+ an international network of religious leaders, lay and ordained, women and men, living with, or personally affected, by HIV.

Jape with Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Both men would go on to earn global reputations for their work in the HIV/AIDS arena. Both would also underscore the invaluable contribution gay priests can make and why they deserve better from their Church.

Although my lifelong best friend was lesbian, she didn’t move in church circles so I’d never understood the unholy hurt religious lesbian and gay people experience.

In short, I’d discovered another insidious form of discrimination that still runs deep.

My friendship with Ted and Jape would add another dimension to my ministry as I increasingly counselled deeply troubled Christian men and women who had opted for heterosexual marriage in a desperate attempt to deny their sexuality and to please God.

I live in the hope that if we could stop quoting the Scriptures to justify slavery and apartheid this is also possible regarding lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans (LGBT) rights.

WHEN IN DOUBT BLAME GAYS AND PROMISCUITY

Ten of us were priested in St Mary’s Cathedral, Johannesburg on 29 June 2001. (This time I didn’t wear mother’s pearls). We were a strange mix of middle aged self -supporting whiteys and black full timers yet we had grown extraordinarily close. We’d studied together, survived the discernment, been deaconed and shared inevitable hurts.

My wonderful Sowetan parish was there in full force.

Our new bishop, Brian Germond (my first rector), washed our feet and dried them with white towels – one for each of us and with our names embroidered on them. I still have mine which reads ‘Moruti Loraine’. Moruti being southern Sotho and Tswana for teacher or priest. Genderless, it is far more useful as a honorific for women than ‘Father’.

As I’ve mentioned before, my son has referred to me as ‘Dad’ since my ordination which leaves some folk assuming that I am lesbian. Among many special gifts I received that day was a bunch of dried imphepha.

In African tradition the herb is burned to ward off evil spirits and it was from one of several black priests who had taken the time and trouble to teach me about his culture.

Celebrating in another language
I was determined to not just celebrate the Eucharist in English and opted to learn to do parts in Sesotho because I had spent much time in Lesotho and had a small vocabulary. Again my black friends galloped to my rescue.

Mind you, I was admonished by one priest for not opting for Zulu. I lacked the courage to confess that I was trying to clear my system of the detested Fanagalo. This Zulu-based pidgin language was used primarily on the mines and often adopted by employers to speak to their domestic help.

Looking back I am amazed at how embracing my parish was. They never made me self-conscious of my white skin or my ignorance of their cultures and traditions. Yet I must have made some terrible mistakes.

There’s the wonderful story of how the renowned Fr Trevor Huddleston, who also strove to celebrate in the vernacular, had over many years begun the Eucharist using a word that meant ‘erection’. 

No one ever had the heart to tell the much admired anti-apartheid activist.

Another culture
My rector, Fr Charles May, now also a bishop, was generous and gentle as he allowed me to assume more parish duties. One of my favourites was being sent to bless the mokoti, the traditional ceremony when a new daughter-in-law is welcomed into her husband’s parental home. 

On a Sunday before the wedding she arrives with a kist filled with gifts such as linen and pots and pans and is accompanied by female relatives and friends.

Mateli and Tembakazi’s wedding photo: Monica Dart

Photographer Monica Dart blogs about the first isiXhosa traditional wedding she was asked to shoot. She writes of her heart racing with happiness and how it felt like being in a new country. I can identify with that.

Dancing at the mokoti event or in the bridal procession and singing choruses was an exciting taste of a different spirituality. I was beginning to understand why the late Duncan Buchanan, known as ‘the dancing bishop’, had taken so much trouble to explain that it was okay to be an extrovert in the Church. 

A sad side too.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic was cutting a swathe across Africa. In South Africa the situation was exacerbated by the fact that our State President Thabo Mbeki had been persuaded by global denialists that HIV did not cause AIDS.

The pipe smoking intellectual had succeeded our beloved Madiba and was a popular choice among most whites and the business community. 

What endeared him to them were statements such as: "I am certain that South Africa will not succeed in its efforts to rebuild, reconstruct and develop herself if she does not inspire all our people, black and white, to accept that they share an equal and shared responsibility and opportunity to work together to ensure a happy future for all."

But his AIDS denialism struck terror in some of us. In 2000 Mbeki scoffed at the claim that the HIV virus could cause a deficiency syndrome i.e. AIDS in the South African context had entered an unholy era. One that would court charlatans and cost taxpayers a fortune.

Denialism would also subsequently be blamed for 

300 000 AIDS related deaths – by far the majority being black people.

Singing off the same hymn sheet was our Minister of Health. Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang declared the desperately-needed anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) poison. She preached that the only solution was nutrition. Garlic, beetroot and lemons topped the list. 

                   It was great fodder for cartoonists.

Sadly, while nutrition is key for infected folk, that wisdom was tainted by denialism.

I have often wondered about that. Manto was a friend. She’d earned her medical degree in Russia and had registered some major achievements in other African countries. Did she really believe that HIV didn’t cause AIDS or was she pandering to the President to hold her cabinet post?

Although the virus was creeping into the white community many of the infected enjoyed the benefit of medical aid and had access to ARVs. For them it was becoming a manageable chronic disease. 

Moreover, their doctors and medical aids were sworn to secrecy so publicly HIV/AIDS was viewed as being suffered primarily by black, gay and promiscuous people.

Stigma a killer
What a potent brew. Its name was Stigma and it ruled supreme in religious circles where AIDS was all too often pronounced as being God’s punishment. (My, how we religious folk excel at exhorting the bible and God to underpin our own ignorance and prejudice!)

Very few Sowetans had access to medical aid. Everyone else was at the mercy of the public health system. Because of the social stigma people at risk weren’t testing. They didn’t want to be spotted at the AIDS clinic. By the time they sought help their CD4 counts were so low little could be done.

Beetroot was no help at all.

Sometimes I felt I was involved in a fast funerals franchise. In Avalon cemetery graves were being dug less than a metre apart. The space between two open graves would sometimes crumble and I had a server whose job was to stop me from falling in. It never happened but there were several close calls.

In those days funerals were usually held over a week-end so mourners could attend. This translated into traffic jams between the church and the cemetery that could hold the cortege up for over an hour. 

There were so many burials at a time that occasionally I couldn’t find ‘my’ burial site. The lay ministers had standing instructions to do the internment if I didn’t make it.

Initially I thought it was my white ignorance but felt better when I learned it had happened to Fr Charles as well.

One major mistake I did make was when a prominent parishioner died of natural causes while Fr Charles was out of town. Imagine my delight when I discovered how easy it was to spot his grave – the family awning had his surname emblazoned across the roof. Such a sensible arrangement. Problem was, so did at least a dozen others. I hadn’t realised that the deceased had owned a funeral parlour.

Back to the AIDS debacle
There were other complications. Grandmothers who should have been cared for by family in their old age were having to raise their grand-children. This was invariably on their meagre pension. 

Our orphanages were filling up.

Although government did introduce a child subsidy many grandmothers didn’t seek the much needed financial help because, as one shared with me, “I don’t want my grand-children to be known as AIDS orphans”.I am told we have about three million children orphaned by AIDS today.

Of course it is about so much more than statistics and funerals. It becomes personal as one interacts with the infected and the affected. But I was inordinately blessed to be working for an archbishop who would declare, “We must shout from the rooftops that AIDS is not a sin.” 

He'd imported Revd Ted Karpf, with the blessing of US President Bill Clinton, to head up the Anglican Church’s HIV/AIDS desk in Africa.

Njongo knew that one of our biggest challenges was ignorance among our clergy and Church leadership. To this end we added a PowerPoint presentation to our arsenal. Although it was my job to produce it I had a great deal of help from Ted and Jongo kept a beady eye on the project.

One slide showed a grandmother with half a dozen orphans under her care. (we had permission to use it.) Little did I know that it would cause me immense personal pain.

The presentation had just been approved by Jongo and was ready for use when I got an evening call from my diocese asking if I could help out. The person who was scheduled to do a Clergy Day presentation in the morning had called in sick. Was I able to talk on anything?

Yes, I could. There was much scrambling to find a projector and next morning I faced my fellow clergy, all bushy tailed and eager with our new presentation.

Big mistake! 

In that environment I was not representing Njongo, I was a newly ordained junior priest at my own Clergy Day. Looking back I should have prefaced the presentation with more humility and care.

When that slide came up. An angry priest accused me of being racist. I tried to explain that white grannies were highly unlikely to find themselves in the same situation. But the discussion escalated. There was deep resentment that I was talking about good black Anglicans being infected. I, who was so used to being accepted by my black parish, was being treated with anger and suspicion. It hurt. Badly.

I didn’t handle it well. The person who had arranged the day didn’t do too well either. A friend who tried to come to my rescue admitted afterwards said he’d been caught flatfooted.

I went home to lick my wounds and was followed shortly by a priest who I doubt had ever spent much time in a township. He had come to berate me about my ‘overt racism’ and need to respect senior clergy. 

In a way he was a blessing. Armed with my former newsroom vocabulary I was able to let off steam by kicking him out.

Nonetheless I was deeply hurt. The scar still itches. But it was an invaluable lesson in humility and PR, the game I was supposed to be so good at. 

It was also a clear signal that most clergy were woefully ignorant and not well equipped to minister in the AIDS arena. Although AIDS Committees were being formed and candles were being lit.

Later two ordinands in my diocese died, despite our bishop’s commitment to HIV/AIDS. One was a large hearty young man who had attended theology classes with me. Asked to visit him in a hospice, I didn’t recognise the skeletal patient I was directed to. He died in my arms 15 minutes later. 

I remember howling like a banshee in the middle of the street outside. Even without access to ARVs he could have been saved if we’d only known early enough.

Although by that time their parishes had AIDS Committees neither of the young men had felt they could reveal their status or ask for help.

Njongo and Ted had an uphill battle and it is a credit to them others that the World Health Organisation (WHO) would come to recognise faith based communities as key to the fight against the pandemic.

I am yet to have a parishioner come up to the altar rail and ask for special prayer because he or she has tested positive. Stigma still rules.

ANGLICANS OPTING FOR SEPARATE BEDROOMS?

By the time I was deaconed my spirituality may have been shot but I admit to feeling I’d died and gone to heaven.

A political tango
On entering the Church I’d handed in my ANC membership card but I was still a political animal. So working as Archbishop Njongo Ndungane’s media person was more than a privilege. It was a tango with the country’s ‘Struggle’ history. An adrenaline high.

Njongo attended school at Lovedale College in Alice, cradle of many black political leaders. It was while serving a three-year sentence on Robben Island as a political prisoner that he received his calling to priesthood. Upon release he had a two year banning order slapped on him.

I initially assumed that he was such a stern critic of government’s failures to deliver on its promises to the poor because he’d come out of the PAC, a party left of the ANC. But I would come to understand that it was his equal commitment to South Africa and the Kingdom of Heaven that made him a moral force difficult to ignore.

Famously he even made Nelson Mandela mad. Criticising Madiba’s government for, among other things, failing to ensure that old-age pensioners in the Eastern Cape got their money, he reportedly said, “Madiba magic won’t be solving our problems.”

Although Thabo Mbeki had succeeded Madiba by the time I started working for Njongo, I found it exceedingly difficult dealing with the president’s director general, the Revd Frank Chikane. Clearly the ANC leadership had still not fully forgiven the Archbishop.

A new experience
In many ways Njongo’s Africanism was a new experience for me. It was less about race and more about the future. He was quick to condemn inefficiency and corruption and I revelled in drafting his speeches and press statements.

He taught me that the only ‘African time’ was ‘on time’. A lesson which stood me in great stead in township churches where they tended to be relatively empty as the service started and slowly filled in time for Communion. 

In Alexandra, where I was standing in for several weeks, I restarted my first service after 40 minutes, explaining that I wanted everyone taking Communion to have had the benefit of confession and absolution. Ninety-percent were on time the following week.
Incidentally Jongo’s first political experience was as a teenager in the Cape flats township, Langa. On a Sunday afternoon, on their way to a soccer match, he and some friends took a short cut through Freedom Square where Robert Sobukwe, founder of the PAC, was addressing a crowd.

Njongo recalls, “We stopped to listen and he captured our minds with his charisma, his authority, his directedness. He was talking about the pass laws being at the heart and core of the oppression of the black person and that we had to do something about it.”

Years later with a master’s degree in theology from King’s College London, Njongo would become bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman. Among many other achievements he represented the Anglican Church twice at the Vatican. 

The last 'normal' Lambeth
Also important for me was the fact that he had chaired the 1998 Lambeth Conference committee for human sexuality. The consequences still reverberate. It was probably our last ‘normal’ Lambeth. 2008 was boycotted by about 200 bishops. 

Now Lambeth 2018 is looking iffy.

Convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury almost every 10 years since 1867, a Lambeth Conference is, in Anglicanspeak, one of four 'instruments of unity'. The others being the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting.

Unlike the Pope, Canterbury is a figurehead and the Communion is an international association of autonomous national and regional churches. So Lambeth is not a governing body it simply expresses "the mind of the communion" on issues of the day. Its resolutions are not legally binding but historically they have been influential i.e. until now.

Not of one mind
Fact is the global Communion is not of one mind on lesbian and gay (LGBT) issues. While America has a gay bishop, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda are pressing for the criminalisation of homosexuality.

The 1998 Conference, called by Archbishop George Carey, is where the proverbial hit the fan. 

Of the 749 bishops who attended 11 were women. 

Some Provinces had finally crossed that gender Rubicon.

The hottest topic was homosexuality. In those days agenda matters were first discussed in committees and then debated in open plenary sessions conducted on Westminster Parliamentary lines.

Our Archbishop Njongo chaired that committee, a 30 hour session involving 60 bishops from across the world.  

It is important to bear in mind that there can be a vast difference in how, for instance, a bishop from North America and one from Uganda interprets the Scriptures.

An anvil of pain
Years later Njongo would say, “Our work was hammered out on the anvil of pain”. 

Despite massive theological and cultural difference the committee came up with a proposal. The idea was to avoid too much detail and allow the 38 Anglican provinces to return home and discuss the matter. This was supported by another 140 bishops.

But conservative politics won the day. George Carey yielded to pressure for a fuller resolution on homosexuality. So the proposal was debated in a mere one-and-a-half hour open plenary session of 600 bishops, spouses, observers and guests. 

All in the full glare of the media! 

The result was ‘Resolution I.10: Human Sexuality’ which is often referred to as the demise of our global Communion.

In short it upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union. It declares that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage i.e. gay priests must be celibate. It also refuses “to advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions or ordaining those involved in same gender unions.”

The Primates (archbishops) and the Consultative Council were directed to establish a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion and to share statements and resources.

Resolution 1:10 was passed by a vote of 526–70. The 180 executive hours put in by Njongo’s committee were ignored. In fact an amendment stating that "homosexual practice" (not necessarily orientation) is "incompatible with Scripture" was passed by a vote of 389-190.

Subsequently 182 bishops issued a  public apology to gay and lesbian Anglicans. They included Brazil, Canada, Central Africa, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa and Wales.

Gay was normal
You may wonder why a heterosexual priest is so concerned about LGBT issues. Bear in mind that I was middle aged before I took out my spiritual insurance policy and joined the Church. In my circles ‘gay’ was normal. My lifelong best friend is a lesbian.

Over the years I have ministered to parents, counselled gay priests, waded through shattered heterosexual marriages entered into by gay men desperate to live by ‘Christian’ values. I have feared for the lives of guilt ridden Christian teenagers.

Resolution1:10 has been one of my biggest challenges as a priest.

More recently I edited a book for the Church of Sweden in which Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians argued the case for reinterpreting our sacred texts. 

How I wish I’d had access to their reasoning earlier in my ministry. 

The Anglican Church continues to be affected by Resolution 1:10. 

I’m not  declaring our conservatives wrong. But surely we can all be drawn out of the corners of our conviction, just as happened in Njongo’s committee?  

As also happened with other key issues such as slavery, gender equality and apartheid.

Archbishop Justin Welby, now the symbolic head of some 80 million Anglicans worldwide, has called a meeting of all archbishops for January next year. Among other things the structure of the Church is to be reviewed.

To quote a Lambeth Palace source: The archbishop felt he could not leave his eventual successor in the same position of “spending vast amounts of time trying to keep people in the boat and never actually rowing it anywhere”.

Welby, a former oil executive who was involved in reconciliation processes in Africa before he became the symbolic head of Anglicanism. He says the Lambeth 1998 resolution must be respected as must our different cultures.

Divorce?
Amidst talk of each Province doing its own thing but still calling ourselves Anglican he was asked if are about to undergo divorce?

His reply: “It’s more like sleeping in separate bedrooms.”

Meanwhile, I’m seriously considering compiling a dictionary of Anglicanspeak. A language that has evolved from within our corridors of episcopal power over centuries. Not generally spoken by the people in the pews, the more common phrases include ‘bonds of affection’ and ‘instruments of unity. It is particularly useful when outsiders claim we are a Church in schism.

I also keep reminding myself not to confuse Church with God.


PS. You may enjoy this You Tube interview with Archbishop Justin Welby. http://ow.ly/TxA7m