Diocese of Grahamstown

Statement from the Bishops of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa Easter 2008

We, the Bishops of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, meeting in Cape Town 31 March-2 April 2008, wish to greet our people, our ecumenical friends and the people and leaders of the nations in which we work – Angola, Lesotho, Mocambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and the island of St Helena. The peace of the Risen Christ be with you all.

We have been meeting in the Easter season. It has given us great joy to welcome our new Archbishop and Metropolitan, Thabo Cecil Makgoba, with his wife Lungi and their children Paballo and Nyakallo, at a glorious act of worship inspired by the celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have been following Easter readings in our worship – both Gospel accounts of the life giving work of God in Jesus Christ, and descriptions of the response of the early Christian communities to the call of the Risen Christ. We have been reminded again of the worship, the compassion and the responsible lifestyle of the early Christians when they came to care for their neighbours and act generously with land and property. Their celebrations always reflected the face of God into the cultures and contexts in which they were living.

1: It is in this spirit that we greet fellow Anglicans across Africa and wish them well as we prepare for the Lambeth gathering of Bishops in England this year. We do so with confidence in the presence of the living God who will help and envision us as we gather.

2: It is in this spirit that we view the well known and disturbing social needs of our societies, which we daily encounter in our ministries, with distress. Teen pregnancy and abortion, drug abuse and crime, violence in schools and child trafficking, racism and xenophobia on the part of citizens and of the forces of law and order, all perturb us as they do our neighbours. We are especially disturbed that the miracles of political transformation in southern Africa, which gave such hope of a safe and prosperous environment for women, children and refugees to live in, are being undermined. We want to assure the needy of our dioceses that we take fresh courage from the risen Christ at this time, to renew the compassionate spirit of our church in its outreach to our neighbours in need.

3: It is in this spirit that our hearts go out in prayer and love to a much wider circle of human beings in this world.

We pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and of all the peoples of the Middle East. We pray for the peace of Darfur, of Kenya following her political crisis, of Somalia and of Zimbabwe at the time of her national elections, among many others.

4: It is in this spirit that we address ourselves also to leaders in the societies in which we seek to serve. Several of these societies are shortly facing elections which must not fall into chaos, manipulation or post-electoral violence. Many of the governments in our region are delivering services to their people which are at best, patchy and inadequate. The humanity of widows, children and refugees deserves better. Some police officers, public officials and border guards reflect the very xenophobic conduct which their political leaders decry: there is a wide need for the retraining and proper supervision of many such officials. We have long tried to work co-operatively with local, provincial and national governments to promote the care of our people, but all too often these governing structures are at best unresponsive to the churches’ overtures and at worst rude and insensitive. We welcome every opening to work more closely with people in government.

We pray that the Risen Christ may bless all recipients of this message, and renew the compassion in our hearts for those among whom we live. We look forward to continuing hand in hand with ecumenical partners, non-governmental agencies and with officials in the various councils in which we serve in pursuit of the wellbeing of all our people.

Peace be with you.

Ends.