Canterbury

by Katie Sherrod
Lambeth Conference Communications

Ancient texts of the Bible were interpreted through the modern medium of video, the old art of the drama, and the age-old art of teaching in the first plenary session of the Lambeth Conference held Tuesday (July 21).

Study of the scriptures will bracket the Lambeth conference. The last plenary (August 8) will also feature a video based on scriptural discussion.

The question facing the plenary planners was not whether the Bible is important, but whether the Lambeth Conference "had the courage to tackle the significance of the Bible head on," said Bishop Stephen Sykes of Ely (England), one of the plenary planners.

Video offers perspectives on biblical texts

The plenary began with "A Living Letter," a video by Angela Tilby, which featured Christine Eames, wife of Robert Eames, Archbishop of Armagh (Northern Ireland); Mrs. Margaret Sentamu, wife of the Bishop of Stepney (England), and a Ugandan; Bishop Sykes; Roger Herft of the Diocese of Newcastle (Australia); Bishop Horace Etesmesi of the Diocese of Butere (Kenya); Bishop Ann Tottenham, suffragan of Toronto (Canada); and Dr. George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury.

All spoke out of their biblical faith, their church responsibilities and their commitment to building a healthier world.

Their remarks illustrated some of the difficult points at which scripture intersects with the world-power, poverty, sexuality, war. But Bishop Herft pointed out that scripture also instructs us in the ministry of reconciliation: a point powerfully underscored by Bishop Macleord Ochola of Kitgum (Uganda) in what was perhaps the video's most moving moment.

"My wife was killed by a landmine last May, and many of our clergy children have been abducted," he said. "They have done bad to us but we have to forgive in order to overcome the evil way of the world."

Drama re-presents Jacob story

The Riding Lights Theatre company presented "Wrestling With Angels," a drama specially commissioned for Lambeth, written by Nigel Forde and Paul Burbridge.

While the play's references to the origins of Israel inadvertently offended the bishop-coadjutor of Jerusalem, who complained that it slighted Palestinian interests in the Middle East (see press release #30), the drama's interpretation of Jacob's encounter with God and with Esau, his brother, moved many members of the audience to tears.

The troupe recreated the Old Testament story accompanied by dramatic music and lighting on a platform stacked with a dozen 6-foot pine-box coffins and bathed in an eerie mist.

"The play was terrific," said Samuel Arap Ng'eny, a member of the Anglican Consultative Council from Kenya. The play's depiction of Jacob wrestling with the God "was a fantastic representation of what really happens . . . that is what we do. We fight until we say that 'God has forgotten me,' and, I think, at that point, we are actually fighting God."

Sara Mani, wife of Bishop Emmanuel Mani of the Diocese of Maiduguri (Northern Nigeria), called the play "inspiring" for people from a place like Nigeria. "We have the Muslims that discriminate about Christian religious knowledge right from primary school, secondary school," she said. "We have discovered the love of God that knows no bounds. Prayer lifts our obstacles. I am encouraged. The drama really brought it out."

David Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, who headed up the planning committee for the plenary, said after the performance, "We have just been reading a living letter.

"Between Jacob and Esau there is a division about something apparently non-negotiable . . .[ Jacob] "grapples with the mysterious wrestler who knows him only too well. He is wounded; he is given a new identity as Israel, the one who strives with God; and he is blessed by being reconciled with God and his brother together. And it is worth being astonished at Esau's act of forgiveness and peacemaking," Professor Ford said.

"But even more astonishing is the mysterious complexity of God's action," Professor Ford said. "He both challenges Jacob's tangled, wrongly complex identity and heals it, opening a way for him and all his people . . . God blesses through wrestling, wounding, naming, and facing."

At the end of the Conference, Ford asked will each participant be able to say to each other: "To see your face is like seeing the face of God?"