The Wardman Wire

Simon Sarmiento, who has edited the News Blog Thinking Anglicans for longer than I care to remember, is contributing the Touching Base column during August.

I knew, when Matt invited me to do this Saturday column during August, that I would be coming hot-foot from Canterbury to write the first one. So this is going to be a set of disjointed observations after spending eight out of the past fourteen days watching the Lambeth Conference unfold.

Conference star 1: Dave Walker

Regular readers of this column will know all about Dave’s tribulations with Mark Brewer, but he’s had a lot else to deal with recently as the official Cartoonist in Residence at Lambeth. I spent 3 or 4 hours on most days helping him staff a stand in the Lambeth Marketplace which was promoting cartoonchurch.com and selling the books and calendars which contain his drawings. We had a steady stream of visitors, some of whom actually bought the products, and it was great fun to meet so many of his fans. I did have to keep explaining that I was not Dave Walker, though. The lifesize drawing of a bishop trying but failing to get a basketball into the net seemed to strike a chord with many bishops. Rowan Williams himself did come by, but nobody had a camera on hand.

Meanwhile, Dave has been producing cartoons of the conference, which go on display in a special tent on the lawn just below the University Library, where anyone passing by can see them. You can also see them on the conference website.

What’s striking about all this is that his drawings cut across all the lines of fracture or division in the church and provide another point of unity for the conference. Absolutely nobody has said that they don’t like his cartoons, and he has garnered attention from the church press and also from the secular media.

Conference star 2: Maria Akrofi

Without a doubt the star of the official daily press conferences has been the wife of the Archbishop of West Africa, Dr Maria Akrofi, who also happens to be a practicing physician (an anaesthetist to be precise, in both Accra and Liverpool).

Rape is one of the biggest problems in Africa, she said on Tuesday. Watch her say it here. (Ed: Warning, the website does not permit permalinks to individual videos, so you need to navigate back to July 29th 2008)

“In war torn areas, when enemy forces come to your area, they like to violate women in front of the men as part of the fight,” she said. “Then of course, the UN will send soldiers to come and help you, and the soldiers are pounding on the children… Where are we?” she asked with not a little exasperation. “Where are we?”

Nevertheless, women could strongly influence those who might later seek to control and abuse them, she said.

“We women are our own worst enemies,” she said. “When there’s trouble with a man involved, there’s a woman not too far off, be it his girlfriend or his mother or his sister, trying to disturb you. It’s very important women come together [and] educate themselves. We are the hands that rock the cradle… The girls are kept under lock and key, and the boys are allowed to play football - who has taught these children to do that, that this is how girls and boys will be brought up?”

African women need to be taught their rights, Dr Akrofi said, and to be empowered to speak up about abuse.

The church had a significant role to play in addressing this culture of gender violence, she said. In Africa it was difficult to engage in the taboo subject of sex, she said,

“But if we are going to get on top of HIV/AIDS we have to call a spade a spade and educate people… It should have been done in the past, [but] now our eyes are opening.”

She said that she hoped that the day’s sessions on gender violence would make the bishops think deeply about the issues.

“I don’t think our husbands are going to forget easily,” she said. “These conversations will continue at the dining table and networking will come out of it,” she said.

“Power for me is like fire or water or the wind. It can be used constructively or destructively. When you put a pan with hot oil on the fire, and you take your eyes off it, your whole house will burn. We have been given power to do the Lord’s work… Moment by moment as we walk this journey, we have to check this power entrusted to us is not being abused.”

Conference star 3: Katharine Jefferts Schori

I was blown away by the professionalism of Bishop Katharine’s performance at a press conference a week ago today, which far exceeded that of any other bishop, Anglican or otherwise that I have ever seen hold a press conference, and I have watched quite a few in my time.

The event was concerned with the Environment, which played to her previous professional background as an oceanographer, but her handling of the many subsequent questions, most of which had absolutely nothing to do with that topic was just superb, and I now understand why she is so disliked by those Americans who disagree with her. But what she had to say about the Environment was excellent too. You can watch her whole statement for yourself (Ed: You need to navigate back to June 26th 2008). Here’s a fragment:

“Jesus walked this earth and he healed people, he fed people and he announced good news to the poorest among us; climate change is of ultimate importance because it impacts all of those issues.”

“It is the poorest on this globe who suffer the most from climate change already and will continue to suffer the most in the future.”

Is it all about sex or is it all about power?

I have deliberately not touched on this issue here, as at least until the conference is ended, we won’t know the outcome on the controversial matters.

Talking to a senior English bishop just before leaving the conference, I suggested that the conference was certainly moving, but extremely slowly. Ah, yes, he said, but are you able to determine in which direction? No, I replied, I didn’t know that any specific direction was required.