Published by Justin Lewis-Anthony on 23 Jun 2008 at 04:30 pm
3MT : Learning to pray— for friends and enemies
The GAFCON conference in Jerusalem raises the memory of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his insights into praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
In one of those delicious theological coincidences that pepper the Christian life, yesterday we were asked in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer to remember The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) The Most Revd Peter Jasper Akinola, Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of All Nigeria, Bishop of Abuja. In my own parish, and I suppose and hope, in parishes up and down the Church of England and throughout the world, we prayed for the people, priests and bishops of the Church of Nigeria, and especially Peter Akinola, their archbishop.
And then, in the evening, we heard that Peter Akinola had really been in need of our prayers that day, opening, as he was, the (completely unironically named) GAFCON conference in Jerusalem. What did he have to say for himself?
He entitled his opening address “GAFCON - A Rescue Mission”, and in it he referred to the leadership of the Church of England, The Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada as manipulative, apostate, champions of spiritual bondage, revisionist, destructive and in error. The Archbishop of Canterbury was accused of being uninterested in the concerns of Akinola and his friends, more intent upon erecting high walls on the foundations of the Anglican Communion’s brokenness, and the source of “theological and ecclesiological inconsistencies”.
And yet, in the morning, we had prayed for Peter.
Which is right and proper, and I hope that the Churches of the Anglican Communion will continue to pray for their brothers and sisters throughout the world, even if the brother or sister in question doesn’t want our prayers and even refuses to recognise our shared relationships. This is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer had to say about the importance of the task. Bonhoeffer knew something about the difficulties of sustaining Christian communion and community, in a world far more hostile than the fantasies of the GAFCONites. In his reflection on the common life of the seminary he led in Pomerania in the late 1930s, Bonhoeffer said this:
A Christian community either lives by the intercessory prayers of its members for one another, or the community will be destroyed. I can no longer condemn or hate other Christians for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble they cause me. In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner. That is a blessed discovery for the Christian who is beginning to offer intercessory prayer for others.1
I wonder if Peter Akinola has ever heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (1939)
, vol 5 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition, edited by Geffrey B. Kelly, (Minneapolis : Fortress Press, 1996), p. 90. [↩]
Jane R on 24 Jun 2008 at 7:05 pm #
Thanks so much for this reminder. I’ve linked to your post.
And I’d love to have the GAFCON folks read a few Bonhoeffer books — including, as you have noted and quoted, Life Together and Letters and Papers and also some of the sermons…
Justin Lewis-Anthony on 24 Jun 2008 at 7:50 pm #
Thanks for the link, Jane. I’m glad you appreciated this 3MT.
FranIam on 24 Jun 2008 at 9:17 pm #
Here via Jane’s link and delightedly so. What a moving and beautiful post you have served up here… and in 3 minutes as promised. Not that that matters to me when the content is so rich and beautiful.
As a progressive American Roman Catholic, I see the challenges within my own church. This prayer from Bonhoeffer is brilliant and much needed in many ways.
Thank you and God bless.
Robert Thomas on 25 Jun 2008 at 4:55 am #
Thanks Jane. God does work in amazing ways and what better time to be reminded to pray for those who sometimes we not want to. Thanks for this thought and gentle reminder.
Mark F. on 01 Jul 2008 at 5:39 am #
A gay friend of mine was beat to death on an American Army base July 6, 1999 by a fellow soldier wielding a wooden baseball bat. My friend, Barry, was 21-years-old. He was a good soldier and a very loyal friend. I still miss him. I attended the court martial for the killer and the co-conspirator. The trials revealed that my friend was targeted for violence and death because of his sexual orientation. In 2008 I am appalled to hear that Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria and Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda (when queried by a news reporter at GAFCON) have both refused to renounce violence against same-sex attracted persons. I follow the Anglican Cycle of Prayer. I prayed for Archbishop Akinola, his clergy, and laity. I realize that Nigerian Christians have some tough economic challenges. Nigerian Christians also face opposition and conflict with certain Nigerian Muslim groups (these conflicts sometimes erupting into violence). So I prayed for Archbishop Akinola and his church that God would bless them, meet their needs, and protect them. I also, spontaneiously, found myself praying that God would protect any same-sex attracted persons in Nigeria who might be targeted for violence or murder by Archbishop Akinola and his church members. If I, a gay man, were in Nigeria, the Anglicans and their hierarchy in Nigeria would terrify me. I was in Rwanda immediately after the genocide in 1994 with the U.S. Army’s Operation Long Distance Runner (mostly humanitarian relief with emphasis on setting up sources for potable water and food distribution). Rwanda had been described to us as the “most Christianized country in Africa.” But the hatred between Hutus and Tutsis took precedence over Christian praxis. And there were even Anglican Christians involved in the Rwandan genocide. One thing of value Akinola can teach the rest of the church is what signs should we look for to see that our own societies are beginning to come apart with groups turning on other groups with violence. I imagine the first step in something like this genocide happening is when bishops, clergy, moral leaders publicly refuse to condemn violence against certain minority groups, or even encouraging violence. That is certainly how the genocide began in Rwanda. Bonhoeffer, from an affluent and respected family, via empathy, was able to put himself in the place of the Jew, political suspects, the hounded, and the outcasts of the Nazi regime. Bonhoeffer emphasizes that we must embrace and never lose awareness of “the view from below”. We must understand and have profound empathy for “der Perspektive der Ausgeschaltenen, Beargwöhnten, Schlechtbehandelten, Machtlosen, Unterdrückten und Verhöhnten Bonhoeffer called this new perspective “der blick von unten,” the view from below. Perhaps we should pray that Archbishop AKinola and his church learn to embrace and understand the “view from below.”